You'll see him in roll #400-27. Its possession since 1945 by the United States has been undisputed in international law, though there is a movement in Hawaii to retake what is called by some "Enenkio" to become a member of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It would be impossible to do justice to how much he meant to me personally as well as the site. As South Vietnam collapsed, many fled the country on ships and aircraft. 4.18.Vietnam War refugees and Operation New Life [Kaunting pagbabago o pagkakabago ] Sa tagsibol ng 1975 ang populasyon ng Wake Island ay binubuo ng 251 militar, gobyerno at sibilyan na mga tauhan ng kontrata, na ang pangunahing misyon ay upang mapanatili ang paliparan bilang Mid-Pacific emergency runway. Vietnam War Refugees and Operation New Life: In the spring of 1975, the population of Wake Island consisted of 251 military, government and civilian contract personnel, whose primary . At it's peak in the summer of 1975, nearly 20,000 Vietnamese were living at Camp Pendleton in eight different camps, camps that were about a ten minute drive away from Southern California surfers catching waves, but might has well been a world away. here were 2 great jazz periods in the history of Kansas City. After that, it served as a refugee camp for Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon. Biden Turned Back on Vietnamese Refugees Stephen Fox: Despite Biden's objections and from other leading Democrats, U.S. military evacuated 130,000+ Vietnamese refugees in the immediate. We settled into what we believed were going to be our quarters they were air conditioned barracks and very comfortable. And failure to provide compensation implies lawyers and tactical nuclear weapons. Other than palm trees, Wake has little vegetation and nearly no topsoil. Pictures and kind words flowed back and forth across the aether. The U.S. military never tried to retake the atoll but cut it off from resupply and subjected it to periodic naval bombardments and air raids. 4 15 AB Wg and little did we any of us realize what was awaiting us and at least for myself, personally, it was a life altering experience to say the least. Dont know the whole story but am familiar with the baby lift at the beginning. wake island vietnamese refugees. At first, the cargo planes flew the refugees to U.S. bases in the Philippines, but when President Ferdinand Marcos set limits on the number of refugees in his country, the Air Force flew the evacuees on to Guam and Wake, where they were processed for further travel to the United States. Most of all, we both questioned why the hell we had been so misfortunate as to land on The Rock. Our school scanner is hooked up to a computer in her office and I invaded that sanctuary regularly in the summer of 2001 without even a complaint. With these pictures, I want to pay tribute both to the musicians who played in Kansas City during that time and the idea, still alive somewhere, that a community is better off, and its citizens are better off, when our municipal institutions enrich our lives, not merely butt out. Sorry, no sex in that one. In recent years, Nikon has aggressively priced themselves out of my league. Long story short I wanted to take her home with me back to Hawaii and I think our SMSgt knew it, because he had me go for chow and leave the girl with them. In its heyday, from the mid-1930s to mid-1960s, Wake supported as many as 5000 people, providing education, medical care, and entertainment for its residents. lease feel free to download any image on this site, remembering that you are restricted from using it for any other than personal uses. I never saw her again. In short, that period of time which began in April 27, 1975 changed my life forever! wake island vietnamese refugees750 watt step through electric bike. So, late this spring, we had a long-distance tape exchange and I was able to listen to myself as I was 26 years ago. Her father worked for the Diem administration, occasionally serving in the South . Thanks to her faith in me and her persistence, I'm heading in that direction with this Web site. Its land mass is about 2.5 square miles, spread out along a nearly 15 mile coastline. But on April 30, 2000, the Kansas City Star had run a full-page spread commemorating the 25th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, and a separate story about these pictures ran well below the fold. If, through this site, I can locate any of you who were on the island and whom I photographed, I would love for us to meet again and trade memories. I stupidly volunteered (didnt realize the Air Force wouldnt allow me to do so). They include the book I wrote concerning my trips to China beginning in 2003, Love is in the air, along with some other Pollutants. The book will encompass both years, though the 1975 events will take up most of the pages. Aloha! It is an unorganized United States territory, with no permanent residents, just members of the U.S. military and civilian