Archives in Love and War
Operation Babylift Collection
Bridging the records of the past and the voices of the present.
I was nine months old on the first Operation Babylift flight, the C-5A that came down outside Saigon on April 4, 1975. I did not have a birth announcement. I had a headline.
In June 2024, the last surviving director of the agency that placed me entrusted me with its records, mine among them. I have spent the years since learning how to read them, and how to give them back.
Devaki Murch, steward of the Operation Babylift Collection
Operation Babylift children are here today, and many are searching for their records.
Where would you like to begin?
I am an adoptee searching
Start a search under every name you have carried. Find what to gather, how the search works, and what to expect.
Start your search →I am family, a caregiver, or part of the community
Gatherings, exhibits, oral histories, and ways to take part.
Join the community →I am press or a partner
Coverage, fact sheet, boilerplate, and how to reach us.
Visit the press page →I want to support this work
The window to protect fragile originals and return them in person is now.
See how to give →2026 News & Documentary Emmy Award · Winner
Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey
The 20/20 and ABC News Live documentary won the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Light Feature: Long Form. The film follows the lives the Babylift children built, and the archive at the center of the search.
The work
What you can do here
Find your records
We search transportation records first, then the records transcribed so far. If you were placed through Friends For All Children, we search the adoptee index as well.
Receive your file
Original records, photographs, and correspondence are returned to the people they name, with a facilitated session so you are not alone with what you find.
Gather with others
Gatherings bring adoptees, caregivers, veterans, and families together, and oral histories preserve the voices of caregivers now in their seventies, eighties, and nineties.
See the archive in public
Exhibitions, panels, and talks bring original records into public space with care, including the Children of War: Lives Between StoryDeck facilitation system.
How the archive is cared for. Every record is processed through Love Ethic Archival Practice (LEAP), a trauma-informed methodology that puts the dignity and agency of survivors first.
Research in the National Archives in Vietnam matched documentation for adoptees from Vietnam to their home countries. Your donation will support this bilateral records index research.
Community
The archive belongs to the community it documents
Adoptees, birth families, caregivers, volunteers, veterans, and diaspora members across all seven streams of Vietnamese displacement.
In the press
Coverage
- ABC 20/20 & ABC News LiveMay 2025 · 2026 Emmy winner
Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey – A Special Edition of 20/20 - The Washington PostApril 27, 2025
The children of the Vietnam War’s ‘Operation Babylift’ have turned 50. A look at the lives they built. - Smithsonian Magazine2025
This Adoptee Discovered a Trove of Documents in a Nun’s Basement. The Rare Vietnam War Records May Rewrite the Story of Operation Babylift - The Colorado SunMay 3, 2026
50 years after Operation Babylift evacuated thousands from Vietnam, a Colorado gathering celebrates a shared past
From the collection
Records and connections
Why this work matters
A History to Remember
There is no time like now to engage with those who cared for us, and to share our lives, and who we are, with them. This is the magic of connection.
Fiscally Sponsored by Torrey House Press (EIN 47-5055025)