The Mariner and the Monk

The Mariner and the Monk tells the story of Captain Leonard La Rue, a brave officer in the Merchant Marine, a Benedictine monk, and the reason tens of thousands of Koreans are alive today and live in freedom.


Leonard Panet La Rue was born and educated in Philadelphia, PA, and joined the Merchant Marine during the height of the Depression. La Rue served on ships through the late 1930s, then joined his Merchant Marine colleagues in convoy duty across the Atlantic, including the deadly "Murmansk Run" carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. During the war he crossed the Atlantic and Pacific multiple times, carrying cargo and soldiers for the war effort. He completed the war in command of his own ship, the SS Whittier Victory, and sailed throughout the Caribbean and South America from US ports.


When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, La Rue took command of the SS Meredith Victory and led her to Japan and then Korea to participate in the historic landing at Inchon. But two months later, La Rue and his crew themselves made history when the Meredith Victory carried more than 14,000 Korean civilians to freedom from the embattled port of Hungnam before its capture by the enemy. Among his refugee passengers were the parents of the current president of South Korea, Moon Jae-In.


La Rue and his crew were celebrated for the rescue. La Rue received many awards, including the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Meredith Victory was officially designated a "Gallant Ship." But at the height of his career, he left the Merchant Marine and entered a Benedictine monastery far from the sea. For the next four decades he lived a quiet life of prayer and service, never missing the adventures he had lived during twenty years at sea.


The Mariner and the Monk details La Rue's life in the context of the ships he sailed and the battles he survived. The reader sails with him through storms, around attacking U-boats and floating mines, and under Luftwaffe bombers. The book explains the reasons for the historic evacuation, including the epic battle of the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Infantry at the Chosin Reservoir. In description and with dozens of photographs, many never before in print, the reader learns the amazing details that guaranteed the evacuation would be successful for the 100,000 soldiers and Marines and the 100,000 refuges who were safely loaded and transported while the port of Hungnam was surrounded by multiple divisions of the Chinese Army.


After a full life and quiet death, the testimony of La Rue's bravery and humanity, and the humble virtue with which he lived his life, have led to Brother Marinus La Rue, OSB, being named a "Servant of God," the first step on a path to a declaration of sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.


Leonard La Rue, Brother Marinus, was one of the greatest of the "Greatest Generation."


"Lively and well researched." Joshua Smith, Director of the American Merchant Marine Museum