Now On to "Camp Fortuitous'

The Marines had the dangerous job: evacuating the last Americans and South Vietnamese from Saigon by helicopter. Now a necessary but dreary job confronts the armed forces and swarms of bureaucrats: housing, processing and relocating an estimated 120,000 South Vietnamese refugees.

Tens of thousands of evacuees had already reached the three principal U.S. "staging areas" in the Pacific: Guam, Wake Island and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Others were scattered on Saipan, 250 miles from Guam, where 56 refugees landed after commandeering a South Vietnamese C130; at the U.S. naval base at Subic Bay, 110 miles from Clark, where about 6,000 were staying; and at Thailand's Utapao Airbase, where almost 3,000 Vietnamese sought refuge. Soon they would be moving on to three military bases on the U.S. mainland--Camp Pendleton, Calif., Fort Chaffee, Ark., and Eglin Air Force Base, Pla.--where they will remain until the U.S. Government has figured out what to do with them (see THE NATION).

Under pressure from the Philippine government, the U.S. had reduced the number of refugees it was sending to Clark and designated Guam as the premier staging area in the Pacific. Worse still, Philippine officials threatened that they would arrest South Vietnamese military and government officials who were expected to arrive there at week's end aboard U.S. naval vessels: whether the Filipinos would choose to enter a U.S. base to do so remained uncertain. At the same time, U.S. authorities were coping with disgruntled American evacuees who did not fancy their lodgings and were impatient to be on their way. At Guam, a band of Americans staged an hour long sit-in on a bus until they were given better quarters.

The operation was a logistical nightmare, particularly on Guam. In one night, Navy personnel transformed a tangle of spiky tangantangan trees and underbrush into what one poor speller christened "Camp Fourtuitous," the beginnings of a temporary settlement which may house up to 40,000 evacuees. When the first group arrived at 6 a.m., tents were in place and four-holer lavatories were set up. In succeeding nights, Seabees installed lights, field kitchens, showers and running water.

Fortunately," reported TIME Correspondent David Aikman, "the operation is almost entirely good-natured. The bearded sailors have won the admiration of everyone for their endurance. They worked the first 24 hours without a break, then went into regular 12-hour shifts. Joshing with the kids and youths, flirting with the pretty Vietnamese girls, they and the Seabees seemed to think it was all a worthwhile lark--which turned out to be just the right attitude to make the Vietnamese feel at home." One sailor decided at midweek to marry the Vietnamese girl whose clothes he had helped wash on the previous Sunday, but whose full name he did not yet know.

Among the first Vietnamese evacuees on Guam were old men and women, rambling, extended families and former U.S. Government employees. Last week a new and jaunty type appeared for the first time: flight-suited Vietnamese air force officers who had fled with their planes, their wives, children and cousins. Colonel The Ban Huu squeezed two passengers into the second seat of his A-37 fighter and headed for Thailand. Colonel Dang Duy Lac, a transport pilot, somehow piled 200 passengers into his C-130 for the flight to Utapao. Lieut. Tring Thiet Thach, 24, who escaped from Danang two months ago by swimming to a Vietnamese navy ship, took off from Tan Son Nhut in the midst of Communist rocket attacks.

The folklore of the evacuation had it that a conspicuous number of bar girls had also succeeded in escaping from Saigon, and last week there was a rumor that a group of prostitutes had managed to set up an informal teahouse in the evacuation camp on Guam. The reports may or may not prove out, but they tended to obscure the fact that the majority of refugees represented the middle class or the privileged elite of South Vietnamese society, the ones with foreign educations and foreign employers. A few were even rich. A volunteer worker at Camp Fourtuitous told Correspondent Aikman of seeing several Vietnamese with suitcases crammed with jewelry and money. According to gossip, one suitcase contained $1 million in cash. "Out of envy or boredom," wrote Aikman, "many Vietnamese in the camp chose to believe this."

At first the big bottleneck in the process had been immigration. But last week the 80 immigration officers and clerks flown to Guam were working 12-to 16-hour shifts, processing 3,000 Vietnamese a day. By week's end 17,000 refugees had been cleared and were flown to the U.S. mainland.

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