The Cause for
Servant of God
Brother Marinus, O.S.B.
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Volume 5, #13 December 25, 2022
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On the Meredith Victory 72 years ago today!
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Thanks to Phil Lacovara and his book, The Mariner & The Monk, for providing the narrative for today's newsletter.
Fr. Sinclair
December 25, 2959:
(Page 378 ff)
The Meredith Victory anchored off Puson Harbor on Christmas Eve evening. At 2024, the pilot came aboard, the Meredith weighed anchor, and entered the harbor, and at 2130, she was made fast to berth 10, pier 2. The wounded soldiers and a North Korean spy were removed from the vessel.
Clearly, now it was time to attempt some relief for the civilians. La Rue prevailed upon the authorities in Pusan to provide food and water for his passengers, who had now been aboard for at least a day and a half. It was early on the morning of Christmas Day, the sky cold, clear and starlit, when port personnel began bringing rice and water aboard. US and ROK Army Military Police (MPs) guarded the gangway and decks to prevent refugees from disembarking and provide some measure of crowd control, but the Koreans were peaceful, appreciative. As the sun rose on a clear morning, the first clear sky the men of the Meredith Victory had seen in days, they finished feeding the refugees and took aboard pallets and bridles for lifting them from the holds when they reached Changsunspo.
At 0935 on the twenty-fifth, Christmas Day, the pilot re-boarded Meredith Victory, and she began her undocking. A half hour later, she had let go all of her lines, the tug pulling the stern from the dock, the anchor windlass heaving on the anchor chain to the pull the bow away. Meredith Victory advanced on her anchor and weighed it, with the tug swinging her stern to starboard so she would face the harbor entrance. At 1019 she was on her own, heading for the breakwater, and a few minutes later the pilot stepped aboard the tug, and the ship was again under the command of Captain La Rue, bound for Koje-do.
Meredith Victory picked her way through the tiny islands, that crossed its path as she steamed towards freedom for her passengers. At 1244 she reduced her speed as she approached the anchorage at Changsungpo. Twenty-five minutes later she was anchored in a hundred feet of water, awaiting the craft that would disembark the refugees. Whether or not the port officials in Pusan knew that the wait would be long and thought there might be aboard discontent and possibly a riot, they had dispatched MPs with the ship to patrol the decks and maintain order. Still, the passengers were quiet aboard Meredith Victory for the rest of the afternoon and evening, as the next few log entries note variations on, “Vessel anchored as before awaiting LSTs to discharge refugees.”
December 24, 1950:
(Page 366 ff)
By the morning of December 24, Christmas Eve, there were still nine thousand men of X Corps ashore, and the three regiments of the 3rd Infantry Division still had their west-to-east distribution, defending a perimeter roughly four thousand yards from the port. At 0900, as the Meredith Victory was steaming south six miles Support east of the Kanjol-ap peninsula, midway between Ulsan and Pusan, the final phase of the Hungnam redeployment began. The rate of naval gunfire had been increasing. From 0800 on the twenty-second to 0800 on the twenty-third, the Gunfire Support Group had fired 402 eight-inch rounds, 2,927 high-explosive five-inch rounds, and 366 five-inch illumination rounds.117 On December 23 the ships tripled their rate of fire.
(Page 377 ff)
That Christmas Eve, Captain La Rue, reflecting on the plight of his passengers, wrote in Meredith Victory’s deck log,
“The nearness of Christmas carried my thoughts to the Holy Family-how they, too, were cold and without shelter. Like the crucified Christ, these good people suffer through the actions of guilty men.”
December 23, 1950:
(Page 362)
By 0330 the next morning, December 23, holds two and five were filled with refugees, but loading continued at the other three. Number four was filled by 0500 and just before sunrise the forward hold, number one, was filled. As the sun rose dim behind the clouds, the effort turned to loading the deck. Old men and women and children, mothers with babies carrying them on their backs in the traditional podaegi, continued their procession across the wooden causeway. The pictures of the refugees aboard Meredith Victory are consistent with Colonel Forney’s comment that in his “personal judgement” among all the refugees, “no more than 10,000 were men of a category that could be used in the armed forces of KOREA.”105 Crew members were impressed by the stoicism of the men and women, many of whom had traveled miles on foot, slept on the frozen ground, barely eaten, all while carrying their children or what little belongings they could as they fled for their lives. Whether crammed into what would soon become a fetid hold or shivering on deck, they heard not one complaint.
