It has been 45 years since the Fall of Saigon. The pain of the loss is still there for those that experienced it. It is the same for those in the subsequent “boat people” migrations that it triggered.
The Fall of Saigon for Fr. Joe Devlin, the “Boat People Priest,” served as an impetus to further help the refugees during the resulting migration, refugee camp life and immigration to the States. Fr. Joe, known to the Vietnamese as “Cha Joe”, had already worked in Vietnam in the villages of Tràm Chim, Hoa Bình, Long An, and Bình Tư during the war, even earning a death warrant on his head in the process. Fr. Joe was on the last Air America helicopter that took off from the Safe House an 22 Gia Long St. in Saigon. He went from there to Tan Son Nhut airfield, then took another copter to the U.S.S. Midway.
At this time, Fr. Ray Devlin’s book “Cha” is in the finishing stages of translation into Vietnamese and will be published shortly. We will update about the book’s progress. The script for “Cha Joe“ is available in English now, and will shortly be available in the bi-lingual form once the Covid-19 pandemic disruption ends.
Here is a the scene from the 2011 production of “Cha Joe.” The script has since been historically updated.