contractors who manage the facility. The program included members of the Vietnamese-American Community of Kansas City telling their story of relocation and transition, as well as reading poetry reflecting that experience. If the site is easy to navigate, comfortable on the eyes, and an enjoyable experience, thank Kevin. After years of thinking this interview was lost, I discovered it in a long-neglected hard drive. Eddie Baker: pianist, bandleader, educator, uncle and father, also helped me identify some of the musicians that appear on the Kansas City Jazz pages. cfb halifax dockyard clothing stores. For me, the visitors meant two things: women and children. Within just a couple hundred feet of the reef, depths are measured in thousands of feet. A significant number of those 1.5 generation refugees were Vietnamese Amerasians, born from Vietnamese women and American servicemen in South Vietnam before coming to the US under the Amerasian Homecoming Act in 1987. It crawls on its belly like a reptile! Every man was needed for the final battle, and forces were gathering offshore. More than 73,000 evacuees fled by boat from South Vietnam to the Philippines in April. Photos of Vietnamese refugees who came to Wake Island in 1975 after the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese immigrant population in the United States has grown significantly since the end of the Vietnam War, making it the sixth-largest foreign-born population in the country. Thats how we found out her name and her age I asked her, in Vietnamese both and she answered me. The plane closed its doors and flew away. I came back the next day and took care of her again. At the end of April, Operation New Life faced increasing dangers as enemy forces approached closer to the center of the South Vietnamese capital. For the month they were on Wake, my life revolved them, was kept afloat by their love and good spirits. Vietnamese refugees or locally known as "Orang Hanyut Vietnam" or "boat people . Two C130 missions evacuated Vietnamese refugees from Vung Tau on the coast, but other flights took escapees out of Saigon. While she is a charming and sensitive person, it dawned on me that she was the substitute for all those people I knew on Wake Island that I'm hoping this site will reach. Wake was one of the most important of these, and remnants of the ramp and other elements used by Pan Am remain on the Peale Island beach fronting the lagoon. Amazingly enough, we have remained in contact and have saved the tapes. Sadly, Chris died suddenly in the summer of 2018. Lost at sea for two months, the last five. Tam, Hanh, Dung, Ti, Xuan Mai: every Christmas I imagine you under my tree. Though a flood in my basement in 1979 destroyed nearly all the color slides and negatives from that time, I luckily had the black and white negatives upstairs at the time for the purpose of classifying and cataloguing, and they were spared. The Military Airlift Command airlifted 1,794 Babylift passengers. Wake's lagoon measures 13 feet at its deepest point, though most depths are in the six-eight foot range. Even went down town and bought a basket of BALUT and other foods that were simliar to what the vietnameese ate. Except for the 1978 shots of Dexter Gordon, Custom Color Corporation, of Kansas City, Missouri, processed all the Kansas City Jazz photographs. Read between the lines there, pal. Vietnamese refugees arrive at Galang by boat c 1980. Commercial use of any of the images or words on this Web site without written permission of the owner is prohibited. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. The most bizarre and improbable story leading to this site concerns Clinton Blount. Bidong Island was known to be a destination for Vietnamese migrants in Terengganu. It has been occupied by the military dating back to World War II. Like the roughly 800,000 Vietnamese who fled via various routes in the years after, Huynh had found himself on the losing side of the war. Their appetites will return remarkably, though I must confess that a visit to sushi.com accomplishes the same task more quickly. I've lived a full and interesting life since we met, but not as full and interesting as it could have been with you in it. Smith Air Port. The temporary refugee camps in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake demanded tremendous quantities of relief supplies to feed and shelter the thousands of Vietnamese who fled to them, not only by Air Force airlift but also by U.S. Navy vessels and commercial airliners under MAC contract. Given the perilous status of Vietnamese and Montagnard refugees in Thailand, timely action is needed to resettle the remaining refugees and close this chapter in the long-standing refugee crisis. I'm asking you to look at us again as we were more than 25 years ago, and then bridge that gap with a letter, or an e-mail. The airlift operations also exposed weaknesses in emergency airlift evacuation procedures, aircraft structures, and