The loading was not without incident. More than once the crew witnessed a refugee’s sole possessions, a bundle of clothes, a suitcase, or a sewing machine, tumble into the harbor. There was no time to try to recover it, and the sad civilian would continue on his way onto the ship. Worse was a mother who dropped her baby and before she could pick him up, someone in the crushing crowd stepped on the baby and killed him. La Rue, conscious of rumors among the Koreans that they were going to be dumped into the sea, resisted Army calls for a sea burial for the unfortunate child. He ordered his crew to give the father “an hour to bury his child ashore.”
By mid-morning it was clear that Meredith Victory would soon board all of the refugees she could handle. At 1030 Captain Dawson came aboard, and at 1110 the last refugee crossed the wooden bridge across the Norcuba. Just after 1130 the two YTBs working fore and aft pulled the Meredith Victory away from the Norcuba and slowly spun her stern west so that the ship would be bow-on to the entrance to the harbor. By noon she had cleared the breakwater and left the pilot on one of the tugs. The bridge activated the degaussing coils, and the ship accelerated as it crossed the swept channel. By 1448 she had reached Buoy One and a half an hour later, Meredith Victory secured her degaussing coils as she left the minefield behind and turned south for Pusan. By 1448 she had reached Buoy One and a half an hour later, Meredith Victory secured her degaussing coils as she left the minefield behind and turned south for Pusan.
December 22, 1950:
(Page 345 ff)
I was tied up with parish end-of-the-year correspondence yesterday, and failed to get December 22nd events off. This was a very important day for Captain La Rue and the crew of the Meredith Victory.
The next day, December 22, began as before, partly cloudy, cold, and with a gentle northwesterly wind. At 0650, before the sun rose, a boat68 came alongside with “rations for 1,000 men.” Forty-five minutes later, she was away, and the day went on like the previous, with holds inspected, anchor bearings taken, orders awaited. At 1520 Captain La Rue ordered a lifeboat drill to break the monotony. The abandon-ship signal blared and the men mustered at their stations and climbed into their boats. The boats were lowered into the water and the motors run and tested for five minutes before they were raised again.
As the lifeboats returned to their davits, another boat was approaching, but this time it was carrying the harbor pilot, Captain Dawson, with orders for the Meredith Victory: she was to weigh anchor and tie up outboard the SS Norcuba on Dock One. Captain Dawson was aboard and in the bridge by 1530 and three minutes later on a slow bell, the ship was slowly walking up her anchor rode, the windlass on deck drawing the chain up the hawsepipe until the anchor was weighed at 1553.
With Captain Dawson on the bridge, Meredith Victory slowly picked her way through the anchored ships. The outer harbor was thick with ships at anchor, thirty of the eighty available anchor locations occupied by ships being loaded from lighters or awaiting loading there or at a dock. By half past the hour, Dawson had her inside the inner harbor, and less than fifteen minutes later she was in position to moor alongside Norcuba.69 Stevedores were loading that ship from the pier with more than twelve thousand barrels of fuel and lubricating lubricating oil.
With only one of the YTBs available, the wind was pushing Meredith Victory towards the dock and the ship that was already there, so Meredith Victory let go her starboard anchor to control her bow, while the tug took her stern. Berthing merchant ships alongside each other was a somewhat hazardous proposition, since, unlike warships, they did not carry fenders. The port director provided floating wooden “camels” to hold the ships off from the dock or each other, but in this case, whatever was between the ships was not quite adequate, and the Meredith Victory made contact astern with the Norcuba. Second Mate Albert Golembeski’s log entry says, “No apparent damage to either ship,” but later that day Norcuba’s master sent Captain La Rue a “Letter of Damage.” In any event, at 1713 she was moored fast, boilers steaming and engine slowly turning so she would be ready to loose her hawsers and make for sea as soon as ordered.
But what cargo was Meredith Victory going to add to the three hundred tons she was already carrying? At 1730 the Deck Log only notes, “Army officers aboard with orders to load.” In later retellings, they were described as “several Army colonels,” with only one identified: Colonel John H. Chiles, who was the X Corps G-3 (operations officer). The others were likely Lieutenant Colonel Mizell, head of the control group’s movement section, either Colonel Gustave W. Oberlin, the X Corps civil affairs officer or his deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Leon W. Korschgen, and a representative or two of the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade, which was responsible for supporting the actual loading. Once settled in the saloon, the colonels told Captain La Rue and his officers that the cargo was not to be soldiers or trucks or ammunition or C-rations or any of the other thousands of items X Corps had already crammed into 135 shiploads by the time Meredith Victory tied up alongside Norcuba. Instead, her cargo would be civilian refugees.
