H.J Burley Smith - U.S. Merchant Marine/U.S. Navy 1950-80

H.J Burley Smith graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in June 1950, the month the Korean War started. His first voyage as a ship’s officer was on Meredith Victory as Jr. Third Mate when the vessel was taken from the WW II mothball fleet in Norfolk, VA and sent to Tokyo in August 1950 with war supplies. The ship joined McArthur’s Inchon invasion fleet in September after spending several months ferrying armaments from Japan to the beleaguered UN forces defending the Pusan perimeter. After the successful autumn drive of McArthur’s forces to the Yalu River in North Korea, the Chinese joined forces with North Korean troops to push our military back down the peninsula, trapping a large group along with many thousand North Korean refugees fleeing the Chinese onslaught at the port of Hungnam. SS Meredith Victory a WW II cargo ship with accommodations only for her crew of forty six…100,000 desperate North Korean civilians, searching for escape…No food, water or toilet facilities for three days…One ship, carrying 14,000 lives…A Little-Known but Inspiring Tale of the Korean War The SS Meredith Victory was a United States Merchant Marine Victory ship, essentially a cargo freighter. It was built during World War II, but its moment of glory came in the Korean War, during the dark days of December, 1950, when it evacuated over 14,000 Korean refugees fleeing the invading Communist Chinese. Under Captain Leonard LaRue, the Meredith Victory performed the largest humanitarian rescue operation by a single ship in history. Designed to carry only 12 passengers and 47 officers and crew, the ship took the 14.000-plus refugees to safety and earned herself the name “The Ship of Miracles.” The Meredith Victory was one of the ships waiting in Hungnam. On December 21, Captain LaRue decided to offload nearly all his cargo so that he could evacuate as many of the terrified refugees as possible. All through the night of December 22-23, using booms and makeshift elevators, Captain LaRue’s crew filled the five cargo holds and the entire main deck with more than 14,000 civilians seeking salvation. The Meredith Victory then departed on the morning of the 23rd for Pusan, 450 sea miles to the south, without any military escort or means of self-defense. Numerous other ships evacuated the rest of the refugees, but no ship carried anywhere near as many in one voyage as the Meredith Victory.

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