diplomatic relations. In the beginning, lots of military planes, but soon the load shifted to the larger commercial aircraft. ecause of the advances in Internet technology and server-user interface permeation, I am happy to announce that merely accessing this site has been known to have miraculous effects on certain diseases. I was stationed at Little Rock AFB after the airlift operation, but the stories that were told made me proud to be an American and a sister to all people in the world. Participating organizations included the 60th, 62d, and 63d Military Airlift Wings and the 514th Military Airlift Wing (Associate), which flew C141 Starlifters; the 374th Tac Alft Wg, which flew C130 Hercules airplanes; and the 9th Aeromedical Evacuation Group, which used C9s to airlift some of the C5 crash victims to safety. After 2 nights rest there, we hopped on a TWA DC-10 bound for Fort Chaffee (actually landing in Ft Smith Municipal Airport just as described above!) On December 8, 1941, Imperial Japanese military forces attacked Wake as a part of its strategy best known for the attack on Pearl Harbor. That number was reduced to about 175 the following year when funds for the island's support were cut back. from. Cpt. One of the few fortunate facts about my stay there was Greg's company and quick eye for B.S. He was a real nice guy. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its highest in 1978 and 1979, but continued into the early 1990s. Adult survivors were frightened that wed remove survivors from the crashed plane on this second flight and hid them in various places on the plane when it landed at Yokota AFB. Naval ships. I also encourage you to write down what you remember of your experiences throughout your lives, both in Vietnam and America. After years of searching, a chief mate sailor who saved 51 Vietnamese refugees in 1978 was reunited with a group of them 44 years later. When Guam filled with refugees, a newer processing camp on Wake Island went into operation. I live with my wife, the former Fengzhu Song (often called Sufei) of Beijing, China. I want to mention the Hoang family. We WERE Blessed to have those barracks though today I am very sensitive to people who neither shower or especially refuse to change their socks on a regular basis We literally squeezed 8 guys per room and some well, nuff said. In a few minutes the A/C commander came down into the cargo bay and told us that we had been diverted to Fort Smith Arkansas and nothing else. In the process of scanning these pictures, mainly the ones from Wake Island, I have noticed that some of the film emulsion has deteriorated alarmingly. There is no good impulse in my life that did not originate with the inspiration and example of my father, W. Gordon Lowden. That movement remains so strong today that many people have grown up thinking that it is an eternal verity, without serious rational rival. The WA plane flight was canceled because of rocket attacks at the airport. Anh, born in 1962, grew up in Saigon, where her parents moved as refugees from the north when the country partitioned in 1954. However, as a pediatrician at Tachikawa AFB, we received the second plane load of children following that first crash. Linda Thong's story ends happily for her and her family, suggesting a new chapter to the American immigrant success story. According to The Evening News, the first baby born to a Vietnamese refugee was born at 2:45 a.m. May 30. He was a dear, and is a dearly missed, friend. Once in the United States, the Vietnamese boat people faced the same obstacles as other immigrants, struggling to learn the language and gain an economic foothold. Director Tran Thanh's newest drama film, "The House of No Man" ("Nha Ba Nu"), arrives in the U.S. this Friday across 60 theaters. Wake has seen trans-Pacific airliners, military tenants, and active wartime action over years. Over the next ten years, I sent him 48 cassettes and he sent me about half that number. Others sought to escape because they did not want to live under a communist system. Grace Bui has been an independent human rights activist for Vietnam since 2010 and an advocate for the Vietnamese refugees in Thailand since 2014. ^ N. Mark Shelley, "Building Community from 'Scratch': Forces at Work among Urban Vietnamese Refugees in Milwaukee," Sociological Inquiry 71 (Fall 2001): 474. The original plan was for all Vietnamese to go first to Subic Bay, in the Philippines, and then to a processing center on Guam. : Australia has refused a demand from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to return the Song be 12 beat, and what it described as all the ''pirates'' aboard, Many small boats with Vietnamese refugees have sailed into Darwin since the Saigon regime fall 2 1/2 years ago, the number so far is 742. Any men who tried to fight back were killed and thrown overboard. He not only did a lot of work for a pittance, he gave me tons of very useful advice and tolerated my own computer-ignorant