December 20, 1950
(page 342 ff)
The winds were calm before sunrise on December 20 as the Meredith Victory neared Hungnam on her return from Pusan. The sea showed a moderate northwesterly swell as she steamed a course just west of north, twenty-three miles off the coast, almost due east of Chuncheon, far enough into the Sea of Japan that the fathometer couldn’t find the bottom. The day dawned overcast but with good visibility. At 1000 Chief Mate Savastio inspected the holds and the cargo spaces, which were nearly empty except for three hundred tons of aviation fuel in fifty-two-gallon barrels that had been left by the authorities at Pusan at the bottom of Holds Two and Three. Captain La Rue inspected the officers’ quarters at 1130, and afterwards he joined the officers off watch for lunch in the Meredith Victory’s saloon, the Merchant Marine equivalent of a navy ship’s officers’ wardroom.
About two hours later, after the ship had passed well offshore Wonsan, Third Mate Alvar Franzon activated the ship’s degaussing coils to make her less vulnerable to magnetic-influence mines. At 1528 the bridge sighted the frigate assigned as the Harbor Entrance Control Vessel near Sea Buoy One. Franzon called Captain La Rue to the bridge, and the men navigated the ship to the entrance of the swept channel. Unmentioned in the Deck Log, the ship’s radioman was feeling the effects of too much Soju, the potent Korean liquor, in Pusan and had been shackled by his ankles to his bunk as Meredith Victory passed Buoy One at 1610.
Junior Third Mate Burley Smith stood on the bridge wing in the freezing breeze and used the Aldis lamp to communicate with the frigate by Morse code. The ship was instructed to take an anchorage, and the ship slowly made her way through the swept channel to Anchorage 46, almost dead in the center of the anchorages in the “Transport Area” south of the entrance to the inner harbor. She walked out her starboard anchor at 1947, and at 1948 the bridge rang the engine room, “All Stop.”
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More on the Miracle of the
SS Meredith Victory
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From an email from KyungAe Jeon, December 14, 2022:
Dear Honorable Fr. Sinclair Oubre,
Thank you so much for considering the news on the Opera 'The Miracles of Meredith Victory' so much!
I think it is a miracle to see the birth of such a spectacular, amazing opera!
The singers, chorus, musicians, producer who have been working hard for many years are the most famous, world-renown artists in Korea. Of course the main character, hero is the Capt. LaRue. He shows endless love for the refugees facing crisis!
On the occasion of the 140th Diplomatic Relations Between Korea and US, I heard they are dreaming and planning to tour US next year.
In the middle of the opera, the refugees, chorus, sopranos, baritones, the orchestra, all participants sing "Amazing Grace" together and it is the highlight of the opera!
I could not send you the record of it because it was forbidden to record the opera during the performance. It really is a miracle to see the birth of such a amazing opera symbolizing 'LOVE, PEACE'.
I will send you more news later.
Thanks a lot and have wonderful Christmas Season~☆
Jeon, KyungAe,
Novelist,
Author of The Changjin Reservoir Campaign.
President,
Int'l Relations Promotion Committee,
Korea PEN Centre
Here is a link to the opera's poster, and pictures of the cast:
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An Article in Ireland's Own
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The Great Christmas Rescue of 1950
by: Maolsheachlann OCeallaigh
Míle buíochas
It has been described by the US Marine Authority as “the greatest rescue operation by a single ship in the history of mankind”. It set sail from Hungnam, North Korea on the 23rd December 1950, reaching South Korea on the 26th. The man behind it is today being investigated as a possible saint by the Catholic church. But few people have heard the story of the Meredith Victory and its captain, Leonard LaRue, who later lived as a Benedictine monk under the name Brother Marinus.
Captain Leonard LaRue saved the lives of some fourteen thousand North Korean refugees, all packed into a single vessel. The refugees faced possible execution by communists if they remained. The defenceless ship risked destruction by sea-mines and aerial attack. It was carrying hundreds of tons of jet fuel which could have exploded if the ship was hit– or if the fuel was ignited by the fires which the uncomprehending refugees lit below decks to keep warm.
In spite of the odds, not one soul was lost from the Meredith Victory. In fact, five babies were born during the short voyage, and everybody aboard was carried to safety. The refugees included the parents of a future President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in.
