Flying to safety: Orphans (from left) Le Thanh, Viktoria Cowley and Chris LawHuddled together on the seat of a plane, these sleeping orphans were among 99 being flown to a new life in England from war-torn Vietnam by the Daily Mail.
The picture was taken in April 1975 as the toddlers were dramatically snatched to safety from Saigon in the last days before communist Vietcong forces took control of the city.
Now, 35 years on, the little girl in the centre - known at the time as Baby Number Ten but now called Viktoria Cowley - has embarked on her own mission.
She is making contact with the other evacuees through social networking sites and has made an emotional return to her homeland to try to learn about her real family.
In the confusion of the invasion, most official records were lost and Miss Cowley, of Eastbourne, Sussex, has never known her true name or age.
Viktoria Cowley has made an emotional return to her homeland to try and learn about her real family She believes she was two when she left, making her 37, and celebrates her birthday on January 5, the date she was adopted by British couple Douglas and Jennifer Cowley.
'We were the innocents, the little waifs of war,' she said. 'Like the rest, I can't imagine how my life would have been if I had stayed there, or even if I would have lived.'
It was as the Vietcong advanced on Saigon that terrifying rumours spread of a civilian massacre.
Sir David English, then editor of the Daily Mail, instigated the first British mercy mission, bringing the 99 orphans to Heathrow Airport on a chartered Boeing 707, accompanied by doctors and nurses.
Meanwhile, an international effort - Operation Babylift - flew 3,000 children to the U.S., Canada and Australia between April 3 and 26. Saigon surrendered on April 30.
Medical experts said many of the severely malnourished and sick children would not have survived without the rescue missions.
Miss Cowley, who arrived in the UK with several infections, agreed. She said: 'Not one of the 30 people I've managed to contact so far has the slightest regret about what happened to them.
'We all feel that our lives have been better here than they ever could have been.'
The Mail of April 4, 1975She began researching two years ago and had never been back to her homeland for fear the Communist authorities would not allow her to leave again.
But on Wednesday Miss Cowley, a civilian worker for Sussex Police, will make her second return to Saigon to meet many of her fellow evacuees and commemorate the anniversary of their escape.
Two of those she traced are in the picture above. Le Thanh is now an IT consultant in Wales, while Chris Law, Miss Cowley discovered, had been brought up just a few miles from her, in Bexhill.
Her first return, filmed for BBC documentary The Airmail Orphan - screened last night but available on iPlayer - yielded little information.
The only insight was a former orphanage worker recalling Miss Cowley's mother bringing in her baby because her husband had died and she was too poor. But Miss Cowley says it still gave her peace of mind.
'I'm very grateful to my birth mother. She left me in a safe place where I could have the opportunity of a very full life. I can't ask for anything more,' she said.
source: dailymail
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