The Luckiest Refugees

Updated September 13, 2012 13:37:44

It was the greatest maritime exodus in modern history.

Following South Vietnam's surrender to the communist North in 1975, more than 1 million people fled the country. Their only escape route lay across the unforgiving expanse of the South China Sea.

Over the next decade an immense tragedy played out in slow motion, largely unseen by the world.

About 300,000 people perished, claimed by treacherous seas, savage attacks by pirates or exposure to the elements, some after being rejected at gunpoint from neighbouring countries where they sought sanctuary.

But amid the chaos and grief emerged some extraordinary tales of resilience and spectacular good luck that defied any odds.

This is the story of a one-in-a-million encounter on the South China Sea, where unlikely saviours and the saved became friends, forging a bond that endures to this day.

When HMAS Melbourne and its 1,300 crew rescued 99 Vietnamese refugees from a sinking boat in 1981, the outcome was a new life in Australia for many of those refugees, as well as life-changing consequences for some of the rescuers.

The dramatic events even forged an enduring father-son relationship between one of the officers and the young former trainee priest he helped to pluck from the sea.

Escape

Video: Nearly 100 refugees scrambled aboard the HMAS Melbourne in 1981. (ABC News)

On the evening of June 21, 1981, 99 men women and children aboard a small boat were waiting to die.

Their vessel was adrift in storm-tossed waters of the South China Sea, 250 nautical miles east of  Vietnam. The overloaded boat was leaking badly, the engine broken, and drinking water was contaminated.

Both Buddhists and Christians began to pray that when the end came, it would be mercifully swift.

They had escaped Vietnam four days earlier under the command of the redoubtable Captain Tam Van Nguyen.

A stocky no-nonsense fisherman and former member of the South Vietnamese Navy's Riverine Forces, Captain Tam knew every twist of the vast Mekong Delta.

He was part of a syndicate that had secretly constructed the 14-metre vessel at a hidden location on the banks of the Mekong. It resembled a fishing boat to fool the authorities, but was built for one purpose – to escape.

Ninety-nine put to sea in the dangerously overloaded boat designed to carry just 60. Captain Tam wouldn't turn anyone away. Yet those aboard hardly knew each other: they came from all over South Vietnam; there were family groups and individuals, rich and poor, urban and rural, Catholic and Buddhist, Vietnamese and ethnic Chinese.

As the boat slowly disintegrated under the blows of a fading storm, Captain Tam wanted to turn back, but other syndicate leaders over-ruled him.

Stephen Nguyen, one of the refugees on board, recalls the heated debate between leaders.

"They say, (if you) go back there, you and me, the other syndicate (members), it is easy to be executed. To die here, we die freely."

The miracle

Passing merchant ships had ignored the boat's distress flares. And as dusk fell on the fourth day, many believed it would be their last. But then Captain Tam spotted a strange aircraft on the horizon.

"It was the last flare Mr Tam shot up there, and (at) that time the Tracker fly over and he spotted us," Stephen Nguyen recalls.

The Tracker was a surveillance patrol aircraft from the Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne; the plane had been preparing to land after its last mission of the day.

The Melbourne and its destroyer escort HMAS Torrens had been participating in international war games, while keeping a watchful eye on a Soviet intelligence-gathering ship that had been closely trailing in their wake for days.

Photo: A Soviet intelligence trawler (foreground) tracks HMAS Melbourne (in distance), 1981. (Australian War Memorial)

"They were Soviet-converted trawlers, and they in fact would remain just out of sight, normally astern," recalls John Ingram, who was HMAS Melbourne's logistics officer.

The Melbourne had a reputation as an unlucky ship. Twice in the 1960s the carrier had been involved in collisions with destroyers. The two accidents claimed 156 lives. In both incidents the destroyers had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. For many sailors the Melbourne was 'jinxed'. Now, the old warship's luck was about to abruptly change.

"We were recovering our last aircraft when they detected what they thought initially was a small fishing vessel on fire. They then did one or two more sweeps over the fishing vessel and discovered in fact that it was a flare," says John Ingram.

Stephen Nugyen says at first the refugees feared they'd been spotted by a Soviet aircraft. Moscow was an ally of Vietnam. To be rescued by a Soviet ship meant a passage home to certain imprisonment and possible execution.

But the aircraft that swept in low over the boat carried strange markings: a picture of a kangaroo. And the English word 'Navy' stencilled on the side. They were saved.