Although it was the most spectacular, the story of the Meredith Victory was only one part of the Hungnam evacuation, during which some ninety-eight thousand North Korean refugees were evacuated, along with thousands of UN and US troops making a tactical retreat to South Korea. Veterans of the evacuation recall that everybody on the American side– from the High Command to the ordinary soldiers and sailors– agreed that they could not abandon the thousands of desperate North Koreans fleeing the communist regime, even though they were technically enemy civilians. The Hungnam evacuation is one of those tales of altruism which brighten the grim annals of warfare.
The Korean War is often referred to as "the forgotten war", in comparison with other recent conflicts involving America. Fought between 1950 and 1953, it was primarily a war between communist forces in North Korea and anti-communists in the South, both seeking control over the whole country. The USSR and communist China supported the North, while the United Nations and America supported the South. Between two and three million civilians died in the war, which had no clear outcome, and which technically continues today as no peace treaty was ever signed.
The Hungnam evacuation occurred during the first few months of the war, when early advances by South Korean and UN forces were reversed by the entry of Chinese troops into the conflict. Indeed, the evacuation occurred against the background of advancing Chinese soldiers, held at bay by gunfire from the ships preparing their escape.
The Meredith Victory was not a military ship but rather a vessel of the US Military Marine, which is a partnership of government and private enterprise. It was acting as a military supply ship in the war. This makes Captain LaRue's actions all the more noble, as the military could not order him to take a single refugee.
Many of the refugees were known anti-communists who feared execution. Others were simply people who had fled communist rule, which they had experienced since the end of World War Two. The refugees were so desperate to escape that thousands of them waded into the ocean towards the American ships, in conditions which one US colonel described as “unremitting, hellish cold.”
J. Robert Lunney, an officer on the Meredith Victory (later a Rear Admiral), described the evacuation vividly: "The refugees were loaded like cargo. They were placed in every cargo hold and between decks. We had no food or water for them. No doctors. No interpreters. The temperature was well below freezing, but the holds were not heated or lighted." The ship, which was now carrying fourteen thousand people, had only been designed to carry about sixty.
Lunney had high praise for Captain LaRue: “For him, the whole issue of whether to try to rescue that many people was an easy decision. We succeeded because of his faith and his motivation. He knew that even if the whole ship blew up and every one of us was killed, he would still be able to stand before his Maker some day and say, ‘I did the right thing’.”
The Meredith Victory left Hungnam on the morning of December 23rd, bound for the port of Pusan in South Korea. They reached Pusan on Christmas Eve, but that city was already crammed with refugees and had no room for any more. It was another two days before they could disembark on the island of Geoje some fifty miles away. Even here they were not out of danger, as the refugees had to be lowered one-by-one onto an LST (a landing ship for tanks), and risked falling and being crushed between the two ships. Thankfully, they all survived.
In 1954, Captain LaRue entered a Benedictine monastery in New Jersey, where he ran the monastery gift shop. He died in October 2001, and his cause for sainthood was opened in 2019.
(Reprinted with permission of the author and in the Ireland's Own Christmas Annual 2022, currently on sale)
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The Birth: A feature Film about the foundation of the Catholic Church in Korea and its 1st Priest Martyr
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As the website MyDramaList describes: "The film deals in depth with the patience and courage of Kim Dae Gun, a young man who had to create his own hope, his willingness to throw his body, and his love for God and man that he showed throughout his life."
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A New Korean Play Premiers: The Miracle of the SS Meredith Victory
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Our friend of the Cause of Brother Marinus, kyung Ae Jeon, sent me a collection of photos which she took at the performance of The Miracle of the Meredith Victory.
When more information is known about the play, and the possibility of its performance in the US, I will pass them on to you.
Below are a collection of photos that Jeon sent to me.
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What was going on in Hungnam 52 years ago today!
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Drawing from Phillip Lacovara's biography of Captain Leonard La Rue, The Mariner & the Monk, we learn that a big section of the US Marines X Corp was evacuated
"As it turned out, the decision to evacuate the Marines first was well-founded. The senior medical officer aboard the General Collins commented that, “seventy five (75) percent” of the troops evacuated from Hungnam “suffered one or more respiratory complaints.” The chaplain’s report for the Collins said,
“On Wednesday, 13 December we sailed from Hungnam for Pusan, Korea. On board were … 4,826 Marines. A part of those remaining who had fought their way out of the trap at the Chosen [sic] Reservoir. I was told later by Army personnel ashore that staging areas had been set up to receive these men when they got in, but they did not stop. They marched right on by to board small craft waiting to bring them to the ship. Sick call was a nearly twenty-four (24) hour a day project for the ship’s medical department and the USN doctors attached to the Marines. Nearly every man needed some kind of medical attention.”
