Nguyễn Lạc Hoá
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Augustine Nguyễn Lạc Hóa (c. 1901 – c. 1993) was a refugee Chinese
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
, who arrived in
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
in 1959 and led a militia called the Sea Swallows resisting the
Viet Cong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...
in the
Ca Mau Peninsula CA or ca may refer to: Businesses and organizations Companies * Air China (IATA airline code CA) * CA Technologies, a U.S. software company * Cayman Airways, a Cayman Islands airline * Channel America, a defunct U.S. television network * Classic ...
. The "fighting priest" and his "village that refused to die" attracted admiring media stories in the United States, and in 1964 he received the
Ramon Magsaysay Award The Ramon Magsaysay Award (Filipino: ''Gawad Ramon Magsaysay'') is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealis ...
in the Public Service category.


Biography

Hoa fled from
Kwangsi Province Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ( ...
in Communist China in 1950-51 with over 2,000 parishioners, and spent eight years in Cambodia. In 1959 Hoa with 450 of the refugees settled in Binh Hung on the Ca Mau Peninsula. They created a village and Hoa established a defense force – the Sea Swallows () – against the Viet Cong, who were active in the area. Hoa's success inspired others to join his Sea Swallows, including a company of " Nung tribesmen." Declassified documents would reveal that the Nung fighters were actually a contingent of Nationalist soldiers from the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. As the political situation in Saigon deteriorated, Hoa saw the battle turning and little chance of winning. Discouraged, he left Binh Hung, and retired to a parish in Taipei.Stan Atkinson
"Stan Remembers: Father Hoa and his little army"
SuperCast Online, Sinclair Broadcast Group. July 23, 1999.


Recognition in U.S.

In January 1961,
Edward Lansdale Edward Geary Lansdale (February 6, 1908 – February 23, 1987) was a United States Air Force officer until retiring in 1963 as a major general before continuing his work with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lansdale was a pioneer in cl ...
visited Hoa and Binh Hung. Back in Washington, he was surprised to find that President
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
had taken a personal interest in his report on Hoa, and wanted it published in the ''
Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
''. It was attributed to "an American officer." The town of
Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...
adopted Binh Hung as a sister community, and the ''Post'' followed up with another story on Hoa. Other correspondents who took up the story of the Sea Swallows included
Dickey Chapelle Georgette Louise Meyer (March 14, 1918 – November 4, 1965) known as Dickey Chapelle was an American photojournalist known for her work as a war correspondent from World War II through the Vietnam War. Early life Chapelle was born in Milwa ...
and
Stan Atkinson Stan Atkinson was a television news reporter and anchor for over 45 years, mostly in the Sacramento area, including many years as the principal news anchor for KCRA, Channel 3, in Sacramento. and then principal news anchor for KOVR from 1994 unti ...
,"The Village That Refused to Die"
/ref> who remembered Hoa decades later as the "most unforgettable character" he met in his travels.


See also


References


External links



{{DEFAULTSORT:Nguyen, Hoa Lac 1908 births 1989 deaths Hoa people Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War Vietnamese anti-communists 20th-century Vietnamese Roman Catholic priests