Soon the vast bulk of the Melbourne loomed up out of the darkness.

"I never seen a big ship like that. It's so huge, and I still remember. We had a very warm welcome by all sailors," recalls Stephen Nguyen.

Commander John Ingram had been going to sea for more than 20 years, and knew the odds.

"It was a miracle that they were discovered, okay. Just having the Tracker in that position, late in the afternoon in deteriorating light conditions. And to pick up a flare on the horizon, the last flare that they had. They had been ignored by other vessels. And to have an admiral and a captain (on board) who said, 'investigate'."

Video: John Ingram recalls the rescue of 99 Vietnamese boatpeople from the South China Sea as the highlight of his Navy career. (ABC News)

In an era before instant global communication, there was no upward referral to Navy headquarters or the Australian government about what to do next.

"The concept of turning a boat back, expecting sailors to turn a boat back, and maybe sending men, women and children innocently to a watery grave is absolutely abhorrent," John Ingram says.

"Drowning is a terrible way, dying of dehydration is a terrible way to die. And the sea is a very lonely place."

The refugees were to be rescued. The carrier's photographers, who usually recorded aircraft movements, were there to capture the dramatic operation.

"The boats came alongside with these poor emaciated individuals on board. And a number of them were at the point of unconsciousness; they had no idea where they all were. They were in a very distressed physical and emotional state," John Ingram says.

"Some would have begun to have died within hours, probably by dawn the following morning."

Getting everyone on board proved difficult, with many too weak to be winched up by helicopters. Sailors volunteered to carry them up the ship's side on ladders, one by one, a perilous task that took nearly three hours.

"That was six to seven metres up, plus allowing for the fall of the boats each time and the rolling of the ship. (It was) extremely dangerous, and remember it was pitch dark," Mr Ingram says.

"The fact that all 99 including these 19 children under the age of 10 were got on board without any injury whatsoever was an amazing feat.

"And I was intensely proud of those young men and I believe that they did not get the recognition that they so thoroughly deserved."

For Stephen Nguyen, there was a sense of utter relief.

"The hope (was) very slim," he says. "To be rescue by HMAS Melbourne is unforgettable and unbelievable.

"We felt we were the luckiest refugees among the million people who escape the regime."

Welcome aboard

Video: Refugee Stephen Nguyen recalls the MG99's perilous journey, and HMAS Melbourne's miraculous rescue. (ABC News)

John Ingram was tasked with looking after the refugees.

Those rescued didn't know it, but in another stroke of luck they'd been delivered into the care of a passionate and highly skilled refugee advocate.

In the 1960s John Ingram had served on the troopship HMAS Sydney, making several runs to Vietnam ferrying Australian soldiers to and from the war. He says his compassion for refugees was motivated by guilt.

"A sense of guilt that I'd been part of Australia's contribution into a war which was pretty unpopular at home. I had mixed feelings, my family had mixed feelings over Vietnam. In fact the Vietnam War had in fact split our family quite badly."

Commander Ingram was on an exchange posting in the US when Saigon fell in 1975. He immediately volunteered to help transform an abandoned military base in Pennsylvania into a vast emergency reception centre for 25,000 Vietnamese.

Two years later while working at Navy headquarters in Canberra, John Ingram and his wife Janet joined a volunteer refugee support network. Their nights and weekends were spent refurbishing derelict government housing for hundreds of Indochinese who were rapidly filling Australian refugee centres.

"My experience is that if we provide that initial compassion, and that initial support in a genuine way, then newly arrived refugees settle into the country far faster and far better," Mr Ingram says.

In 1981, at sea on an aircraft carrier, here were another 99 refugees he was determined to protect and support. From that point they would be known collectively as the MG99, short for the Melbourne Group 99.

"The people were chronically dehydrated," Mr Ingram says. "Many had to be rehydrated in the sick bay. But once they were rehydrated, washed, clothed, they got their appetites back pretty quickly."

Establishing trust took a bit longer. The sailors thought rice would be a popular dish.

"We decided to tart the rice up a little bit by use of saffron. And  I noticed after the first couple of meals that this yellow rice was being left behind," Mr Ingram says. Puzzled, he approached an English-speaking girl.

"And I said ...what’s wrong with our rice, is it the wrong type of rice, is it the long grain or the short grain what would you prefer, or the brown rice even?  And she said, no, she said, they won’t eat it because they think that you are trying to poison us," he now laughs.