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Fr. Paul Kim, The Incheon Landing, and the Cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus
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On October 2, 2022, I set up the exhibit for the cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus/Captain Leonard La Rue at the XXV Stella Maris World Congress in Glasgow, Scotland.
Soon after, Fr. Paul Kim, Stella Maris - Inchon port chaplain, came to the table. It was the first time that I met him, and I explained that Captain Leonard La Rue had rescued 14,000 North Koreans during Christmas 1950.
Fr. Kim was familiar with Christmas miracle, and was interested in the cause. What he was not familiar with was La Rue’s actions in his home port of Inchon, fifty-two years before.
The Meredith Victory was one of 19 merchant vessels that sailed from Yokohama as part of the Second Echelon. This convoy later would be joined by other vessels to form General MacArthur’s Inchon Landing armada.
Phillip Lacovara describes voyage from Yokahoam to Inchon in his book The Mariner & The Monk:
“On September 13 another hurricane, Typhoon Kezia, roared across southern Japan with winds of sixty-seven miles per hour, striking the islands of Honshu and Kyushu....The storm struck the Second Echelon as the convoy from Yokohama was crossing south of Kyushu at ten knots into the Sea of Japan.
“None of the ships had easy going that night. For the Meredith Victory, on station at the right rear of the formation and top heavy with tanks and trucks on its deck, the fifty-foot swell and the sixty-mile-per-hour wind from the port quarter rolled the ship alarmingly. Junior Third Officer Burley Smith was in the process of relieving Second Mate Al Golembeski from his watch when the two officers watched with considerable concern as the ship rolled to starboard and hung healed over. Chains securing the deck cargo started to break, with several tanks sliding until they stopped against the starboard bulwark. The ship slowly righted itself and resumed rolling back to port, some of the trucks now sliding across the deck, the shrouds from the ship’s cranes cutting into their canvas roofs and injuring the soldiers inside. Top heavy with loose cargo, Meredith Victory was in danger of capsizing.
“Before he could call the captain in his cabin a deck below, Smith found that La Rue had already braved the violent rolls to climb the ladder and was standing beside him. Silently timing the waves and the motion of the ship for a few moments, La Rue calmly ordered the helmsman, ‘Hard left rudder,’ and told Smith to order ‘Full ahead” on the engine-order telegraph. No one spoke as the ship slowly turned through the perilous point where the seas were on the beam. When the ship steadied on course with a small angle to the wind and waves, the captain ordering ‘Slow ahead’ to keep the Meredith Victory pointing into the sea, waiting out the storm as it moved past. In the moment, the junior third mate would have turned the ship to starboard, in the direction of the tanks loose against the bulwark, but La Rue, with almost two decades at sea and months of stormy weather under his belt, knew that the time saved in getting the ship around into the wind and out of the quartering sea was most important. Reflecting on the decision almost seventy years later, Smith pointed to this event as an example of Captain La Rue’s calm under pressure and expert seamanship.
“As the storm passed a few hours later and the winds and seas calmed, the Meredith Victory resumed her course for Inchon. Meredith Victory arrived at her assigned anchorage three hours late, but with her cargo and crew intact.”
On September 16, 1950, Captain La Rue was ordered to bring his ship into Inchon harbor, and begin unloading their cargo of tanks and trucks onto to landing craft to be transported ashore.
By the grace of God and the skill of Captain La Rue, the Meredith Victory was saved from capsizing, and her crew and dozens soldiers were saved from certain death.
As the cause moves forward, I look forward working with Fr. Kim in spreading the word about Captain La Rue/Brother Marinus among the South Korean Catholic Community.
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Leonard LaRue, Rescuer in the Korean War,
Dies at 87
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
OCT. 20, 2001
Brother Marinus Leonard LaRue, who as a merchant marine captain in the Korean War evacuated 14,000 refugees from a besieged North Korean port, died on Sunday at St. Paul's Abbey in Newton, N.J. Brother Marinus, who became a Benedictine monk after two decades at sea, was 87.
Three days before Christmas 1950, Captain LaRue came upon what he likened to ''a scene of Dante's Inferno'' at the port. On Christmas Day, he delivered all 14,000 refugees to safety on a South Korean island some 500 miles away aboard a freighter designed to hold only 60 people. The United States Maritime Administration called his feat ''the greatest rescue by a single ship in the annals of the sea.''
