Imagine the cargo hold of a ship. It’s probably as wide as a basketball court and three in length, placed end to end. There are lower floors, middle floors, and upper floors.
14,000 people will be crammed into this space. It’s dark. The end of the hold is a steel wall. In the cold winter, there is no other source of heat other than the heat generated by a large number of people. The place reeks of human waste, which is piled up at the feet of people around them.
And your expectant mother is standing shoulder to shoulder on one of those floors, contractions signaling your soon arrival on this earth.
However, you are not the only one who came to this world with a large number of humans on a cargo ship in the frigid East Sea. You have four siblings – not by blood, but by circumstance. Your birthday was in late December 1950, six months after the war that engulfed the Korean Peninsula began.
They are named Kimchi 1, Kimchi 2, 3, 4, and 5. And you will be known in history as a Christmas miracle, five fragile lives thrown into the sea against the dangerous and uncaring tide of history.
“Without the cooperation of American soldiers, we refugees would not have been able to reach South Korea in search of freedom,” one of the miraculous arrivals, Song Yang-young, known as Kimchi 1, told CNN, calling himself “a result of the Korea-US alliance.”
However, Mr. Song’s birth in the navy 75 years ago was also the beginning of a life in which he searched for those who were left behind, trying to reunite another Korean family that had been torn apart along with their homeland.
Kimchi 1 to 5 is a nickname given by the American crew in honor of the beloved Korean dish (and perhaps reflecting a less culturally sensitive era). They were all born on the SS Meredith Victory, a 7,200-ton cargo ship built by the United States at the end of World War II.
When war broke out, the U.S. returned the ship to its transport fleet to transport supplies to the peninsula, supporting U.S. and United Nations forces fighting to stop North Korea from invading the south.
After North Korea’s military drove the North Koreans to the edge of the peninsula around Busan, they fought back fiercely and forced the North Koreans to return to their homeland by the fall.
But then China intervened to support North Korea’s ally Kim Il Sung. More than 1 million Beijing troops, the People’s Volunteer Army (PVA), entered South Korea, forcing U.S. and United Nations forces to flee by early winter.
The PVA’s ability to overwhelm the enemy through numerical superiority was demonstrated at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in late November 1950, when approximately 120,000 PVA soldiers fought against only 30,000 U.S. Marines and soldiers for approximately 17 days in sub-zero temperatures.
The fierce fighting forced the US Marines to retreat to Hungnam on North Korea’s east coast, where a large-scale evacuation operation was planned.
They will soon be joined by tens of thousands of other displaced people.
(After North Korea gained independence from Imperial Japan in 1945, experiencing the reality of communism, anti-communist North Koreans began to flee to the south.
“We had planned on shipping 25,000 men, but at least that many followed the Marines out of the[Korean]reservoir,” retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James Doyle, who oversaw the evacuation, recalled in a 1979 article published in the magazine of the U.S. Naval Institute.
“Virtually overnight, 50,000 North Koreans seemed to want to leave, and that number quickly doubled.”
‘Christmas miracle’ baby born on US ship carrying Korean War refugees
According to historian Richard Stewart, the commander of the U.S. Army Corps, Maj. Gen. Edward Almond, ordered all civilian government employees and their families to be brought on board “along with other loyal, non-Communist nationals, as transport space permitted.”
The SS Meredith Victory, which was delivering goods from the Japanese port of Yokohama to the Korean port, called at Hungnam.
“There was chaos because there were about 100,000 North Korean refugees swarming all over the pier,” Barley Smith, a former third officer on the Meredith Victory, told CNN.
“It was like New York’s Times Square on Christmas Eve, except it was very quiet. People were packed on the docks with babies on their backs, and there were lots of men, women, and children.”
Over 30 hours starting on the morning of December 22nd, the final crew members were packed onto the Meredith Victory, with the ship’s crew loading three levels of human cargo into each of the ship’s five holds. While others found space in the open air on deck, Smith said it was colder than he had ever experienced.
Among the refugees were the parents of Son Yang-young, who would soon become Kimchi No. 1.
They had left their first two children with an uncle in the north, believing that the separation would be temporary and that their children would be safe.
Mr. Song’s father holds a high-ranking position in the region, which would put him at risk if communist forces took over. So his aides advised him to evacuate to the south with his pregnant wife for two to three weeks until U.S. and United Nations forces could take back the state, but that never happened.
