Russell Blaisdell, a chaplain colonel in the US Air Force during the Korean War is attributed for saving nearly a thousand children orphaned during the horrific war. Approximately 37,000 US soldiers died in the war, compared with the estimated 2 million civilian deaths in North and South Korea. The children of the streets were casualties of another kind, living while their parents died, but dying because they didn't know how to live.
Russell Blaisdell, assigned as a chaplain to oversee the other chaplains in the US Air Force along with Chaplain "Wally" Wolverton, already in Korea when Russell got there, were the first two US Air Force chaplains with no others imminently scheduled to arrive. Having no specific office, place to sleep and at lose ends about overseeing chaplains that weren't in Korea yet, Russell started dedicating his great energy to helping the children who crawled from make-shift shelters, who chased after American trucks begging and who were tattered and shell-shocked. Along with Wally and sergeant Mike Strang they drove their assigned jeep around, scooping up orphans and transporting them to various care shelters staffed by Korean volunteers. Care of course was easier to provide than food, a war was going on, so Russell would ask servicemen for contributions, and many willingly gave, some giving as much as 50% of their pay!
Russell's mission to help the orphans didn't really get started until after US and Korean forces were able to retake Seoul after its capture early in the war. The shock of seeing orphans, and so many of them, crying on the streets or crawling in rice bags to die, fueled Russell's energy to help in any way he could. He had already seen orphans throughout the country, but none were as miserable and destitute as those in Seoul. Children were everywhere. Many had parents who had been buried in mass graves -- the bodies of soldiers, priests, government workers were killed when the North Korean stormed Seoul, and all orphans seen by the North Koreans were killed too. And he knew that if/when the North Koreans returned, these orphans would stand no chance. Yet, Russell was surprised at the fight for survival in many so young, and Wally, Russell, and sergeant Mike Strang started organizing places for the orphans to regularly receive help. That is, until for health reasons Wally had to suddenly return to the States.
Russell and Mike were then alone to organize the removal of the 1,000 orphans they had scattered in various care centers, and the North Koreans were coming back, and this time with Chinese soldiers as allies. Time was important. Evacuation was underway, but how to transport 1,000 orphans and their care-givers?!?!
Russell frantically contacted various departments, offices, and repeatedly, but there was priority on soldiers and supplies. People were very compassionate, many had helped contribute money, the motor brigade had been most helpful and were always on the lookout for orphans, but there was just no space for 1,000 orphans as troops were ordered out of Seoul in limited transport trucks packed with artillery, soldiers and essentials. Russell was frantic. He could have evacuated with the others, and as a colonel that was totally acceptable and expected, but he chose to remain with the orphans and pray, while running to other departments to ask for assistance.
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| Kids of the Korean War: Father of a Thousand |
Finally he was assigned a boat! A boat that would transport the children to Jeju island. The fortune of a boat as transport would be cold and most miserable for the smallest children, but transport is transport. Yet, when he saw the battered scow that couldn't possibly hold even 100 and even less in the winter sea, he adamantly refused to put a single soul on.
When almost everyone had evacuated, Russell, frantically running around without sleep for five days, went one last time to the Air Force headquarters to make an appeal. Seeing an Air Force Colonel, he ran up to him, unshaven and wild-eyed, and began to blather, "I'm in trouble, I'm in trouble and I need some help." Air Force Colonel T. C. Rogers listened to Russell, pulled out his operations manual and placed a call. Then to Russell he said, "It just so happens that I have a wing of C-54s that have just landed in Japan from the States, and they don't have a mission. If you get those kids to Kimpo Airport by 0800 tomorrow morning, we'll get them to Jeju."
Russell said he would and rushed back to Incheon where the kids had already been transported over a three-day span of time. He had less than 24 hours to transport the kids 28 miles without trucks over pitted, bombed roads back to Seoul, a task that had taken 3 days just a few days prior. He knew he had to do it! His opportunity came at 0500 when a transport vehicles loaded cement onto a scow. Pulling rank on the drivers, he ordered them to transport the kids to Kimpo. They were not happy, but rank is to be respected. Transport commenced, and suddenly an apoplectic high-ranking colonel drove up screaming, "What are you doing with my trucks?" When he heard that they were being used to transport 1,000 orphans for their chance of hope, the colonel gladly gave Russell permission to commence the evacuation.
The C-54s stayed on the snowy tarmac until 1000 when the children were delivered to the planes for transport. The orphan rescue operation became known as "Operation Kiddy Car", and reading about the children in newspapers and magazines, people in the US began sending donations and supplies. Ms. Hwang Oh-Soon, a woman already with 11 years experience at running an orphanage, became the new director, and a very capable one at that. She organized the kids, cleaned them up, and when Russell returned for a brief visit to Jeju in August 1951 (his tour had completed three months prior), Russell Blaisdell was greeted with a large banner held by the children, thanking him. He was proud to say he saw the beginning of smiles on the resilient faces of many of the orphans.
On January 26, 2001 Russell Blaisdell returned to Korea to reconnect with Ms Hwang Oh-Soon, who was still alive at 102 and still the director at the orphanage [The Orphans Home of Korea, Kyounggi-do] that had been relocated near the capital after the war. She and a cloud of orphans from Operation Kiddy Car met with Russell, age 90. Many orphans gathered also to meet, greet and personally thank Russell for giving them the gift of life, for without being transported to Jeju, the 1,000 orphans and their caretakers as well would have a had a very slim chance to surviving the coming North Korean invasion. It was a touching reunion, and a time or reminiscing and sharing.
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When Russell first arrived in Seoul after pushing the North Koreans back
in 1950, he estimated 6,000 orphans on the street. After the war ended
in stalemate in 1953, 54,000 children were officially registered in
orphanages, the youngest too young to remember their own names, let
alone their parents' names, hometown or birthdays.