Captain LaRue was the skipper of the 455-foot Meredith Victory, a Moore-McCormack Lines freighter that had been carrying supplies to American servicemen in Korea on behalf of the Navy.
In December 1950, the Meredith Victory was summoned to the North Korean port Hungnam, which was jammed with 105,000 American and South Korean marines and soldiers and more than 90,000 North Korean civilians retreating from a Chinese Communist onslaught at the Chosin Reservoir. About 200 American vessels had converged on Hungnam for evacuation while American ships and planes bombarded the perimeter to hold off Communist troops. Continue reading the main story
''I trained my binoculars and saw a pitiable scene,'' Captain LaRue remembered. ''Refugees thronged the docks. With them was everything they could wheel, carry or drag. Beside them, like frightened chicks, were their children.''
On the night of Dec. 22, the Meredith Victory began taking aboard a stream of refugees who feared they would be killed by Communist troops, who regarded them as American sympathizers for having fled their homes.
''There were families with 8 and 10 children,'' Captain LaRue remembered. ''There was a man with a violin, a woman with a sewing machine, a young girl with triplets. There were 17 wounded, some stretcher cases, many who were aged, hundreds of babies. Finally, as the sun rode high the next morning, we had 14,000 human beings jammed aboard. It was impossible, and yet they were there.''
The refugees were crammed into the cargo holds of a freighter that held 47 crewmen and was designed to carry about a dozen passengers.
The Meredith Victory headed for the South Korean port Pusan, 28 hours away, traveling through heavily mined waters that were patrolled by enemy submarines.
The refugees had little food or water and there were no blankets or sanitary facilities. The crewmen gave their coats to the women and children, but the misery was unrelieved. At one point, young men came topside seeking food, and a riot seemed imminent.
After a treacherous voyage though the Sea of Japan, the freighter arrived at Pusan on Christmas Eve, only to be turned away by South Korean officials, who were trying to cope with refugees already there. Captain LaRue was told to head for the island of Koje Do, 50 miles to the southwest.
The Meredith Victory arrived at the island on Christmas. But the dock was small and crowded, so the freighter had to remain on the open sea for a third frigid night. The next day, two LST's -- Navy ships designed to land tanks onshore during combat -- were lashed to the freighter, and the refugees climbed onto them and finally made it to safety.
Not one refugee died in the evacuation; the number of Koreans aboard had, in fact, increased by five babies.
Captain LaRue, a Philadelphia native and a veteran of World War II merchant marine operations in the Atlantic, remained in command of the Meredith Victory until it was decommissioned in 1952. He received American and South Korean government citations for his rescue work, and the Meredith Victory was designated a Gallant Ship by Congress.
In 1954, he left the sea to join the Benedictines at St. Paul's Abbey, where he lived until his death. He left no immediate survivors.
''I was always somewhat religious,'' he reflected a decade after carrying out the Korean evacuation. ''All the things in my life helped to cement my determination to enter the monastery.''
But he looked back on the rescue as a turning point in his life.
As he put it: ''I think often of that voyage. I think of how such a small vessel was able to hold so many persons and surmount endless perils without harm to a soul. The clear, unmistakable message comes to me that on that Christmastide, in the bleak and bitter waters off the shores of Korea, God's own hand was at the helm of my ship.''
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American Merchant Marine Veterans News
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The latest issue of the AMMV News carries an article that I wrote on Second Mate Leonard La Rue on the SS Mormacmar in March of 1942. He was with other ships north of Reykjavik, Iceland in preparation for PQ-13.
I hope you enjoy it.
Blessings,
Fr. Sinclair Oubre
Diocesan Director
Stella Maris - Diocese of Beaumont
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Updating the Prayer for the Cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus
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A big thank you to Bishop Sweeney of the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey for updating our prayer for the cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus, OSB.
Since we began this cause, I have learned that it is imperative that we demonstrate to the Decastery for the Causes of Saints that:
- Many Catholic faithful actively ask for the intercession of Servant of God Brother Marinus;
- Stories of the active answering of request for intercessions are collected to demonstrate his intercessional power.
With that in mind, Bishop Sweeney had approved the update of the prayer that adds the line: "Through his intercession, grant the favor I now present (here make your request)."