meddling and suggestions with more equanimity than they deserved. Date 10 May 1975 Source United States Immigration and Naturalization Service Author Unknown authorUnknown author Camera location 19 18 26.88 N, 166 38 33.44 E View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap Posted 2022610 by 2022610 by Do you think your pets are left out? Operation Babylift began with tragedy. Chris is a Vietnam vet who has put together a Web site (www.vietnamsoldier.com) for his outfit, the 25th Artillery Division, and has stories more harrowing than ones of being chased by marauding gangs of hermit crabs at sunset by the lagoon at Wake Island. Socrates is one, but he had nothing to do with this site. In February of 2001, a strange man left both voicemail and e-mail messages for me at the college. The local Air National Guard Unit hosted you until the Army from Fort Chaffee was ready to take you to the camp. I completed the book in 2000, simultaneous with my finding full-time employment. And four I've donated to local charity auctions. Tien and Anh Vu are the parents of Vincent Vu (USMA '17), but their story begins in separate communities in the Republic of Vietnam. Thousands more escaped by air. It consists of three separate islands: Wake, the center one, Wilkes, the westernmost, and Peale, the northernmost. Perhaps by the next site revision, I can provide news of their final disposition rom 1973-1975, I lived on Wake Island, a territory in the Pacific completely owned by the United States. Early on the refugees seemed to be in better shape than the ones that followed that only got off the plane with the clothes on their back and blood stained clothes in a few cases. Among those were 27.1 million refugees, half under the age of 18 (21.3 million refugees under UNHCR 's . By air and sea, almost 112,000 refugees traveled through Guam on their way to the United States, with at least 70,000 arriving by air. Apparently, the U.S. was unprepared for the huge numbers of people who were leaving to come to America, and Wake Island was suddenly useful again as an overflow center. Though theyd managed to get on board a destroyer because of the massive number of boat people clambering to board our ships a decision was made to hold of medical treatment until they arrived at port Wake island. First help I gave was to a baby. In addition, this Web site was on display at the Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri, through a dedicated computer through August 7 of 2005, in conjunction with the Smithsonian exhibition entitled: Vietnam: Journey of the Heart. The 21st Special Operations Squadron, a unit of the 56th Special Operations Wing, carried 1,831 evacuees to the carrier. We would direct them to a hangar where the ANG would watch them until the Army would come and transfer them to Camp Chaffee. The variety in quality of the pictures you see here is mainly the result of film degradation. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Aloha I was a Sgt assigned to 15th ABWg, Hickam AFB during Operation Babylift On April 27th I received the call that our PERSCO (Personnel In Spt of Contingency Opns) team was being deployed we didnt know where we were headed and thought wed be headed to Nam to assist with Operation Frequent Wind but instead we landed on Wake Atoll (aka Island). Air Force refugee airlift flights to Guam, at times suspended because of overcrowding, concluded on May 17. On December 11, 1941, Wake Island was the site of the Japanese Empire's first unsuccessful amphibious attack on U.S. territory in World War II when U.S. Marines, with some U.S. Navy personnel and civilians on the island, repelled an attempted Japanese invasion. Other volumes include The Nail That Sticks Out, my two years teaching in Japan (1995-97), and Nodding Off in the Unemployment Line, the experience of being un- and under-employed in the three years following my return from Japan, 1997-2000. But in October of 2002, during the week when my wife and I were splitting up and I was moving out, I received an email from Derek (originally Du~ng) Hoang, brother and cousin to those names mentioned above. Within a few hours of shooting them, I processed the rolls in a photo darkroom on Wake at the rear of the bar known as the Drifter's Reef. The Baby was handed to me as a boyooops it was a girl. But that's not all. I can never repay the debt for your service in fighting for our freedom in Vietnam 40 plus years ago. The Japanese garrisoned Wake with more than 4,000 troops and erected extensive fortifications to protect them from attack. I made free prints and distributed them at the time because I knew they might be meaningful to you, personally, in the future. The position of Bidong Island is located 45 km off the coast of Terengganu in the South China Sea. Listen to what has been said about it: It sings! A great deal of my desire to recollect that year in my life came from talking with Clinton and realizing there was something there I experienced