Operation NEW ARRIVALS
~ 720th Military Police Battalion Reunion Association History Project ~
This Page Last Updated ~ 6 October 2008
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Overview of Operation The fall of the South Vietnamese capital city of Saigon and the government to North Vietnamese troops ended the Vietnam War and prompted the first of two waves of emigration from Vietnam to the United States. Vietnamese who had worked closely with Americans during the Vietnam War feared reprisals by the Communist party. 125,000 Vietnamese citizens departed their native country during the Spring of 1975. They were airlifted or fled Vietnam on U.S. military cargo ships and transferred to United States government bases in Guam, Thailand, Wake Island, Hawaii and the Philippines, as part of "Operation NEW LIFE."
MP Corps
III Corps
720th

        The Department of Defense was charged with logistically supporting resettlement operations, including receiving, transporting, housing, and feeding the refugees, in addition to standard garrison operations such as military police, fire protection, administrative functions, and medical support.Subsequently, they were transferred to four refugee centers throughout the United States: Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania under Operation NEW ARRIVALS.
         Fort Chaffee and Fort Indiantown Gap were well suited to serve as resettlement centers, inactive, but used for annual training by National Guard and Reserve Forces.
April, Operation NEW ARRIVALS  The 720th MP Battalion along with several other military police units were ordered to deploy elements to Operation NEW ARRIVALS at Fort Chaffee, located in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The 411th MP Company and a (yet to be identified) platoon from one of the other Battalion companies were assigned the mission.

        When the Battalion was first alerted they were informed they would be transported via C141 aircraft so they prepared their personnel, equipment and vehicles for air transport and waited in the company parking area for further orders to move out. The wait stretched into one then two days without any notification so the members of the company were required to sleep and eat in their vehicles. They were only allowed in the barracks to use the rest room facilities. By the third day access to the barracks was expanded to include the showers.

        The reason for the delay in movement orders, unknown to at least the junior enlisted personnel, was because of an aircraft crash. The plane, a C-5A 'Galaxy', was carrying 243 children, 44 escorts, 16 crewmen and 2 flight nurses under Operation Baby Lift from South Vietnam. These numbers vary according to which news articles you read as totals vary between 305 to 319 on-board. The plane was in route to Travis AFB in California on 4 April. The crash resulted in the grounding of all C5A’s until an investigation could be conducted. As a result of the grounding the air force reassigned all C141’s to pick up the slack, leaving the Battalion without air transport.
28 April, 0900 hours The Battalion elements departed Fort Hood, Texas, via convoy to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.
29 April, 1300 hours The Battalion elements arrived at Fort Chaffee later than their scheduled date and were greeted by a major media event formed to cover the first flight of Vietnamese refugees. After three days sitting in the company parking lot and two more on the road all of the company looked worse than the arriving refugees. Once it was learned that SP/4 Ralph E. Jeffries had packed two sets of starched and pressed fatigues in his bag, he was selected as one of several MPs for the dubious honor of appearing in the photo opportunity.

        A small detachment of MPs from Fort Sill, Oklahoma that set up the initial stages of the refugee compound departed once the Battalion arrived. There was another MP unit (yet to be identified) that was assigned to perform post patrol and main gate security. The 411th was assigned strictly to the security of the refugee compound.

        The MPs were billeted in their own barracks situated several blocks from the refugee compound. They were set up with segregated latrines to accommodate the female MPs.

23 May President Gerald Ford signed into law the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act that established the funding for the program of domestic resettlement assistance for refugees who have fled from Cambodia and Vietnam.

        Approximately 34,000 refugees total were processed through Operation NEW ARRIVALS at Fort Chaffee and Fort Indiantown Gap.
        Army engineers converted the two story WWII vintage barracks into multiple family units to house the refugees. There was no security fence, just a circle of security shelters. Security shelters (shacks) for the MPs to man were positioned along the perimeter every fifty foot. There were approximately 52 of them. The security shacks resembled field latrines. Made of plywood on wooden pallets they had three sides approximately four feet high with a roof. The front was opened. Each contained a bench seat, land line field phone and PRC 77 field radio.
        The MPs were not allowed to carry side arms, only their batons. They also carried a small card with a warning in english on one side and Vietnamese on the other. The card explained to the Vietnamese that if they left the refugee center they would forfeit their right of legal immigration. According to SP/4 Jeffries, every refugee that was shown the card when trying to leave the compound, turned around and went back in.
        There were two clubs built for the refugees, the Hitching Post and The Hofbrau. Both were located on the perimeter of the compound and restricted to refugee use only. It was very seldom you would see any of the women refugees inside. Problems were far and few with the exception of an occasional wild west type bar fight. When the MPs waded into the crowd to break them up they were never assaulted by the refugees. Problems inside the compound and the barracks were also very infrequent.
        One of the most frequent emergency calls the MPs responded to was pregnant women going into labor. They were shown a training film on natural childbirth (a lot guys got sick from it), but they never said what to do about the language barrier which proved to be a problem.
The Tornado ?   SSG (Retired) Ralph E. Jeffries, 411th MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas, 1975-1976 and 1990-1993.
My Time At Fort Chaffee Was The Most Fun  SP/4 Michael Wood, 411th MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas, October 1974 to January1976.
Reflections  SGT David W. Sullivan (MAJ Retired) 401st MP Company, 720th MP Battalion, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas, February 1974-September 1976.

24 July, 0930 hours Battalion elements departed Fort Chaffee, Arkansas to return to Fort Hood, Texas arriving at 1930 hours.

Operation NEW ARRIVALS was a 90 day deployment May-June-July, all the deployed MPs received a Humanitarian Services Medal.

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