Captain Leonard LaRue (January 14, 1914 – October 14, 2001), later known as "Brother Marinus", was the skipper of the SS Meredith Victory, a United States Merchant Marine cargo freighter that was involved in the largest humanitarian rescue operation by a single ship in human history.
Leonard LaRue attended the Pennsylvania Nautical School, served aboard the Schoolship Annapolis, and graduated in 1934.
[4][5] Three days before Christmas in 1950, Captain LaRue's SS Meredith Victory was delivering military supplies to the besieged port of Hungnam in northeast Korea.
Nearly 100,000 Korean refugees had gathered, hoping to board ships evacuating United Nations Command soldiers, arms, and supplies to safety in the southern port of Pusan.
On December 23, the Meredith Victory sailed south with no mine detection equipment, no doctor, no interpreter, no lighting in the holds, no heat, and no sanitation facilities.