that needed to be saved. The Wake Island black and white pictures were shot on Ilford HP4 (ASA 400) film, bulk-loaded from 100 foot rolls, Kodak Tri-X (ASA 400) in 20 or 36 exposure rolls, and an occasional roll of Agfa or Ansco film that I found lying around. The pictures hung on the walls at Blue River through June 17, 2005. The 374th Tac Alft Wg flew most C130 missions, supported by a squadron rotating from the 314th Tac Alft Wg, based in Arkansas. At 3 a.m. on December 11, a Japanese invasion task force commanded by Rear Adm. Sadamichi Kajioka, consisting of a light cruiser, six destroyers, two troop carriers and two armed merchantmen, confidently approached Wake's beaches. Within a week or so, the population of the island bulged to nearly 8000. These pictures come from that second, now-dead, era. Between April 29 and May 9, MAC C141s and C130s transported more than 31,000 Vietnamese refugees from the Philippines to Guam. Another 884 orphans flew out of South Vietnam on private planes not under military contract. The Agency for International Development and private adoption agencies helped to sponsor the airlift. I'd still be using it happily had I not dropped it in Swan Creek, in southern Missouri, while canoeing in the summer of 1979. In a week destined for division and separation, I suddenly became strangely whole again. My son Jake and I would go to nearly every concert, and heard such great players as Gary Burton and Chick Corea, Dave Brubeck, Toshiko Akiyoshi and her big band, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Nat Adderley, Big Joe Turner, the wonderful Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander, the Heath Brothers (at least three of them! Forty-five years ago in April 75 I was working as an army medic at the Pacific refugee camps. I've kept six or seven of my personal favorites to hang on the walls of our living room. I was an aircraft mechanic, E-4 Sgt at the time all hell broke lose in 1975. It was three years after the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon to the communist North Vietnamese Army. A new study looks at links with wartime trauma. Anyways a very long story short there are so many stories I could share but, two stand out a 15 year old boy bringing his family through the processing line they were amongst the ones we knew as the boat people because they escaped Name on their fishing boats. It was busy for us and quite challenging, but you were welcomed with the loving hearts that we have for all people in need in times such as that was. Fort Chaffee lacked adequate runways for the Arkansas-bound refugees, so they landed at nearby Fort Smith and rode buses to the Fort Chaffee processing center. wake island vietnamese refugeesmarc d'amelio house address. Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain. Gloria Vando Hickok, pal, poet, publisher of Helicon Nine, co-founder of The Writer's Place in Kansas City, began hearing my Wake Island stories 15 years ago and has always insisted I write a book about them. Though there was no TV on the island at the time and with only the sanitized AFRTS broadcasts to substitute for news, we were aware that the war in Vietnam was winding down and Americans were evacuating. We got to know them very well especially being that I am a native born Hawaiian and I am also part Filipino and I have a lot of friends and family who are Filipino and the guys on Wake well, they welcomed us all but, I felt a special bond with them like family. Top 10 Facts about Living Conditions on Wake Island. When Guam filled with refugees, a newer processing camp on Wake Island went into operation. In general, it seems as if the Ilford film I used has done poorest, with Kodak's Tri-X holding up much better. They arrive, predictably, and at the height of tension, Finch's children, who had been secretly hiding in the bushes and watching it all, came out and broke the menace and resolve of the mob with their touching directness. It is an unorganized United States territory, with no permanent residents, just members of the U.S. military and civilian contractors who manage the facility. Amid fears for their safety, more than 3,000 infants were flown out of Vietnam, mainly to the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, but also to Australia. I Will Continue to Do My BEST to ENSURE THAT DOESNT HAPPEN TO MY CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN AND YES (I have 5 of them..) GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN. And that's just what my mother said. Although representing the arrival of Australia's first "boat people . That was to be very SHORT LIVED (lol!) I took the time to tell this story for two reasons, First America as a country has a wonderful heart and second I wanted to tell the story of 8 Air Force Blue Ribbon Maintenance Technician and the reinforcements that did everything from parking the planes to turning the refugees over to the local ANG. To have lived in Kansas City at