Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (AP) -- One by one, the balloons were released into the sky, each bearing the name of a baby that died.
Into the small clearing where a cargo plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans smashed into pieces 25 years ago, four survivors stepped forward Tuesday to clasp hands and pray.
They had traveled halfway around the world to return to the site to pay an emotional tribute to the 144 people, including 76 infants, who were killed in one of the first flights of Operation Babylift in the final days of the Vietnam War.
They were joined by 12 others who were evacuated as children in the airlift and who had come back now to Vietnam with their families for the first time for a memorial visit.
``It was important that I do this,'' said Jeffery Shakow, 26, of Rochester, N.Y., who survived the crash but lost his twin sister.
Under a hot, cloudless sky, the group trudged down a bumpy, dirt-red road to the accident site two miles from Tan Son Nhut Airport on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, known as Saigon back then.
Holding clusters of colored balloons, the small procession made its way to the small field. Surrounded by rice paddies and palm trees, it bears no signs of the crash save a makeshift altar set up by local villagers.
The fragrant smell of incense filled the air and the clanging of a bronze bowl signaled the start of an hour-long commemoration that ended just before dusk.
It was at this exact time 25 years ago that a C-5A Galaxy cargo plane, loaded with more than 300 infants, toddlers and caretakers, plunged from the sky, killing half of those on board.
In the waning days of the war, Operation Babylift was authorized by President Ford to evacuate some 70,000 Vietnamese orphans, many fathered by American GIs. By the time it was over, some 2,000 children were airlifted from the South Vietnamese capital as communist forces made a lightning-quick advance down the narrow country that ended with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.
Thirty flights were approved, but the evacuation was just beginning when the worst happened. Shortly after takeoff, an explosion ripped out the rear doors of one of the world's largest planes at the time. The pilots were able to turn the aircraft around and crash-land two miles from the airport.
Skidding another 1,000 feet, the plane bounced up again before hitting a dike and shattering on impact in the middle of a swampy marsh. The bottom half of the cargo compartment -- filled largely with children aged 2 and under -- was destroyed.
It was one of the final heartbreaking tragedies that tore at the hearts of an American public already numbed by the war's horrors.
A quarter-century later, it still had the power to move the returning orphans and their adoptive families to tears.
Their reunion had been organized by Sister Mary Nelle Gage, one of Operation Babylift's organizers, who now lives in Denver. A former administrator at a volunteer agency that arranged adoption papers for many of the children, she hoped the trip would help the adoptees come to terms with a past often shrouded in mystery.
Tuesday's memorial was one more milestone in a two-week journey of discovery that will take the adoptees to the nurseries and orphanages where they lived before going to the United States.
The opening prayer stated: ``We thank God for our friends and children who were so near and dear to us and have passed from death to life. We thank God for the friendship that went out from them and the peace they brought. We pray that nothing of their lives will be lost.''
Participants read aloud poems and recited the names of those killed. One orphan strummed his guitar as returnees sang ``Bridge Over Troubled Waters'' along with Christian hymns.
As the ceremony wound down, Gage asked the four survivors to come forward. Stepping in a cluster, Shakow, Dan Bischoff of St. Louis; JaySun Larson of North Branch, Minn.; and Fredo Sieck from Boston, joined hands as the group encircled them.
Repeating the ``The Lord's Prayer'' in unison, the group ended by singing the hymn ``On Eagles Wings.''
Nguyen Thi Hoa, 67, one of the workers who cared for the orphans while they were still in Vietnam, silently wiped away tears as she watched her former charges gather at the site.
``I felt so emotional, very sad,'' she said afterward. ``I can only pray for the souls of those who died. And I also pray for the ones who came back.''
As the ceremony ended, the group dispersed in silence, leaving the four survivors to remain standing alone in the field, gazing into the setting sun.