DOB/DOD: October 3, 1947 (Lafayette, IN) – April 4, 1975; 27 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
ENLISTMENT: January 9, 1970
AIR FORCE SPECIALTY CODE: 9761 = Flight Nurse
SERVICE NUMBER: 312561214
TOUR START DATE: unknown
UNIT: 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Clark Air Base
CASUALTY LOCATION: 6km East – Northeast of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Bien Hoa Province
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Airman’s Medal [for heroism] and Meritorious Service Medal.
THE WALL: On the wall Panel 1W, Line 122
FAMILY: Born to Paul E. (1903-1985) and Thelma M. Deane Klinker (1904-1983). Four brothers, Richard P. (1930-1987), James D. (1935-2023), Donald J. (1938-), and David J. (1943-). One sister, Carolyn A. Klinker Cancik (1932-2015).
CIRCUMSTANCES: Died in C-5 crash during Operation Babylift at the end of the war.
Central Catholic High School, Lafayette, Indiana, Class of 1965
From the Lafayette Leader on May 1, 1975
Funeral services for Captain Mary T Klinker, 27, an Air Force Flight Nurse killed in the April 3rd crash of a U.S. C5A Galaxy transport plane carrying Vietnamese orphans to the United States, were held at 10 am Saturday in St Lawrence Catholic Church. The Reverend Edwin Deane OFM, of Dayton, Ohio, and the Reverend Clair Bordereaux OFM officiated, and the internment was in Saint Boniface Cemetery with Military gravesite rites by the Grissom AFB Honor Guard.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Klinker of 3553 Woodmar Court. The captain had been officially listed as missing since April 5. Affiliated with the 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron out of Travis AFB in California, she had served in the Air Force since 1969 as a flight nurse, instructor, and flight examiner. A native of Lafayette, she had lived here most of her life, graduating from St Lawrence Elementary, Central Catholic High School, and St Elizabeth School of Nursing. Prior to joining the Air Force, she had worked for a year in St Elizabeth Hospital. Capt Klinker was a member of St Lawrence Church, the Indiana State Nurses Association, and St Elizabeth Nursing Alumni Association.
Surviving with the parents are four brothers, Richard P. of Lafayette, David J. of Greensboro, NC, James D., and Donald J., both of West Lafayette, and a sister, Mrs. Charles E. Carolyn Cancik Jr. of Scottsdale, Arizona. Hippensteel Funeral Home was in charge of the local arrangements.
Capt Mary Klinker was a flight nurse assigned to the 22nd Aircraft Squadron at Clark Air Base in the Philippines in 1974. As Saigon fell, President Gerald Ford ordered an airlift of all in-country orphans, many of whom had American fathers, to the United States for asylum and adoption. The 22nd, with its motto of ‘Anything, Anywhere, Anytime,’ was given the task of bringing those children from Vietnam to the Philippines. Klinker volunteered for the humanitarian effort, which became known as Operation Babylift. Evacuating hundreds of orphans would prove difficult in many ways. At one makeshift orphanage in a two-story French colonial villa, nurse LeAnn Thiemann recalled a ‘sea of babies’ across the floor, lying on mats, crying, cooing, playing, and sleeping. The Vietnamese caregivers prepared the little ones for their journey by dressing them in ‘lace, ruffled panties, patent leather shoes,’ Thieman said. After leaving the orphanages, each group of babies was then transported to Tan Son Nhut Air Base for evacuation. The aircraft selected for this mission were C-5A Galaxy cargo planes, big enough to drive a truck into and stable enough to fly about 25 cardboard boxes holding two or three babies apiece. Thieman, who worked on the flight that followed Klinker’s, recounts the apprehension that she and her colleagues felt: ‘We took our seats for the takeoff, and the true terror began. Would we be shot down? Would we even get off the ground?’ At 3 p.m. on April 3, 1975, the initial mission flight took off with Capt. Dennis ‘Bud’ Traynor at the controls, a crew of 16, seven attendants including Klinker, and 145 orphans. At 4:13, the lower rear fuselage was torn apart, and Traynor had to invent a technique for managing a seemingly unmanageable aircraft, according to John L. Frisbee of Air Force Magazine. In the ensuing crash, the 27-year-old Klinker, from Lafayette, Ind., became the last nurse and the only member of the Air Force Nurse Corps to be killed in Vietnam.
A sign in Mary Klinker’s honor outside of Central Catholic High School at 2413 South 9th Street, Lafayette, Indiana. Photo from FindAGrave.com and contributor “Amy H.”
Namesake of the Mary T. Klinker Veteran Center, 417 S Old Hwy 41, Boswell, Indiana
Buried at St. Boniface Cemetery, 2581 Schuyler Avenue, Lafayette, Indiana; Section N, Lot 54, Grave 4. Photo from FindAGrave.com and contributor “SueBabe”.
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