that time, going to clubs around 18th and Vine, hearing the great sounds pour out into the street every night, to just be alive with (pardon me, Oscar Hammerstein) the sound of music; that must have been a wonderful era in which to be a jazz lover. The Thirteenth Air Force helped to coordinate Air Force airlift efforts under a single theater airlift manager, Brig. However, there's something of a lesson in that scene, I believe, and it applied to Wake Island only in a less extreme version. The month after I arrived, still living in a shabby Holiday Inn by the Downtown Airport, I read that Dexter Gordon was playing a free concert in a park in south Kansas City. South Korean star Kim Woo Bin's upcoming futuristic drama Black Knight from Netflix, has officially unveiled a new poster!According to the Korean tabloid Soompi, based on a webtoon, Black Knight . The bar never ran out of ice for scotch on the rocks, but none of those rocks could dare be used to cool down photographic processes. Wake Island is a tiny island in Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean, 2/3 of the way from Honolulu to Guam, best known for its role in World War II. Also photos of jazz in Kansas City 1978-83. Which doesn't mean that I don't appreciate her for her own individuality and uniqueness; after all, because of her I now have another gray hair! It is a domain having com extension. When we landed the plane taxied up and stopped and he told us to grab our tools and bags and get into a Air National Guard truck that was waiting for us, so we did. At the time, I was single and unaware he was the uncle of Mata Baker, the woman who would become my second wife in 1984, and my second ex-wife in 2003. Between April 30 and May 14, C130s carried 21,570 refugees from the Philippines to Guam. An aggregate of 450 million dollars was spent on . Others sought to escape because they did not want to live under a communist system. Tweet. In it, I am asking you please to come back. Two one-act plays I wrote in the early and mid-1990s, The Man in the Glider, and The Tree, were given staged productions in the 1996 Dramafest, sponsored by Penn Valley Community College, in Kansas City. The lowest temperature ever recorded was 64. It can be found by following the link on the left side of this page, "Blount (blunt) Interview. Two days later, both a C130 and a C141 were hit by bullets near Tan Son Nhut AB. From there, many of the refugees stopped in Hawaii as their aircraft transited the Pacific. The U.S. ended up receiving well over a million refugees, who started new lives in communities across the country. And it only cost me a stack of CD-ROMs, a meal I prepared in a strange kitchen, and a bottle of 1982 Chateau Gruaud-Larose, most of which I drank, anyway. Khmer Rouge troops entered Phnom Penh in the middle of the month, just after Marine Corps helicopters evacuated the last U.S. citizens in an operation called Eagle Pull. Until this time, I have never been paid a cent for the use of any of these pictures, but that policy ends with the institution of this site. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese civilians clamored outside a US facility in April 1975, hoping to secure a helicopter seat to freedom. ake is located at 19 degrees, 17 minutes north latitude, and 166 degrees, 39 minutes east longitude in the Pacific Ocean. wake island vietnamese refugeesacton stabbing today. Most of the more than 2,500 refugee children found homes in the United States. It dances! The museum in Chicago is preparing an exhibition for traveling, tentatively called "The Children of War" The museum's director, Jerry Kykisz, believes that several of the framed prints from this site will be timely additions to his exhibition. On the night of April 29, 1975, Nguyen, a 21-year-old college student, was pulled aboard a ship by his navy officer brother. These people were contained at a small camp on the south side of the island. Some Vietnamese riding on Boeing 747s landed at Little Rock AFB and transferred to smaller military aircraft that could land at Fort Smith. Any man that introduces my son to Diz is a friend for life. In particular, I believe a community without children is warped, without a sense of innocence, possibility, or optimism. Chau Mai it was me and my Air Force Blue Ribbon Team that blocked your planes in and helped you off at Fort This site literally would not exist without his help and encouragement. It's called Love is in the Air, Along with Some Other Pollutants. as our NCOIC SMSGt (Keim) rushed in as we were settling into these very plush rooms to let us know HEY GUYS WRONG BARRACKS!! The jazz photos were treated to ICE technology to eliminate scratches and physical imperfections. Wheels down we disembarked and headed to base you couldnt help but see hundreds, more likely nearly 1,000 (+) Vietnamese people lined up awaiting transportation and being screened by Security Police personnel.

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