Amazing story of the Scots who saved 346 lives

Terror on the seas as panicked refugees hurled babies across waves.

It was one of the most daring rescue operations ever carried out by a Scottish vessel in peacetime.

In ferocious seas with 20ft waves and gusting winds of up to 75mph the aftermath of Typhoon Lola a tiny wooden boat began to sink. It was crammed with hundreds of refugees, including many women and children, fleeing Vietnam’s oppressive communist regime.

As heavy rain began to fill the boat with water and its terrified passengers screamed for help, the crew sent up a distress flare.

By chance, sailors aboard the MV Wellpark, on a voyage from Durban to Kao Hsiung carrying grain from the River Plate sighted the red distress rocket and altered course for the sinking vessel.

What happened next is etched in the memories of everyone involved.

Graham MacQueen, from Oban, was the chief training officer for the 50-strong crew of the Wellpark on the night of October 1, 1978.

He recalled: “I volunteered to take the 24ft lifeboat and go to their aid. It wasn’t a rescue craft, but it was all we had.

“There were about half a dozen or so senior cadets with us, the youngest was aged just 16 and the oldest 20. It was about 8pm by then and pitch dark. But while the wind had subsided there were still huge 20ft waves. As we approached their boat, that huge swell meant that one minute we were above them, the next below. As I shone my torch onto the deck I could see a line of anxious faces. We immediately called to them to jump into our boat but they wouldn’t.

“They feared we were Russian and communist and would send them back to Vietnam.

“But once they realised our accents were British they started, literally, throwing their babies and toddlers to us. The cadets who were terribly seasick as the boat bobbed about in the huge waves were catching kids in mid-air.”

But Graham who hadn’t realised how many were on board started to fear the lifeboat would become swamped as a stream of terrified people leapt in.

He decided to pull away and take the first load of survivors back to the Wellpark.

Then, under the skillful command of Captain Hector Connell, he hatched a plan to pull the distressed fishing vessel alongside the 171ft container ship and offload the remaining survivors.

Graham, who three years ago was awarded an MBE for his services to charitable causes in Argyll, said: “The crew threw a scramble net over the side but many of those rescued were too exhausted to climb up, so I tied a line around those who couldn’t, especially the children, and they were hauled up onto the Wellpark’s deck.”

Mike Newton, 55, then a 20-year-old budding navigator from Caithness, said: “We were working under the ship’s floodlights, pulling on the ropes, hauling babies in baskets, children on ropes and helping the adults up the scrambling nets and ladders.”

The former Aberdeen University student added: “Many just collapsed on to the steel deck, just too weak to go on.

“Realising how dehydrated and starved these people were, the ship’s cooks quickly set about making gallons of soup and coffee and we handed out all the bedding we could.”

Makeshift shelters were erected to accommodate the Vietnamese families on the deck and life on board settled into a happy routine, until the ship reached Taiwan.

Graham recalls: “The children recovered really quickly and did what all kids do played. Fifty-eight of them were under five and they were running around having fun. We experienced real joy in seeing that…the joy of helping other people, plucking them out of a big sea and watching them recover.”

One of the survivors who was plucked to safety that night, Diep Quan, has many reasons to thank the crew of MV Wellpark. Cradling her daughter Amelia, she recalled the moment when the journey to freedom turned to terror.

She said: “I was Amelia’s age when my parents decided to flee Communist Vietnam. Only now, as a mum myself, can I begin to understand what they went through.”

Diep told how the 70ft wooden fishing boat, which had sailed from My Tho, a small country town on the banks of the Mekong River, hadn’t long reached open sea when disaster struck.

As towering waves pummelled and tossed the flimsy craft, which was without engines or rudder, all its terrified passengers could do was bail and pray.

Below deck Diep, her two sisters and her brother huddled against their mother as their dad said: “We are sinking. We will be in the water soon.”

Diep recalled: “We were silent. We just absorbed what he saying. I don’t swim. I don’t like the water. I wondered what it would be like to have the sea close over my head.”

It’s no surprise Diep remembers the rescue vividly.

She revealed: “I was in my nightie. I wanted to climb up but I wasn’t allowed to. I wouldn’t have had the strength. My brother and I were pulled up with a rope, but the babies and toddlers, including my little sisters, were put inside Adidas bags and hauled up.

“It seemed like a long time before we were rescued. I remember the huge waves and our little boat one moment being beside the black metal wall that was the hull of the Wellpark and the next being above its decks and looking down on all the lights.”

The refugees were later taken to a reception centre in London’s Kensington Barracks before going on to assume new lives in the UK, Europe and the US. IT trainer Diep, 43, who lives in London, has organised a reunion next month to allow the refugees to properly thank their rescuers.

“They are our unsung heroes,” said Diep. “Back then, we did not speak English and did not know all that was going on. But even as a youngster I would remember that night on the South China Sea and think ‘Wouldn’t it be great to meet the people who rescued us’. It will be a dream come true.”

Amelia will be with her mother and their entire family to thank the men who made her life possible. Diep says: “She knows that without them, she and many others would not be here today.”