By Mark McNeil, The Spec
Thirty-eight years ago a toddler named Thanh was plucked out of a grim Saigon orphanage and whisked on board a giant Canadian Forces Hercules plane.
Thanh Campbell was airlifted out of Vietnam in the mid-’70s as part of a desperate rescue operation before the communist forces overtook Saigon. He eventually made his way to Hamilton and is set to launch his book about tracing the people he was flown out with and finding his biological family. PHOTO: Cathie Coward,The Hamilton Spectator
The number 32 was pinned to his shirt and he and 56 other parasite-ridden and malnourished Vietnamese youngsters took off in a hail of North Vietnamese gunfire. It was part of an international rescue in April 1975 nicknamed Operation Babylift, and the Canadian plane was the last one out before the communist forces overtook Saigon.
After they landed in Toronto, Nguyen Ngoc Minh Thanh would become Thanh Campbell. He would find a new family and a new life, something he remains thankful for beyond words.
But as the years went by he yearned to know about his biological family. He came to think of the other children on the flight as a kind of extended family and he wanted to touch base with as many of them as possible.
That decades-long quest is now the subject of a book that will be unveiled at special fundraiser Dec. 14 for City Kidz, a non-denominational Christian organization with a branch in Hamilton that works with inner city children.
Read the full article by Mark McNeil of the Spec.
