May 26, Join Us as We Welcome Edward Bensman
Edward A. Bensman was part of the April 1975 rescue mission for the Children of An Lac, a Vietnam Orphanage north of Saigon. The rescue was coordinated by civilians who organized in the United States and then went to Vietnam to perform the rescue in the heat of the final days. Many of the orphans have stayed in touch in the United States.
While American forces were in Vietnam, the U.S. Army’s First Division “adopted” the An Lac Orphanage, and as Vietnam was falling during the spring of 1975, many veterans then tried to move the orphanage again. Then, Captain Edward Bensman took leave from his assignment at Fort Benjamin Harrison to participate in the An Lac project.
The incident became the basis of a movie, The Children of An Lac, based on the true story of film actress Ina Balin and her efforts with American Red Cross volunteer Betty Tisdale (played by Shirley Jones) as well as Madame Vu Thi Ngai, a compassionate Vietnamese woman running the An Lac orphanage, to rescue 219 orphaned children and fly them out of the country before it fell to the communists in the spring of 1975
