The 5 babies born on Christmas in the hold of an American ship during the Korean War

Lee Gyeong-pil came into the world on the day of Christmas 1950, hours before the American ship SS Meredith Victory arrived at the South Korean island of Geoje.

He was the fifth baby born in the cramped hold of this cargo ship during the historic Hungnam evacuation, in which US soldiers transported more than 91,000 refugees from North Korea to South Korea in the middle of the war.

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From them 14,500 traveled on the Meredith Victorywhose 3-day journey appears today in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest war evacuation in history on a single ship.

Testimonies from the time describe an eventful trip in which civilians were packed into the hold like sardines in a can, barely provided with water, food or medicine and unable to go to the bathroom.

That is why many historians They consider it a miracle that the five babies survived who were born during the journey.

The evacuation

The Korean War left more than three million dead and the border that divides North and South was practically in the same place after several phases of greater and lesser intensity between June 1950 and July 1953.

The most notable movements occurred in the first months. First the North Korean troops (supported by the USSR and China) and then the UN troops (led by the US) came to conquer a large part of the peninsula.

In the winter of 1950, the latter seemed to have turned the tide in their favor by taking control of more than two-thirds of North Korea.

However, a counteroffensive by hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers who joined the communist army in Pyongyang defeated the UN forces in several battles, leaving some 100,000 troops trapped in the North Korean port of Hungnam.

The soldiers, mostly Americans, needed to flee quickly before the enemy arrived and their supplies ran out as the freezing winter advanced in the north of the peninsula.

About 100 US ships, including the SS Meredith Victory, arrived at Hungnam to evacuate soldiers and take them, along with remaining supplies and ammunition to South Korean ports from Busan and Geoje Island.

But they were not alone: ​​tens of thousands of North Koreans who feared reprisals from Kim Il-sung’s communist regime – from smallholders and landowners targeted by the communists to those suspected of aiding the enemy – were also They went to Hungnam to try to make a place for themselves on one of the expeditions to South Korea.

Although rescuing refugees was not part of the plan, US forces tried to accommodate as many as possible on the ships.

In the case of the Meredith Victory, the holds were emptied of cargo and the decks were cleared to accommodate the 14,500 civilians who joined the 3-day voyage to Geoje.

The “Kimchi Five”

“My parents, who lived in North Korea, got on that boat,” says Lee Gyeong-pil, interviewed by the BBC in South Korea.

Lee, who turns 73 this Monday, December 25, remembers the stories about the journey on which he came into the world based on the testimonies his parents left him.

They decided to board the ship because in their hometown, he says, “Soviet soldiers used to rob the population, while the Americans distributed food, so they thought: ‘If we follow the Russians we will die and If we follow the US we will live‘”.

The Meredith Victory set sail on December 23, 1950 and arrived the next day in the city of Busan, but South Korea’s largest port was overcrowded and it finally had to divert to the nearby island of Geoje.

When the first child, named Sohn Yang-young, was born, the US Marines nicknamed him “Kimchi”, one of the few Korean words they knew being the most iconic and ubiquitous food in the country.

The story of the newborn quickly spread throughout the ship, providing distraction to travelers during the dangerous journey aboard the overcrowded ship in the middle of the conflict, says writer Ned Forney, great-grandson of a US colonel in the War of War. Korea and specialist in this chapter of history.

Thus, to the following neonates They called them Kimchi 2, 3, 4, and finally the 5th, Lee Gyeong-pil, already on Christmas Day just a few hours from arriving at the final destination.

The cold, extreme overcrowding, and absence of doctors and medical supplies made births difficult.

Lee explains that her mother “gave birth prematurely, with the help of a woman who traveled on board and acted as a midwife”.

“She cut my umbilical cord with her teeth.”, he assures.

after the war

Geoje, the second largest island in South Korea, is known today for its green mountains and above all for its imposing shipyards, a symbol of the country’s rapid industrialization and the main source of income for its more than 200,000 residents.

The panorama was very different when the Meredith Victory arrived there at Christmas 1950: the population and infrastructure were scarce, so many of the refugees emigrated to other parts of the country to start a new life from scratch.

Lee Gyeong-pil’s parents, however, They decided to stay in Geojewhere they established a photography studio like the one they had run in North Korea before the war broke out.

Married with a son, Lee is a veterinarian and also lives on the island, where he operates an animal clinic that he named “Pyeonghwa,” which in Korean means “peace,” because of his desire for there to be no more conflicts. armed on the Korean peninsula.

We asked him why his business card shows, in addition to his first name, the pseudonym “Kimchi 5” along with the words “peace, “gratitude” and “share”.

“’Peace’ means that tragedies like the Korean War must not be repeated; “gratitude” is gratitude to the American military who saved my family and me; and ‘sharing’ is a tribute to the residents of Geoje who welcomed unknown refugees,” she replies.

He claims to not know the whereabouts of Kimchi 2, 3 and 4, but he does maintains a close friendship with Kimchi 1, Sohn Yang-youngwho lives in Seoul and works for a government agency.

“When I go to Seoul I meet him. And I always tell him to do interviews with the media, because I do them all,” Lee jokes.

The Korean War separated tens of thousands of families: parents, children or siblings who could not see each other again, or did so several decades later in few meetings organized between both countries since 2000.

In Lee’s case, he left a grandmother he never heard from again.

The one he did hear from was the woman who acted as a midwife at his birth and cut his umbilical cord with her teeth.

“I lived in Canada. Her granddaughter once visited Geoje and told me that her own grandmother asked her to meet me. I told him I was very grateful.”, he indicates.

The legacy

“Kimchi 5” visited the United States in 2014 for a war memorial ceremony and claims to be deeply grateful to the North American country.

“It is thanks to the American military that I was born on a ship at that time and I am the person I am,” he says.

In recent years, characterized by phases of rapprochement and relaxation in relations between both Koreas, Lee Gyeong-pil has toured the educational centers of his country to convey his story to students and raise awareness that “Whatever happens, there must be no war again.”.

Although it is a desire that is increasingly less desired by South Koreans, especially among the new generations, Lee continues to believe that reunification must occur between North and South, which, he remembers, are “one people.”

And his dream, he confesses, is to create a memorial park for the evacuation of Hungnam on the island of Geoje, for which a project already exists although it is in its early stages.

If it becomes a reality, the memorial park will not be able to count on what would be its key piece: the SS Meredith Victory.

Despite having completed the historic feat that earned it the Guinness Record, the ship went out of service and in 1973 was docked in Suisuin Bay, California.

Paradoxes of destiny, the Meredith Victory ended his days in Chinawhere it was towed in 1993 to be dismantled and turned into scrap metal.