23-07-2025
Inside Operation Babylift, which brought Vietnamese orphans to Australia at the Fall of Saigon
When Des Wraight joined the military in 1962, he did not imagine he would be required to change hundreds of nappies.
But in April 1975, he found himself involved in the evacuation of thousands of children during the final weeks of the Vietnam War.
Mr Wraight was on the first of four Qantas flights from Bangkok to Sydney which carried children who had been taken out of the country in what was known as Operation Babylift.
"We picked up these children ranging from a few months old to about 10 years, and the babies were all in cardboard boxes," he said.
The cardboard cribs were strapped in with seatbelts and toddlers lay on seats with a pillow.
Mr Wraight, a corporal with the Australian Army Intelligence 3rd Battalion, served on the Thai-Malay border and the Malay Peninsula in Sarawak during the Indonesian Confrontation before his stint in Vietnam.
Vietnamese was one of five languages the resident of Brunswick Heads on the New South Wales North Coast mastered.
Mr Wraight used his language skills to calm bewildered and frightened children on the flight out of Vietnam.
"A couple of the older ones — I think they were around about 10 — came up and asked me in Vietnamese, 'Where are we going?'" he said.
Mr Wraight said the babies aboard the flight to Australia "kept the crew very busy".
"They were fed formula, but it didn't agree with them," he said.
"Most of the babies had diarrhoea — I spent most of the night changing nappies.
"I said to my wife, 'I am never going to change a nappy again. I have done my deed!'"
Operation Babylift was the largest evacuation of orphaned children ever undertaken, but not all had lost their parents.
"As the war dragged on, more and more families were unable to feed their children, the situation was extremely desperate," the Australian War Memorial's Emily Hyles said.
As the West began to withdraw from Vietnam, the US funded an operation to airlift 2,000 orphaned children to America, 700 to Europe and 300 to Australia.
Those assigned to the shorter flight to Australia were often the weakest or sickest and some died en route.
Ms Hyles said many orphans were adopted by loving families, but adapting to life in Australia was easier for those who were babies.
"The older children had to learn [language and culture] and it must surely have been a much harder transition," she said.
Van Minh Nguyen was nine years old when he arrived in Australia on April 17, 1975.
"The memories of those flights and the people who cared for me in the aftermath are etched vividly in my mind," he said.
"The sense of uncertainty and loss was overwhelming, but it was also a time of hope and resilience."
Mr Nguyen's two foster family placements were short-lived.
"I never quite felt like I belonged," he said.
"I remember the day I was returned to an orphanage in Sydney like it was yesterday.
Mr Nguyen was placed with a foster family in Orange who then moved to Cargo, but was never adopted by them.
When he was 13, he was returned to an orphanage at Castle Hill.
"It hit me that fostering can feel like leasing out a child for a short period," Mr Nguyen said.
He was then placed with a family at Dundas in Sydney's north-west.
"I lived with this family from age 14 until a couple of months before my 15th birthday, when I went back to the orphanage briefly," Mr Nguyen said.
At that time, he received permission from his state ward to join the Royal Australian Navy as a junior recruit at HMAS Leeuwin in Western Australia.
"I was drawn to the discipline and structure it offered," Mr Nguyen said.
"It was a familiar environment, given my experience growing up in orphanages in Sydney."
Mr Nguyen found a family in the Royal Australian Navy, where he served for eight years before being medically discharged after a serious accident.
He then served as a public servant for 21 years, working in the NSW Attorney General's Department for Court Services.
Now retired, Mr Nguyen volunteers as a mentor.
"I'm proud to give back and support the development of our youths," he said.
Like many of the other Vietnamese children who came to Australia, Mr Nguyen has tried to learn more about his heritage and the circumstances that led to him being given to an orphanage in Saigon when he was a toddler.
"With a name like Nguyen, being so common, it's been tough to track down any leads," he said.
