Andy Yearley and Barton Williams grew up on opposite sides of the world – but when they met, they discovered a common past.

Both were “rescued” from orphanages in Saigon after the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s.

Thousands of children found a new home in the USA, but Barton grew up in South Australia and Andy ended up on the Scottish island of Lewis.

The couple met by chance in 2021 when Barton starred in a surfing film set on the island.

They both grew up as Asian children in a predominantly white neighborhood and had no memories or knowledge of Vietnam.

“It’s not every day that you meet another Vietnam orphan,” says Andy.

“It’s like meeting a twin brother – a blood brother.

“We got along well right away.”

The bond between the two men was brought to life on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe in “Precious Cargo” – a theatre performance that tells the stories of Vietnamese orphans.

The show explores each individual’s experiences, but also the shared feeling of uprootedness.

“Andy lived almost the same life as me, but in Scotland,” says Barton in his strong Australian accent.

“He grew up in an environment where the white middle class plays a major role.

“He looks like a real Viet, but he doesn’t sound like a Viet – just like me.”

Andy was adopted by Eileen and Iain Yearley after being found in the Saigon orphanage by a family friend.

According to Andy, he could only be rebooked on a flight to Orly airport in France.

“My adoptive mother had to travel there – apparently no one was with me,” says Andy.

“I was left alone at the airport like a baby.”

He grew up in the village of Keose, about 12 miles from Stornoway, the largest town on Lewis.

He says he wore thick NHS glasses and had long black hair to protect his ears after they were damaged in Vietnam.

“I was one of the few Asians in the Western Islands and definitely the only Vietnamese,” he says.

His parents never mentioned Vietnam, he says.

“They were my parents and I was their child,” says Andy.

By early 1975, it became clear that the war was ending when South Vietnam’s strongholds fell to the communist Viet Cong forces.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled by air and sea, including Westerners and Vietnamese who had supported the Americans.

The US military had already left the country two years earlier, but concern and panic were spreading among the Western public about the orphans left behind.

Their cries were heard by President Gerald Ford, who ordered Operation Babylift, which brought 2,000 South Vietnamese children from orphanages to the United States.

The last flight carrying children and staff from the orphanage took off as artillery fire rolled toward the runway.

“The Vietnam War and Operation Babylift are things that many people, myself included, don’t know much about,” says Andy.

“The play is also intended to raise awareness of the historic event at the Fringe Festival,” says Barton.

“People always apologize when they find out you’re adopted, and I always said, ‘Why? There’s nothing to regret.'”

The show was originally performed in London as a full-length play about Barton’s personal experiences, but when the show transferred to the Fringe Festival, the creative team decided to give it a more Scottish focus.

Despite being involved in music all his life, the play was Andy’s first experience in the theatre industry. He wrote original compositions for the play, while Barton is the lead and only actor.

Andy and Barton were introduced to each other by a friend who was working on Barton’s surfing film, Laura Cameron-Lewis, who became the director of the piece.

Her husband Andrew Eaton-Lewis then joined the Precious Cargo project as a producer to develop the script and find other orphans.

“I didn’t want it to be narcissistic,” says Barton.

“Now that it has been formed with the other orphans, it is not just my story, it is more than that.”

For many children abducted from Vietnam, there are unanswered questions.

Andy and Barton traveled back at different times in their lives to learn about the culture of their birth country.

In 2004, Andy travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, the official name of Saigon, to explore Vietnam for the first time for a BBC2 documentary.

Andy, who works as a music teacher, played the accordion for the children of the orphanage where he was found.

He says his only connection to his past was the street where he was found.

Barton knew nothing of any living blood relatives until he recently discovered a second cousin through a genealogy website.

He was assisted in his search by another orphan from the Vietnam War. Toni Angelique Harrisonwho is still looking for her own mother.

Toni, who grew up in Bedfordshire, England, shares her voice and story on the show and hopes the publicity can reunite her with her mother.

She traveled to the United States in 2018 to meet her father, an American soldier who had fallen in love with her Vietnamese mother.

For all the children in Operation Babylift, time is not on their side, says the producer of the play.

The 50th anniversary is just around the corner and the tragic reality is that her parents may not be with us much longer.

“Operation Babylift was considered controversial at the time,” says Eaton-Lewis.

“Was it the right thing?

He says: “The Americans took advantage of the guilt over Vietnam, the whole thing seemed quite colonialist – all these white families adopting Vietnamese babies.”

“But when you talk to the different adoptees, they all report very positively about their experiences.

“They are aware that it is strange to grow up in this very white environment. Some of them have experienced racism and that has been very difficult.”

“But we built this show heavily on what these people told us – and they were very grateful.”

Despite the successful flights, Operation Babylift began in tragedy when an operational error caused the first plane to crash, killing 138 people, including 78 children.

In total, thanks to an enormous humanitarian effort, 3,300 Vietnamese children – not all of them orphans – managed to reach Western allies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and West Germany safely.

Many of the children had become orphans as a result of the war, but some had simply been separated from their parents in the chaos of the war.

But both men say their chance meeting and their work on the Fringe show brought their personal situations back to mind.

Almost 50 years later, many are still searching for their biological families.

Precious Cargo runs until August 26th at Summerhall in Edinburgh.

Thanks to Oli Charbonneau, lecturer in American history at the University of Glasgow.