If you pray for the intercession of Servant of God Brother Marinus, and you believe that his intercession helped in the healing of a loved one, finding a job, brought about safe travels, or other simple spiritual helps, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, send us a short story, and the date the intercession was requested. I keep a spreadsheet, and that will greatly help when the cause gets to the Holy See.
If you would like copies of the new prayer cards or you wish to report the intercessions of Servant of God Brother Marinus, you can:
Mail to: The Cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus
1500 Jefferson Drive
Port Arthur, Texas 77642
Fr. Sinclair Oubre, J.C.L., AFNI
Stella Maris - Diocese of Beaumont
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Two Styles of the New Prayer Card
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A special message from the St. Paul's Abbey's Abbot
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Dear Fr. Sinclair and the members of the guild.
Thank you, Fr. Sinclair, for organizing today’s virtual meeting. It’s important that we keep the momentum for the cause of Br. Marinus going and it’s small activities like this that really help. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend today’s meeting. I am very sorry and felt sad.
I thank to Father and the Apostolate of the Sea. I also would like to thank everyone who took part in the special event for Br. Marinus that we had here at St. Paul’s Abbey last August. It was a wonderful event and it was terrific to see everyone. It meant a lot to me and the brothers here at the monastery. Br. Marinus is a great example to us of monastic fidelity, and as a community mostly of Korean ethnicity, a hero of our people and a special figure in our history. It truly warms our hearts to have people recognize our confrere, Br. Marinus, and make such efforts for his cause.
As I had mentioned in that August meeting, we here at St. Paul’s Abbey pray for the cause of Br. Marinus every day at complines. I do hope that all of you will join us in this prayer and encourage others to do so as well. In prayer, we recognize that it is God’s work in us, and that we are seeking God’s will as we share the story of Br. Marinus with the world.
Once again, thank you for all your efforts. It’s truly awesome to think that one of our own, by his heroic actions inspired of faith and charity, gave life and hope to so many. Br. Marinus has touched our lives and inspired us. Let us pray that with our cooperation with God’s grace that Br. Marinus’ story will continue to inspire and encourage many in the Church and the wider world. Thank you.
In the Love of Jesus Christ,
Fr. Samuel Kim, OSB
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Bishop Kevin Sweeney, the diocesan bishop of Paterson, New Jersey, appeared on Catholic New Headlines of the Diocese of Brooklyn to speak about the cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus.
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On Wednesday, August 11, Gene Wilhelm talked with Fr. Sinclair Oubre about two American Catholics with a military background who are on the path to sainthood. He is the postulator for the cause of Brother Marinus, born Leonard LaRue, who was a Korean War hero who rescued over 14,000 Korean civilians from communist rule during Christmastime 1950–51. This incredible feat has been described by Richard Goldstein of the New York Times as the "largest humanitarian rescue operation by a single ship in human history."
Our guest also spoke for a few minutes about the life and the path to canonization of Fr. Emil Kapaun, a Korean War soldier and chaplain who sacrificed his life in order to save the lives of many men in his prison camp. Fr. Oubre is the Pastor at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Community in Orange, Texas. Enjoy this journey into a fascinating corner of the American Catholic story! And remember when choosing between the values of heaven and the values of earth, always round up!
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Meet Father LaFleur and Brother Marinus
by Brian Fraga
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Brother Marinus
As a Benedectine monk, Brother Marinus never once in 50 years spoke about his exploits during the Korean War that saved 14,000 Korean refugees.
“He never talked about what he did. Anybody who lived with him will tell you that. And he didn’t want to talk about it,” said Benedictine Father Joel Macul, who lived with Brother Marinus at St. Paul’s Benedictine Abbey in Newton, New Jersey.
“If you asked him about it, he would simply say, ‘Well, you weren’t there so you wouldn’t understand.’ That was the end of the conversation. But that’s not unusual for anybody who has had any experience or trauma of war. People don’t talk about it, except to other guys who were there,” Father Macul told Our Sunday Visitor.
In December 1950, Brother Marinus was Capt. Leonard LaRue, the skipper of the 455-foot Meredith Victory, a freighter carrying military supplies to American servicemen in northeast Korea.
Three days before Christmas, Capt. LaRue, a Philadelphia native, came upon what he later likened to a scene out of Dante’s Inferno at the North Korean port city of Hungnam. There he saw thousands of Korean refugees retreating from a Chinese Communist onslaught at the Chosin Reservoir.....
NB: Servant of God Brother Marinus' story is in the second half of this article.
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National Catholic Register:
Heroic Mariner-Monk Sails for Sainthood: Servant of God Marinus LaRue
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Navy League's Weekly Report Highlights Cause!
