Operation Babylift ‘babies’, RAAF, Qantas crew reunite on Vietnam War’s 50th yr

Crew from the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Qantas have reunited with ‘babies’ from 1975’s Operation Babylift rescue 50 years after the end of the Vietnam War.

The reunion took place at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, on July 23, 2025.

Before the Fall of Saigon, the RAAF’s Detachment S was formed in 1975 to transport supplies to South Vietnam and assist with civilian evacuations amid an unfolding humanitarian crisis.

It comprised eight C-130 Hercules aircraft from 36 and 37 Squadrons and two C-47 Dakotas from Transport Support Flight, Butterworth.  Among those they intended to rescue and airlift were thousands of children of servicemen.

An estimated 100,000 children were born to foreign (mostly US) military servicemen and Vietnamese women during the Vietnam War. Referred to colloquially as ‘Bui Doi’, meaning ‘dust of life’, these children were often neglected and left behind in Vietnam as orphans.

Two Babylift missions took place in April 1975, the first on April 4, before a smaller number of children were rescued on April 17. RAAF personnel clocked up 465 hours of flying time in April 1975 alone, but the mission to airlift Vietnamese orphans retains a special significance.

“Feeding and nursing those children on the tarmac gave us a perspective on the real victims, the real losers in war, the innocent,” said Air Commodore (retd) Ian Scott, a former Hercules navigator who was on the second airlift flight.

“At the time we did not question the wisdom of shuttling those poor kids off to places unknown around the world, but it seemed to us at the time the best thing for their survival,” Scott added.”But that didn’t address the issue of being torn from their family, their country and their culture that many of them faced as they grew up in foreign lands.”

“Operation Babylift’ took place in April1975 Following the catastrophic Vietnam War in which the #US killed 2,000,000 civilians, Multitudes became orphans They US flew the babies back to America, and then citizens of U.S.A., Australia, Canada and France adopted them. Kidnapped? pic.twitter.com/Kpm2jqly7K— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) March 22, 2023 Operation Babylift ran between April 3 and 26, 1975. In total, approximately 3,000 children were evacuated from Saigon.

Of that figure, more than 2,500 were relocated to the United States, where they were adopted by families. Australian families adopted more than 250 children who became members of the Australian community. 

During the reunion, several crew spoke about their personal accounts of the operation, including former Qantas B747 engineer John Douglas, who remembered carrying three infants in cardboard boxes. “Looking at these kids– each body was a life displaced, seeking not just a passage but a future.” Douglas recounted. 

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Operation Babylift ‘babies’, RAAF, Qantas crew reunite on Vietnam War’s 50th yr

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