View the full graphic comic here.

PANEL 1:
A tandem rotor heavy lift helicopter, also known as a Chinook, flies towards a skyline of buildings against a crimson sunrise.

Text reads: Escape from Saigon.

PANEL 2:
Thousands of soldiers carrying their gear line up to board a docked U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

Text reads: In January of 1973, the Paris Peace accords were signed. The agreement called for a cease-fire between North and South Vietnam, and the withdrawal of American combat troops from the country. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were sent back home. But several thousand Americans —contractors, state department officials, CIA officers, and others—remained.

PANEL 3:
An almost-empty street in Saigon with a couple of motorcycles,a car and a handful of pedestrians.

Text reads: For over a year, Saigon was eerily calm. It wouldn’t last.

PANEL 4:
A young couple on a scooter crosses a street as a battle tank, piled with soldiers, rolls toward them.  One of the soldiers holds the flag of the Republic of North Vietnam, a yellow star centered on a bi-colored red and azure field.. 

Text reads: On March 10, 1975, North Vietnam launched a massive invasion into South Vietnam. As the tanks swept south, thousands of refugees fled towards Saigon. But by the end of April, North Vietnamese forces were closing in on the capital itself.

PANEL 5:
A young boy with cropped black hair smiles and waves with his right hand.

Text reads: Miki Nguyen was six years old at the time. He lived on a military base outside of Saigon.

PANEL 6:
A man in a green flight suit stands next to a big Chinook helicopter on a runway.

Text reads: Miki’s dad, Ba Van Nguyen, was a pilot in the South Vietnamese air force. He flew a big Chinook helicopter.

PANEL 7:
Ba stands in the middle of an office left in disarray with desks, chairs and papers scattered all around the room.

Text reads: Ba had been waiting for orders from his superiors. But none ever came—they had all left. At least he had the Chinook.

PANEL 8:
In a dream sequence, a cowboy dressed in h blue jeans,western boots and spurs rides a white horse in the middle of a Saigon street.

Text reads: Later, Ba would tell Miki that Saigan was like the wild west and the Chinook was like a horse. You did what you had to do to survive and take care of your family.

PANEL 9:
Inside a bedroom, Miki looks at his mother as she packs a small suitcase.

Text reads: So Ba moved them to Miki’s grandmother’s house in the city, where it was safer. He told Miki’s mother that if she heard the helicopter, she should be ready to go. She packed a small bag of essentials, just in case.

PANEL 10:
Miki and his brother lie under the bed in a darkened room. His brother holds a stuffed teddy bear in his hand.

Text reads: At night, Miki could hear the sounds of mortars, missiles and machine guns nearby. It was very loud. Miki and his brother hid under the bed.

PANEL 11:
The Chinook lands in an open field on a playground.

Text reads: On the morning on April 29, Miki heard another sound—the low, familiar rumble of the Chinook. His dad was coming. Kicking up dust and dirt, the Chinook landed on a playfield in front of Miki’s grandmother’s house.

PANEL 12:
From inside the Chinook’s open rear hatch, two men in green flight suits motion Miki’s family to board. Miki’s mom, a baby strapped to her chest, clutches a bag in one hand while leading  Miki’s brother  with her other hand, as Miki walks beside her. They hurry towards the helicopter.

Text reads: 
The rear hatch opened. Miki’s mom hurried the children into the helicopter. A couple of his dad’s crewmen were already on board.

PANEL 13:
Miki’s dad, Ba, pilots the Chinook. From the cockpit, ships are visible at a distance.

Text reads: Ba flew south. He didn’t have a clear plan. He was just trying to get away from the fighting. Over the radio, he heard there were U.S. Navy ships stationed just offshore. Maybe they would help. He didn’t know exactly where they were. He didn’t know how far his fuel would take him. But he had no other choice. So he flew out into the fog towards the sea.

PANEL 14:
From the deck of a destroyer battleship, a man holding binoculars looks up to the sky as two other men look on behind him.

Text reads: It was a morning Hugh Doyle would never forget. Doyle was the chief engineer aboard the U.S.S. Kirk, a small destroyer escort. The ship’s mission was to protect the U.S. helicopters ferrying people from the American Embassy to the aircraft carriers. The crew did not plan to evacuate anyone itself.

PANEL 15: 
Five helicopters fly towards the destroyer as two men on the deck watch, one of the men pointing as they approach.

Text reads: But that morning, dozens of little helicopters began appearing in the sky. They were South Vietnamese trying to escape. The Kirk’s captain gave the order to let one land.

PANEL 16:
Soldiers and civilians band together to push a helicopter off the deck of the destroyer.

Text reads: As soon as it came down, there were others waiting. But the ship was too small to take multiple helicopters on board. So after the passengers got out, they pushed each helicopter overboard to make room for the next one.

PANEL 17:
Crew members on the deck of the destroyer wave at a large Chinook coming in for a landing.

Text reads: Then a big chinook showed up. The crew waved it off. If a helicopter that big had tried to land on the Kirk, it would’ve destroyed the ship and killed everyone involved.

PANEL 18:
From the destroyer’s command center, a man holding a receivertalks to Ba, seen in a splitscreen panel inside the chinook, holding his own radio receiver.

