Found: Mr Freeman has spent his entire adult life searching for his long lost family and was about to give up

 A man who lost contact with his family for 30 years after being evacuated from Vietnam has been reunited with his mother.

The last Johnathon Freeman saw of his mother was being packed on to a plane as one of 3,000 young children evacuated from Saigon in a mission known as 'Operation Babylift'.

In 1975 Ho Chi Minh City, then called Saigon, was about to fall to North Vietnamese communist forces.

Mr Freeman said of the reunion 'It was worth it. The word was that the North as going to come down and kill all the mixed race kids.'

One of the planes evacuationg the children crashed and Mr Freeman's mother belived he could be dead.


Reunion: Mr Freeman described how he was about to give up the search before coming across a website specifically for orphans of the daring missions

The children, were feared to be especially vulnerable to the expected privations to follow.

Freeman has spent his entire adult life searching for his long lost family and was about to give up.

Speaking to Fox News he described how he was about to give up the search before coming across a website specifically for orphans of the daring missions.

On meeting his mother he told Fox: 'It was amazing. It was like I was seven years old again.

'I can't even describe it..

He wanted her to come back to the U.S. with him, but she  insisted on remaining in Vietnam. The pair speak on the phone everyday.

And he also had some advice for those still looking.

'It's never too late,' he said,  'keep searching, keep searching, keep searching.'


Happy: Mr Freeman's mother was overjoyed to see her long lost son again

Mostly babies and all of them orphaned or given up by their parents, they grew up as part of American families across the country, often in places where there was little or no Vietnamese community.

The flights had to take off without lights to foil North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire - and without clearance from the American authorities. The airline initially faced sanctions for defying U.S. officials, but support from the American public ensured the flights continued almost until Saigon's fall on April 30.

Not all the children survived the trips. One C5-A cargo plane used in a later flight crashed, killing almost half the 330 children and adults on board.

By Daily Mail Reporter

Source: dailymail.co.uk