The story of a little boy was rescued from Saigon and reunited again with his birth mother

News24xx.com -A nurse with gently, holds a baby boy from a plane that filled with orphaned children who will be flown to safety from the chaos of the Vietnam War.

It was 1975 and Operation Mercy Airlift that held by Daily Mail, saving children from Saigon. The emergency beds are suspended from the ceiling of the plane, and a confused baby boy is one of nearly 100 children who will enter a new life in Britain. The baby boy was saved from an orphanage in Saigon, when the orphanage will be closed.

He grew up in a loving family in Northern Ireland, and was adopted by Cyril and Liz McElhinney who picked him up as their son and called him Vance.

"I'm undernourished and if I'm not on that plane, I could die quickly."

He is believing that he was an orphan, because he thinks that his biologic mother had been died. But in fact, she is still life and lived in Vietnam - and they have reunited after more than 40 years of separation. In their emotional reunion with Le Thi Anh, 64, she is recognized that Vance is her lost son and explained that she never left him before.

Her family left him at home when she was hospitalized, and in the frenzy of Vance's war, there was a mistake. Because they think, if Vance is an orphan, after the nuns who ran the hospital, sent Vance to an orphanages in Saigon.

At that time, the US president, Gerald Ford has warned that children in orphanages may will slaughtered by the Vietcong and his words encourage a panicked evacuation effort.

Vance, who left Vietnam with just a tangled photo that marked with his Vietnamese name, was one of 99 babies and children that flown by Boeing 707 aircraft, hired by the Daily Mail when the Vietcong reached the outskirts of Saigon.

A few hours later they landed at Heathrow. Some are malnourished, others suffer from serious illnesses that require urgent medical help.

Inspired by an article in the Mail about their circumstances, two young workers ie Mr McElhinney and Liz, a courier, traveled from their home in Northern Ireland to offer to adopt a child.

When they arrived at the children's home in Surrey, Vance was the only child who still needed a family, and the committed from Christian couple regarded him as a sign from God that he intended to be their family.

They picked it up with their other children, David and Stephen. Now David is now a teacher, and Stephen, being pastor of the Church of Ireland.

By retelling his evacuation, he said: 'My mother was expecting to come and pick me up after two weeks at the orphanage. She has put me there because she is not healthy. We're in the middle of a battle. "

"From my understanding, she will pick me up later but when it's a bad war, the nuns told her brothers and sisters that it would be safer if the baby went to Saigon, they never consulted with my mother, because she was in hospital."

Regardless from the love of his adoptive family, Vance admits that growing up in Lurgan, County Armagh is not always easy.

He eventually left his home and moved to England in his twenties.

But when his adopted mother was diagnosed with motorneurone disease, he returned to Lurgan to take care of her.

He decided, it was time to try to find out more about his past, and he decided to participate in the BBC Northern Ireland project, A Place To Call Home, who saw him meet nuns from an orphanage in Vietnam and with the key figures of evacuations.

After the program aired, he has 'about 30 Facebook messages' from people in Vietnam who claim to be relatives.

But one woman, claiming to be his cousin, sent him a photo of a man that she said as Vance's father. Feeling resembled, Vance make a traveled back to Vietnam and met a woman at a cafe in the coastal town of Quy Nhon, near the orphanage where he was abandoned.

He hopes will get more information about his family, but he is astonished when that woman point to a well-dressed woman that sitting nearby, and saying: 'She's your mother.'

Le Thi Anh cries and says that she does not want to hand him over, but her family leaves him at the a home from children while she is in the hospital.

Vance said, "My mother took out her bag and showed of my photos, my dad, and her pictures when she at twenties."

Mrs. Anh told to Vance that his father was a Vietnamese soldier, a gambler and a drinker who likes to tortured her, and shot his parents, brothers and sisters and then left her. She does not know if he's still alive or not. Initial, he hesitates to do of DNA tests because his the health of his adoptive mother is worsening and she wants to spend precious time with her.

But after Mrs McElhinney died at the age of 71 in June 2017, he performed a DNA test, and the results showed that he was the real son of Mrs Anh. He plans to return to Vietnam next month and divide his time between his family in Vietnam and in Northern Ireland.

 

Have twice to divorced, he works as a sous chef in Lurgan. His adoptive father, Cyril, is now 78 years old. Vance said: 'McElhinneys did everything for me. I get a better family. '

His brother, David, 45, said, "We are always grateful that Vance was taken out of Vietnam, he is a tiny baby when he comes and he has a fun childhood."

 

 

 

 

 

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