From Saigon to the central west: an orphan’s tale

While this year marks 50 years since the last Australian combat troops were withdrawn from the war in Vietnam, it wasn’t the last time our military personnel were to enter the warzone, and it is here where Millthorpe resident Van Nguyen’s story begins.

In early 1975, the communist forces launched a major offensive and began pushing south towards Saigon, ultimately resulting in the fall of the South Vietnamese capital on April 30.

During April, a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) detachment of Hercules transports began humanitarian flights taking civilian refugees from the city.

Starting April 4, 1975 in what was known as Operation Babylift, the RAAF joined the United States in a massive effort to evacuate orphaned children from Saigon.

“I was about nine… so I remember quite a bit,” says Van Nguyen, or Minh as he prefers.

“You know there was a lot of chaos, like organised chaos. It was a lot of soldiers everywhere. A lot of noise. Helicopters.”

“I mean, I was young, I didn't fully understand what's going on… It was scary. It was very scary.” 

While Minh was safely airlifted from Saigon that April day, tragically, disaster struck an American Galaxy transport when a door blew off after takeoff. The plane crash-landed and set ablaze, killing almost half of those on board, including 78 Vietnamese children.

Arriving in Sydney, Minh and some of the other children were sent to an orphanage at Lidcombe.

“I came out here with other kids about my age and also babies as well,” recalls Minh, “When we arrived in Sydney they put us in the orphanage home in a place called ‘Minali’ and from there some of us got adopted and some got fostered. I got fostered by an Australian family and grew up out at Cargo.”

It was during the next four years with his foster family at Cargo that Minh learned to speak English and came to adjust to life in his new country.
Returning to live at the orphanage in Sydney as a young teenager, Minh found himself drawn to join the Naval Reserve Cadets, known these days as the Australian Navy Cadets.

And at 15, he was granted permission to leave school and join the Royal Australian Navy as a junior recruit, training at HMAS Leeuwin in Western Australia. He served for the next eight years until the polio he’d had since birth forced him to be medically discharged. 

One might find it strange that someone who had experienced the trauma of war at a young age, would seek out a military career. But Minh says joining the navy was his way of giving something back to his new home. It was also where he found something he’d not had before.

“I just felt it was giving back to Australia… for what the troops that went back and rescued us did,” says Minh.

“And for me, personally, because I had no family, the navy gave me a sense of belonging and security. It was like belonging to a huge family.”

Proud to be an Australian, and proud to be part of the wider family of ex-servicemen and servicewomen in the RSL, Minh still remains curious about his Vietnamese heritage as he has never found out what happened to his birth family.

“Quite often I say, why? You know, why me? I'm sort of here alone, I don't have a family tree,” says Minh, who at 57 years of age is still daunted by the idea of returning to the country he left as a child so dramatically 48 years ago.

“Some of my friends that came over here at the same time, they were very fortunate to be able to track their family members and some did go back.

“I know deep down inside that back home in Vietnam, I still have some relatives somewhere…so no, I definitely will go back to Saigon.”