Text reads: The crew thought the Chinook would just fly away. But Ba Nguyen radioed that he was dangerously low on fuel.

PANEL 19:
The Chinook flies very low to the destroyer with the rear hatch facing the battleship’s deck. Crew members stand below the helicopter with their hands outstretched.

Text reads: There was only one solution: The pilot would get as low as he could over the Kirk and his passengers would jump out. Then, he would have to figure out how to ditch the Chinook. The crew gathered together and raised their hands.

PANEL 20:
From the  open back hatch of the chinook, Miki jumps down toward the waiting with their arms out to catch him.

Text reads: One by one, they jumped. Miki wasn’t scared. It was like jumping off the monkey bars.

PANEL 21:
Miki’s brother, aloft in the air, jumps down from the chinook.

Text reads: His brother followed, along with his dad’s crew.

PANEL 22:
With one hand holding onto the inside frame of the helicopter door, Miki’s mother drops her swaddled baby girl towards the men below. 

Text reads: When it was Miki’s mother’s turn, she held onto the helicopter door with one hand. With the other, she dropped Miki’s sixth-month-old sister into the arms of the men below.

PANEL 23:
Swaddled in red striped cloth, the baby cries as she falls through the air to the men waiting to catch her.

Text reads: They caught that baby like a touchdown pass, Hugh Doyle would later say. The mother followed. Except for a few minor scratches, everyone landed okay.

PANEL 24:
In a dream sequence, Bo is wrapped up in heavy linked chains, handcuffs and padlocks with the Chinook hovering in the air behind him.

Text reads: But it wasn’t over. Ba Nguyen still had to ditch that big helicopter. Alone, he flew the Chinook some hundred yards away from the ship. There, he hovered a while, just above the water, as the crew looked on. Later, Doyle found out he was taking off his flight suit. No one could figure out how he did it while piloting this huge, twin-rotor helicopter. He was like Houdini.

PANEL 25:
A close up of Bo’s left foot next to the cockpit’s control stick. In a smaller inset panel, Bo jumps out of the helicopter just feet above the ocean. A huge splash erupts as the helicopter, tilting to one side, hits the water.

Text reads: Freed of his flight suit, Ba jettisoned the left door. At the same time, he used his leg to throw the stick right. The helicopter tilted—and he humped! The Chinook hit the water. The rotors exploded.

PANEL 26:
Three men on the destroyer’s deck watch the submerged Chinook sink into the water, a trail of smoke from the helicopter chassis curling skyward.

Text reads: Then everything was quiet.

PANEL 27:
Gasping, Bo emerges out of the water.

Text reads: And up popped Ba!

PANEL 28:
Drenched in his undergarments, Bo sits on a rescue boat with men in orange vests navigating the water.

Text reads: Crew members brought him back on a little whale boat. He was soaking wet, wearing nothing but his skivvies.

PANEL 29:
Bo tightly embraces his wife and children after reuniting with them on the U.S.S. Kirk’s deck.

Text reads: He’d lost everything. But he’d saved his family—which was the most important thing.

PANEL 30:

Close up of Bo’s face as he talks to the Kirk’s captain, who looks at Bo with admiration.

Text reads: Everyone agreed: He was a tremendous pilot.

PANEL 31:
Three large naval destroyers sit in the ocean with many small figures above deck. A close up of one ship shows relieved-looking South Vietnamese people on the top viewing deck.

Text reads: The U.S.S. Kirk took 157 South Vietnamese refugees on board. It was one of many U.S. ships that received refugees as Saigon fell to North Vietnam forces.

PANEL 32:
Miki’s family, everyone smiling, stands as though posed for a formal portrait in front of a giant globe image. Miki’s mother holds his sister in her arms. To her left, Miki’s father holds his brother’s hands. 

Text reads: Miki never knew the name of the ship that came to their rescue. The next day, the family moved to another ship, and then on to Guam, Hawaii, and eventually Camp Pendeleton in California.

PANEL 33:
In a stylized image, Miki’s family, all three children slightly older, use chopsticks to eat dinner at a dining table . In the background, Mount Rainier rises behind the words “Greetings from Seattle” as though they’re inside of a vintage postcard.

Text reads: In the end, they settled in Seattle. Ba went to work as an electronics technician at Boeing. Their escape from Saigon was a favorite dinner table story.

PANEL 34:
Miki, now a young adult,  reads a computer screen with his elderly mother beside him.

Text reads: One day in July of 2009, Miki’s mother got an email from a Navy veteran looking for the Vietnamese pilot who’d dropped his family onto a ship and ditched his Chinook in the ocean. Miki wrote back to say it was his father.

PANEL 35:
Miki helps his elderly father, Bo, to the podium as a man in a suit looks on.

Text reads: The next July, Ba was awarded an air medal from the U.S.S. Kirk Association. By that time, he had Alzheimer's disease and was in a wheelchair. But with Miki’s help, he stood up…

PANEL 36:
Close up of elderly Ba’s face. He is flanked on either side by the red, white and blue American flag and the yellow and red South Vietnamese flag.

Text reads: And saluted the captain and crew that came to his aid so many years ago.

“Escape from Saigon” is based on interviews originally conducted for the Academy Award®-nominated film Last Days in Vietnam, produced and directed by Rory Kennedy.

Watch the excerpt from the film here.