Stephanie's project was comprised of a Tumblr blog and a speech presented at the Quarantine Station. Read the transcript of her speech below.

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Hello my name is Stephanie and I will be discussing some key topics relating to my area of research which is on “Operation Babylift” and its unique relationship with the quarantine station. I will briefly be discussing, firstly, the changing landscape of North Head in 1975, what operation Babylift was, how the Operation fitted into Australia’s changing relationship with Asia starting with the nation’s withdrawal from the Vietnam War to the Whitlam government’s dismantling of the White Australia Policy in 1973 and the role that this unique event in history played in shaping the experiences of the orphans arriving from Vietnam and those who were involved in looking after them. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the operation worldwide! I would just like to say that I feel very honoured to have the chance to tell such a unique Australian story.

The Quarantine station is a reflection of Australia’s constant changing attitudes towards immigration.  The station was officially in operation between the 14 of August 1832 to the 29 of February 1984. As is famously known, from the beginning the site was used to quarantine individuals who had arrived via colony or foreign ships that had or rather were believed to have been exposed to infectious diseases such as small pox, whooping cough or the Spanish flu.  

By the mid to late 1950s, North Head was used to accommodate both refugees and those arriving unlawfully as the station succumbed to the control of the Australian government’s immigration policies- policies that “most embodied the racialised immigration restrictions” (1) of the early White Australia era. This lasted for roughly two decades. It is important to mention that in 1950 the site was to be used as “a holding or detaining centre for persons about to be deported or repatriated from Australia,” (1) as proposed in an official government document that referenced the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 which has become known as one of the leading policies of the White Australia Policy era.

Because of these gradual top-down changes, by 1975, the station was turned into a temporary refuge centre, at the least, to be used as a form of emergency accommodation for people fleeing all sorts of disasters ranging from natural to man-made. Evidently, the site housed victims from Cyclone Tracy of 1974, to the Vietnamese orphans of ‘Operation Babylift’ as the Vietnam war was winding down after the fall of Saigon in April of 1975. As a result of this, there was a proposal made by Officers from the Departments of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs in 1979-1980 “to have permissive occupancy of part of the North Head Quarantine Station for use as a migrant centre…to provide a) temporary accommodation of migrants/refugees who are required to undergo medical examination on arrival and b) accommodation of apparently well migrants and refugees for average periods of up to one month with a maximum of three months in any individual case.” (2)

Operation Babylift is essentially the name given to a government-sponsored program which saw the mass evacuation of approximately 2,500 to 3,000 children from South Vietnam where as described by some “dozens of planes were sent out” to airlift children to safety shortly after the fall of Saigon as the war was nearing its end in April 1975, as mentioned. It was primarily an American initiative which immediately saw its allies like Canada, Europe and Australia take part in this unique effort.

Australia’s efforts saw the Royal Australian Air Force dispatch two RAAF C130 ‘s or as known as RAAF Hercules make two trips to Saigon. First on April 2nd, when the Australian government announced to evacuate ‘some 200 orphans, in line with the US government’s announcement of Operation Babylift’ (3), and a second on April 17th were 77 children were evacuated.”  The Hercules flew these infants to Bangkok, where they were shifted onto a ‘chartered Qantas aircraft with three doctors and 20 nurses for Sydney.’(3)

As explained by Chris Sturt, a nurse and quarantine station volunteer at the time of operation at the station, in an article she wrote a few years ago for the Adopted Vietnamese International Website,  74 of these children were taken to Melbourne and 215 to Sydney. She continues to explain that “On arrival in Sydney, 100 of those children who had arrived in Australia were admitted to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children and the rest were taken to the Quarantine Station at North Head, Manly.” (4)

Just to get a sense of how the placement of these children looked like right here at the quarantine station, I will continue to quote Chris. She states that:

“Two former hospital wards were converted into a combined dormitory, eating area and medical examination area. Twenty nurses cared for the children on a shift basis, with assistance from the Station’s staff and volunteers who included Vietnamese students. The orphans remained there for about two weeks while homes were found for them. I remember that several adoption agencies were represented there – church, government, and non-government.” (4)

Inter-country adoption became one of the main features of this operation right here in Australia, as well as in the US and Canada. As a result, these children were later adopted by various people across these three countries.  It has been described as one of the biggest international removal and adoption of children that history has ever witnessed.