Singapore-bound

The Melbourne set a course for Singapore. Already overcrowded with refugees, Singaporean authorities declared the MG99 group could only come ashore if other countries agreed to resettle them.

Most of the MG99 refugees had initially requested to go the US and Europe, but after their short voyage on the carrier, 77 asked to be sent to Australia.

By 1981 the Australian government had already taken 43,000 Vietnamese refugees under the Orderly Departure Program. The vast majority were accepted after being processed in camps across the region. For a Navy ship to request the immediate and direct resettlement of such a large group, thousands of kilometres from Australian territorial waters, was highly unusual, but the government agreed.

Photo: Two women from MG99 at the gates of Hawkins Road Camp in Singapore, 1981. (Courtesy of MG99 group)

"We were extremely fortunate in the sense that we knew the government of Australia was supportive," Mr Ingram says. "And at that time prime minister Fraser enjoyed the full support of the opposition."

There was one stipulation: the MG99 would be fast-tracked to Australia only if they agreed to wait at a refugee camp in Singapore while they were formally processed.

Five days after the rescue, the Melbourne arrived in Singapore and the MG99 refugees were bussed to the Hawkins Road refugee camp.

"Hawkins Road, in comparison with other refugee camps, was I guess to them probably a Hilton," says Mr Ingram.

Stephen Nguyen agrees: "It was the first time we'd been on to a foreign land and it was really an eye opener for us to see the difference between Singapore and Vietnam."

Nevertheless, John Ingram says there were 15,000 refugees living on a few acres in the former Woodlands military complex.

"Our people being the latest arrivals weren't actually greeted with open arms," he says.

The camp was run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mr Ingram was appalled by what he saw.

"They lived under blue plastic sheeting on a hillside in amongst wet grass. And I got a little concerned because on day one I actually saw not our refugees but other refugees boiling grass over little campfires ... to make a soup to feed themselves."

Refugees were permitted to work in stalls outside the fence to supplement their meagre rations, but it was barely enough.

"There was a quota of a small amount of food that was available each day.  But I guess a cup, half a cupful of rice a day doesn’t go very far," Mr Ingram says.

Determined not to abandon his charges, Ingram returned to the ship and, ignoring official procedures, immediately commandeered a tonne of food to be trucked to the camp, repeating the procedure every day.

The Navy turned a Nelsonian 'blind eye' to this unofficial one-man aid effort.

The UN camp manager described Ingram's generosity as a 'loaves and fishes' act.

"Well a tonne of food a day was not going to go very far with 15,000 people," concedes Mr Ingram.

Then came the day Mr Ingram dreaded. HMAS Melbourne was under orders to sail home to Sydney. A lot of promises had been made by Australia, Singapore and the United Nations. John Ingram was anxious that they be honoured.

"I felt that just by dropping them there, and saying goodbye and seeing them bedraggled and wet  under blue plastic sheeting with a very primitive tent or a lean to. They'd made good friendships with lots of people on board.  I felt quite uneasy about it."

And with good reason. At that time hundreds of thousands of Indochinese refugees were languishing in overcrowded refugee camps across the region, all desperate to escape to a better life.  It would have been easy for the MG99 to be forgotten amid the chaos.

"So my parting words were: 'see you in Australia in a month or two.'"

This is Australia

"As it transpired, they were actually flown (to Sydney) by Qantas and arrived (home) before we did," John Ingram recalls. "So they were ensconced at East Hills by the end of July.  They were really, really lucky."

Stephen Nguyen has vivid memories of arriving at Mascot Airport on a clear July day, overwhelmed by mixed emotions: triumph but also a deep fear for those left behind.

"It was in winter and the first time we encounter the coldness of winter and ... we just say thank God, we're really landed into the freedom land and there's a lot of people, they're crying. I thought of my parents. What would they do to my parent when they heard that we already escape?"

The refugees were taken to the East Hills migration centre by bus.

"Of course, there was no fences, no guard, we stayed there happily," Mr Nguyen says. "We allowed to do everything, we can go to town or go to Sydney until night and we enjoy all the arrangement from the government to apply to the newcomers.

"This a beautiful time to me, a beautiful, very sweet memories."

Mr Ingram says he and his wife visited the refugees as soon as he was back in Sydney.

"By the beginning of August they were actually starting their English classes," he recalls. "They were very happy, very happy little Vegemites, I can tell you that."

