In late March 1975, as the Vietnam War raged, an Australian voluntary aid worker named Rosemary Taylor approached the Australian Embassy seeking assistance to fly 600 orphans out of Saigon to safety.

Rosemary and Margaret Moses, two former nuns from Adelaide, had spent eight years in Vietnam during the war, building up a complex of nurseries to house war orphans and street waifs as the organisation that built up around them facilitated international adoptions for the children. As the North Vietnamese forces closed in on their nurseries, they needed a plan to evacuate the children, or all their work might count for little ...

Based on extensive archival and historical research, and interviews of some of those directly involved in the events described, Operation Babylift details the last month of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the most vulnerable victims of that war: the orphans it created. Through the story of the attempt to save 600 children, we see how a small group of determined women refused to play political games as they tried to remake the lives of a forgotten generation, one child at a time.

Sent as a tag in the wishlist tag game.

thankyou so much for sending me ths wishlist book in the tag game :)

i recall hearing/reading bits of this story when i lived in canberra and then a couple of years shaw was a guest on (abc) radio national's 'conversations' with richard fidler (also a contact from canberra!), so of course i put it on my reading wishlist

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/ian-shaw-operation-babylift/11148882

thankyou so much for sharing it with me and for the wonderful parcel that arrived last friday - certainly brightens my days

happy reading
;)