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Viktoria Cowley has a birth certificate to prove she was born, however, the date of this she knows not to be true. In fact, she knows very little about her first few years of life before she was adopted by a British family, Douglas and Jennifer, and brother Jonathan Cowley.
What she knows about life before this is still a mystery, Viktoria was in the Lam Thi Ny orphanage in the district of Gia Dinh, Saigon, having been supposedly 'abandoned' by her mother. Viktoria does not know her birth name as it was changed when she entered the orphanage to Lam Yen Hang, neither does she know when or where she was really born. Her parentage is also a mystery - having been told two conflicting stories, however, following a DNA test, both stories have been proven to be untrue, and instead of being 100% Vietnamese, is only half Vietnamese so can only assume she is the product of a serviceman and Vietnamese mother.
Viktoria's adoptive father worked for the British American Tobacco company in Vietnam at the time and had chosen her from her orphanage and started the adoption process back in 1974. Douglas had finished his tour of duty at the end of 1974 and had made arrangements for Viktoria to be accompanied by a friend to the UK in June of 1975, however by that time, the Vietnam War was coming to its end and the careful arrangements were no longer going to work.
Operation Babylift international had started in April 1975 and Viktoria was flown to the UK when the then-Foreign Editor of the Daily Mail, Brian Freemantle, instigated the UK Babylift, helping to bring 100 Vietnamese orphans to safety. She quite often refers to herself as being "the baby in the middle" of three on the front page of the Daily Mail of 7 April 1975.
Viktoria lives with Paul and they have a son, Harry, named after Brian Freemantle (Brian's middle name is Harry) in recognition of what Operation Babylift and Brian represent. She often states she doesn't know whether she would be where she is today if it hadn't been for him as all records and information had been destroyed and she wonders if she would have even made it to her 'forever family' had he not stepped in. Harry still remains Viktoria's only genetic connection that she knows about to date.
Viktoria has appeared on many media programs over the years, including BBC One: Inside Out South East BBC One: Searching for my history (2009) (November 2009), BBC One BBC One: The Airmail Orphan (2010) (April 2010), BBC South East Today (1974) (2009), BBC News 24 (2010) BBC The One Show (2018) and has done various radio interviews, including BBC World Service (2010 & 2015), BBC Radio Sussex - The Breakfast Show (9 November 2009); BBC Five Live: The Breakfast Show with Nicky Campbell (10 November 2009) and BBC Radio Scotland (2009). Her latest appearance was on BBC One's The One Show Episode dated 28 March 2018 (2018).
Viktoria has various online resources for collating and sharing information with others and is attempting to write a story based on her Operation Babylift beginnings.