After the visit, John and Janet Ingram were posted to the United Kingdom and briefly lost touch with the refugees from MG99.

He was unaware that his elderly parents, then living in comfortable retirement, had immediately agreed to foster two young Vietnamese women when they discovered they were from the MG99.

"They said, 'we know John Ingram' and dad said, 'that’s good enough for me, my son is very proud of what transpired in the Melbourne and if you come and live with us in the Blue Mountains you can practise your English and then you can get some professional qualification in this country'.

"And they maintained that relationship until Mai Lan married, and my father actually gave Mai Lan away, and she now lives in San Jose, California where she has raised two lovely children. And Vanessa married in Sydney. She was an IT expert, has raised two lovely girls, one of whom now has a Masters of Medicine from the Sydney University."

Stephen Nguyen moved out of the East Hills Migrant Hostel after six months and headed to Bankstown. Jobs in factories and the post office followed, and eight years later he went into a partnership in a western Sydney bakery.

His overriding ambition was to reunite his family.

In 1982, one of his sisters, a Catholic nun, was lost at sea while fleeing Vietnam. Stephen penned a haunting poem in her honour.

From 1983, three of his brothers and two sisters successfully escaped Vietnam. All moved to Sydney, spending the next decade under Stephen's care. He worked to put all five siblings through university.

In 1991, Stephen married Maria, whom he'd met in Australia. His parents were permitted to leave Vietnam for the wedding. They also now live in Sydney.

MG99 – The family

Video: Vietnamese refugees gather for reunion (ABC News)

Stephen Nguyen says the MG99 was unique among Vietnamese refugees "because there was no other big group settling in one city or in one country and the group stayed together".

The extended family is the bedrock of traditional Vietnamese society. With families scattered across the globe, the MG99 grouping became a surrogate. Group elders say they created a tight support network, particularly for the younger members through the turbulent 1990s when the Vietnamese heartland in Sydney's Cabramatta was wracked with drugs and gang violence.

"Some of the others, they lost their direction," Mr Nguyen says. "They had no instruction from their parents or elder brothers and sisters but I can be proud of MG99, that most of the young people from MG99, they’ve done so well."

John Ingram agrees. "I am unaware of anyone who has not succeeded, either in their professional life, in their personal life, in the eyes of the law or whatever. It has been a remarkably coherent group."

Mr Ingram attributes part of the success to immigration policies from what he calls more enlightened times. He's appalled by the current era of detention centres and razor wire.

"What does it do to them? Destroys their personal dignity, it makes caged animals of people," he says.

"To me the concept of turning boats back is an anathema ... Turning people over in exchange in some form of bartering arrangement is equally abhorrent."

At the heart of the MG99 grouping today is the bond between group leader Stephen Nguyen, the youthful refugee plucked from the sea, and the Navy 'old salt' who rescued him.

"Alongside John there was a big number of other people who were involved with the mission, but John Ingram somehow, he was the one who was always running around. John Ingram is in our hearts. Always," Mr Nguyen says.

Now retired to Port Macquarie in NSW, John and Janet Ingram frequently host visiting members of the extended MG99 'family', which now numbers more than 300 and spans four generations.

"It's very much a father and son relationship (with Stephen)," Mr Ingram says. "I at times get a little embarrassed because I feel like I'm not doing as much as I could be if I were living closer to Sydney.

"I guess initially we were their sheet anchor but having the seeds in Australian soil, those seeds germinated and now they're fast growing trees. And this is their country.

"You might be in the Navy for 25 years. But you've got to live with your conscience all of your life ... The MG99 rescue was the highlight of my career."

Three decades on from that fateful encounter in the South China Sea, Stephen Nguyen still can't quite believe his good fortune.

"Yes, we are the luckiest refugees and in the lucky country."

Special thanks

The ABC extends its thanks to these individuals and organisations for their assistance with this story:

• John Perryman, senior historical officer, RAN Seapower Centre
• Photographic Section, Australian War Memorial

Credits

Foreign Correspondent:

• Reporter/Producer: Mark Corcoran
• Video segment editor: Nick Brenner
• Camera: Tony Conolly
• Associate Producer: Dee Porter
• Executive Producer: Steve Taylor

ABC News Online:

• Design: Ben Spraggon
• Development: Andrew Kesper
• Executive Producer: Matthew Liddy

First posted June 20, 2012 09:15:10