Whilst some saw this operation as a humanitarian act, others saw this as essentially the Americans asserting themselves as the heroes of humanity, as well as a form of continual invasion by the western powers. Interestingly, an article published by the Canberra Times on April 7th 1975 stated that the Vietcong believed that the Babylift “violated the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination as it aimed to sow “division and hostility among the Vietnamese People.”(5)

Operation Babylift fell on the cusp of Australia’s first major refugee response missions and was a part of a time of great social and political change within the nation. Two years prior in 1973, the Whitlam government had officially abolished the nation’s White Australia Policy. This time period, lasting for about sixty-three years, so from 1910 to 1973, comprised of a series of policies that intentionally favoured immigrants from other English-Speaking countries or non-English speaking Europeans who could fit into this mould of the ideal and potential Australian citizen. One of these policies was the 1901 Immigration Restrictive Act, as mentioned, an act which sought the effective exclusion of non-European immigrants arriving and immigrating into Australia. Whitlam replaced this highly restrictive policy with, as described in Whitlam’s official website, “the concept of a multicultural Australian society.“ (6) Essentially it paved the way for a series of immigration policies like the Australian Citizenship Act 1973, where “migrants from non-Commonwealth nations had to reside in Australia for five years before they were eligible for citizenship, whereas Commonwealth migrants could qualify after one year of residing in Australia” (6). These changes witnessed a shift in Australasian relations as it also paved the way to pursue better diplomatic relations between the two continents in order to pursue and promote political, economic and cultural cohesion within the region. Not only did that abolishment prompt the arrival of Asian refugees, it also allowed people from Asian countries to obtain tourist visas so they could visit Australia. 

Despite these long-overdue reforms, the Whitlam government was initially hesitant to take in immigrants and refugees. However, in this case, the government and the embassy in Vietnam were quote “pressured on these three issues: refugees, the evacuation of Australian embassy staff and the evacuations of orphans” (7) in Vietnam. As Australia had been involved in the war, it was in a sense their moral duty to salvage what was left after such a brutal event.

Forty years on, there have been a series of articles, documentaries and books published  pertaining candid interviews of these children, their adoptive parents and those involved in looking after them. Most of the Operation Babylift babies, as they are known, from across the world have expressed the desire to find their biological families in Vietnam. Though most have described that they have felt like they belonged to their adopted families, there is a need to find out where they came from, who they are. A recent article published by the ABC tells the story Chantal Doecke, na Australian woman who was on board one of the planes that took off on April 5, 1975. She like many others, returned to Vietnam to mark the fortieth anniversary of the evacuation. To quote, “Many were on a long quest to find their birth parents and some even turned to DNA testing for help.”(8)

As stated on the Quarantine Station website, the Q-Station is an ‘ideal place to examine the changes & evolution of a site over time. The history of the Quarantine Station parallels and reflects Australian & world history”. This is very true for a site which is home to a variety of stories situated within Australia’s colonial and post-colonial past. Operation Babylift saw Australia tackle various complex social, political and cultural issues, central to the issues of inter-racial adoption and one’s cultural identity. It also saw one of Australia’s most illustrious sites as home to this unique piece of Australian history.

— STEPHANIE BARAHONA

REFERENCES

(1)   Bashford, Alison, and Peter Hobbins. “Rewriting Quarantine: Pacific History at Australia’s Edge." Australian Historical Studies 46, no. 3 (2015): 392-409.

(2)   Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, “Migrant Centres Branch: North Head Quarantine Station- Proposal to use as a migrant centre-” Files supplied by the National Archives of Australia.

(3)   “Wartime issue 53 feature article: After the fall.

(4)   Chris Sturt, "Memories of North Head Quarantine Station."

(5)   Orphan flights resumed. (1975, April 8). The Canberra Times(ACT : 1926 - 1995), p.1 

(6)   Whitlam Institute within Western Sydney University.

(7)   Fronek, Patricia. "Operation Babylift: advancing intercountry adoption into Australia.” Journal of Australian Studies 36, no. 4 (2012): 445-458

(8) Samantha Hawley, "Vietnam's Operation Baby Lift Adoptees Still Searching for Birth Parents 40 Years After the War."

Stephanie Barahona, "Operation Babylift and North Head Quarantine Station," History Matters, (5 November 2015)