“We loaded them onto a large pallet that our crew had built, stood up and pushed them in as tightly as we could until the deck was full. Then we covered it with a large steel beam and loaded it onto the next deck above that,” Smith recalled.
The cargo ship was full, with 14,000 refugees crammed into every space. There was no room for everyone to feel comfortable.
While it was freezing outside, the refugees were trapped on deck without electricity, light, heat, water, food or toilets.
“We were literally scraping human feces off each of these 15 different decks. Each of the 15 holds had piles of human feces four feet high… It was a closed sewer, because each deck was sealed off and there was no way for people to come ashore,” Smith said of the conditions on the ship, which was abandoned after carrying refugees for several days.
The ship had no weapons or guns, and sailed through narrow channels through extensive minefields, avoiding air attacks as it sailed south. Miraculously, no one was killed.
“My parents told me every day that I was born on the ship. I thought my mother gave birth in the captain’s cabin, but it turned out that the ship’s cabin had a medical room attached. That’s where I was born,” Song told CNN.
Smith said the first officer assisted the Korean women in helping the mothers deliver five babies in a cabin on the main deck.
After being refused passage from Busan because it was already overflowing with refugees, the ship arrived at Geoje Island on the southeastern tip of the peninsula, where Son would spend the first seven years of his life.
“My father found a job at a PX (retail store) for the U.S. Army, and every morning before he went to work, he would tell me stories about his 9-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter that he had left behind in North Korea,” Son recalled.
His parents were unable to return home as planned and regretted their decision every day.
“Every morning, my mother would fill a clean bowl with fresh water and place it facing north. It was a folk religion. She faced north and prayed for her remaining brother and sister to stay healthy until they were reunited,” said Song, now 75.
After the 1953 ceasefire, millions of families remained separated by the military demarcation line until the Korean Red Cross intervened to help identify and connect families.
Son’s parents immediately signed up. But like thousands of their contemporaries, they died longing for children.
“My father passed away about 40 years ago, and my mother passed away about 20 years ago. Their wills were that they couldn’t find their brother and sister, so they wanted me to find them,” Song said.
Son is now left to tell his older brother, Tae-young, and younger sister, Yeong-ok, that their parents did not abandon them, but died “deeply saddened.”
Mr. Song grew up lonely. She said she looked at her friends who had siblings and thought, “I wish I had an older brother and sister. Why are they up north?”
His parents did not consider having another child after settling in the southern mainland (first in Busan and then in the capital, Seoul), feeling guilt and sadness for the two of them left behind in North Korea.
Son worked for a trading company from the 1980s to the 1990s, and was dispatched to California and Southeast Asia, leading a busy life.
When I returned to South Korea in my 50s, I heard from a close friend who was also a North Korean refugee that Kimchi 5 was looking for another type of kimchi.
“I met Kimchi No. 5 at the Heungnam Evacuation Commemoration Ceremony in Geoje City, and Kimchi No. 5 told me that the other four people were missing and that he hoped they were all safe,” Song said.
Immediately after attending the same memorial service, he was able to meet with the staff of the SS Meredith Victory, who were visiting Seoul.
So, we contacted Kimchi 5’s Lee Kyung-pil, who is a veterinarian and lives on Geoje Island.
“It was like meeting my brother. I was so happy to meet him, like I was meeting my family. We have the same fate,” Kimchi 1 said, recalling how she met her brother through circumstances.
The whereabouts of Kimchi 2, 3, and 4 remain unknown, but Kimchi 1 and 5 are actively working as agents for separated families.
The two volunteered at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics held in South Korea, but at the time the two countries were actively engaged in political and cultural exchanges, with North Korea sending an Olympic team and diplomatic mission to South Korea.The warm relationship has since reversed.
Although he has not yet been reunited with his blood brothers, Song is hopeful by continuing his efforts with his kimchi friends.
Asked for a message to his deceased brothers, Song said, “I will look for you until I close my eyes. And when I find you, I will tell you all the details about how much our parents missed you living in South Korea.”
Interactions such as dialogue between the North and South and reunions of separated families have been suspended in recent years.
“We are not in a situation where we can meet again right away, but I believe that we will meet again someday,” Kimchi 1 said, her voice shaking.
“Stay well and don’t get depressed until we meet. We have to meet again.”
