Refugees crowd aboard the SS Meredith Victory during the Hungnam evacuation in December 1950. The operation evacuated some 105,000 Korean and UN troops and more than 91,000 civilians from Hungnam Port in what is now North Korea after Chinese forces entered the Korean War and surrounded the allied forces. A fleet of 193 vessels also transported about 17,500 vehicles and 350,000 tons of cargo to Jangseungpo Port on Geoje Island.GEOJE CITY/YONHAP
Shin Bok-ryong
The author is a former emeritus professor of history at Konkuk University.
After the successful Incheon Landing, Gen. Douglas MacArthur promised U.S. President Harry Truman that his troops would be home before Thanksgiving, after Truman asked him to end the Korean War before Christmas. MacArthur ordered three divisions of Lt. Gen. Edward Almond’s X Corps, totaling 12,000 troops, and the ROK I Corps under Maj. Gen. Kim Baik-il — including the 3rd Division under Maj. Gen. Choi Seok and the Capital Division under Maj. Gen. Song Yo-chan — to advance north.
There was exhilaration at reaching the Yalu River. Yet the wiser course would have been to stabilize the front along the Pyongyang-Wonsan line in early October and pursue armistice talks. MacArthur, however, was thinking not of an armistice but surrender, and would hear no such strategy or advice.
China committed 120,000 troops. The ensuing fighting is taught at the U.S. Military Academy as one of the 10 major defeats in American military history and as the “coldest war” ever fought. Some 45,000 Chinese troops and 800 U.S. troops were killed. Chinese casualties were particularly high because blocking detachments shot soldiers who tried to flee.
The Hungnam evacuation began at 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 22, 1950. Altogether, 193 vessels of various sizes took part and an estimated 91,000 refugees were evacuated. When the withdrawal order came, U.S. Marines protested that “there is no retreat in Marine Corps history,” shaking their fists at the sky. Gen. Kim Baik-il ordered that soldiers board last.
The largest cargo vessel involved, the SS Meredith Victory, was designed for only a small number of passengers, yet 12,000 refugees crowded aboard, according to the account. Military equipment was unloaded to make room for more refugees. Capt. Leonard LaRue (1914-2001) directed the evacuation despite threats that North Korean infiltrators might assassinate him.
After reaching Busan, LaRue was haunted by the horrors of war and the transience of life. Returning to the United States, he entered a monastery in New Jersey, took the name Brother Marinus and lived as a Benedictine monk devoted to prayer rather than ordained ministry until his death at 87.
How deep must his anguish have been after witnessing so much suffering at Hungnam during that bitter winter?
The fate of the Meredith Victory offers its own irony. The vessel was eventually sold for scrap to China and has disappeared without a trace. War leaves behind long, tangled stories of gratitude and grievance.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