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AMMV News Magazine Feature:
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It All Could Have Been So Different!
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Dear Guild Members and Friends of the Cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus,
My apologies for not sending out a newsletter for quite a while now. I will just say that things have been very busy on the parish and maritime ministry levels.
This has been a great day for the cause for Servant of God Brother Marinus. During today's session of our US Bishops Conference General Assembly, Bishop Sweeney of Paterson, New Jersey presented the cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus to the United States bishops for their endorsement. They voted 99% with no abstentions or negative votes to endorse our cause.
Blessings,
Fr. Sinclair Oubre, J.C.L., AFNI
Diocesan Director
Stella Maris - Diocese of Beaumont
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In this interview with Fr. Sinclair Oubre (Stella Maris - Diocese of Beaumont) and Doreen Badeaux (Apostleship of the Sea USA), Phil share the story of Captain Leonard La Rue and the crew of the SS Meredith Victory on the 70th anniversary of the initiation of the loading of 14,000 North Korean refugees at Hungnam, North Korea.
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Please raise up in prayer, asking for the intercession of Servant of God Brother Marinus for the Episcopal Delegate for the Cause of Servant of God Brother Marinus. He recently suffered a heart attack and a stroke, and is in very serious condition.
Please raise up in prayer, asking for the intercession of the Chairman of the Historical Commission. He underwent heart surgery before Christmas, and is recovering well.
The prayer prayer for the intercessions of Servant of God Brother Marinus is at the bottom of this newsletter!
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Ned Forney with his wife Jodi are Americans living in Seoul, South Korea. Ned has done great work in chronicling the Korean War, and the great men and women who took part in it. You can read read Ned's writings by visiting his web page at: http://nedforney.com.
While taking the Seoul subway to the park, they came across the above poster.
To Ned's and Jodi's surprise Captain Leonard La Rue had been named Korean War Hero of the month of December. This is so appropriate on the 70th anniversary of the Christmas Miracle.
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New Biography of Captain Leonard LaRue/Brother Marinus published!"
The Mariner and the Monk: Captain LaRue, Brother Marinus, and the Rescue at Hungnam
by Phillip Lacovara
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The Mariner and the Monk tells the story of Captain Leonard La Rue, a brave officer in the Merchant Marine, a Benedictine monk, and the reason tens of thousands of Koreans are alive today and live in freedom. (from Amazon.com)
The book, at this writing, is available in Kindle format for $9.99. Later this week, printed editions will be available through Amazon.
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The SS Meredith Victory's near disasterous participation in the Inchon Landing Convoy: September 1950
Want to see more about the SS Meredith Victory? Watch our earlier MaritimeTV video presentation on the Meredith Victory's participation in General MacArthur's Inchon Landing.
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Prayer for the Cause of
Servant of God Brother Marinus
God, our Father, Creator of the seas, Protector of refugees, and all those in need,
You called Captain Leonard LaRue to recognize Your Son Jesus Christ in the faces of the Korean refugees, and led him as Brother Marinus to a life of prayer and service in the tradition of St. Benedict.
May his life be an inspiration to us, and lead us to greater confidence in Your love so that we may continue his work of caring for the people of the sea, welcoming those who are refugees from war, and deepening all the faithful in their prayer and work of service.
We humbly ask that You glorify Your servant Captain Leonard LaRue/Brother Marinus on earth according to the design of Your holy will, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ our Lord.
AMEN
Nihil Obstat: Rev. T. Kevin Corcoran
Censor Liborium Date: August 1, 2017
Imprimatur: + Arthur Serratelli
Bishop of Paterson Date: August 1, 2017
Decree Initiating Cause: + Arthur Serratelli
Bishop of Paterson Date: March 25, 2019
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I Want To Join
the Servant of God Brother Marinus Guild
You can help promote the Cause of Servant of God Bother Marinus by:
- Praying the prayer for Servant of God Brother Marinus each day
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Ask for the intercession of Servant of God Brother Marinus for temporal or physical needs that you or a loved one have. If you believe that your petition has been answered through the intercession of Brother Marinus, please notify us at the Cause for Servant of God Brother Marinus at brothermarinuscause@gmail.com.
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Make a tax deductible donation to the Apostleship of the Sea of the United States of America (the petitioning association of the Christian faithful) for $50.00 or more each year. Go to: https://aosusa.americommerce.com/general-donations-to-aos-usa-clone.aspx
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