The Herk’s long Vietnam career ended late in April 1975, when the last C-130 departed Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut base. Around 9 a.m., Tim Nguyen, a former Vietnam air force officer (now a senior staff engineer at Lockheed Martin) and some comrades headed for the flightline, where they found the C-130 taxiing with its ramp down. They and many others scampered aboard. “This was a C-130A, three-bladed propellers, smaller engines,” he recalls. “I don’t think the pilot knew how many people were in the back. The loadmaster managed to shut the ramp. After takeoff, we were flying low for miles. We were afraid soldiers would shoot us down. When we landed at an American base in Thailand, I was almost at the back and got out first. I looked at the people coming out…452 people, 34 on the flight deck.”