The babies airlifted out of Saigon

Viktoria Cowley was just a toddler when she was airlifted out of Vietnam, one of 99 children plucked from the war-torn country by the Daily Mail. Now she is trying to reunite the scattered evacuees.

Viktoria Cowley doesn't know how old she is, but she thinks about 36. Orphaned at a young age during the Vietnam War, she doesn't even know her parents' names.

Vikki spots herself in the Mail's 1975 report on the airlift

Her earliest documented experience dates from April 1975, when she appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail, aged about two. She was one of 99 babies and children airlifted out of Saigon in the newspaper's mercy mission as the Vietcong advanced at the end of the war.

The headline declares the orphans safe saved from an uncertain future and a potentially terrible fate.

Now, three decades after her arrival in Britain, Viktoria, known as Vikki, of Eastbourne, has recently embarked on a mission of her own - to reunite her fellow travellers. She has made contact with 15 so far.

The first she found after many weeks searching online for information about the airlift. "I eventually found my first gem - someone who had a very similar name to mine and was in the same orphanage as myself in Saigon. I soon connected with her online and made my first Vietnamese adoptee friend."

And now she wants to find the remaining 83.

"I'd love to be able to get in contact with them, share their story, just find how much they know about themselves, about the airlift."

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