Father Missed His Plane

by Vincent Lee, Simon Luckhurst (Editor)

Overview

On April 12, 1975, just days before Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized control of Phnom Penh, Vincent's father missed a chance to take his family and leave Cambodia on a US Marine Corp helicopter. Had they boarded the chopper, Vincent would not have had to endure four years of brutality and starvation. He and his family somehow survived the genocide, but then found themselves destitute when they returned to the ruined city that was once their home.
In 1980, along with his sixty-four-year-old grandmother, Vincent risked his life to cross the landmine-filled Cambodian jungle to reach a refugee camp in Thailand. Father Missed His Plane is a powerful real-life story of a boy surviving the Killing Fields of Cambodia. His experience as a refugee who ultimately found sanctuary has a special poignancy in today's global political climate.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940161310496
Publisher:	Vincent Lee
Publication date:	01/07/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Vincent Lee (Chinese name: Lee Teng Huy) was born and grew up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Vincent's parents were both ethnic Chinese-Cambodian. Like many of his Cambodian generation, from April 17, 1975, when the Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized control of Phnom Penh, Vincent was taken away from his family at the age of ten to join a labour camp for boys and endured four years of brutality and starvation. Vincent was one of the luckiest survivors of the greatest genocide in Cambodian history under the regime.
In 1980, Vincent escaped with his Grandmother, risking his life across Cambodia jungle of landmines into the refugee camp in Thailand. Vincent arrived in Sydney, Australia, in 1981 under the Refugee and Special Humanitarian Program.
In 1982, he began sustained formal education for the first time at the Christian Brother's school in Sydney. He cleaned classrooms and worked at night to pay his school fees, and combined works and studies to complete his degree at Sydney University in 1991. He also holds a master degree in Finance from the University of Technology, Sydney.