Ship of Fate: Memoir of a Vietnamese Repatriate

by Tr? Dình Tr?n, Bac Hoai Tran (Translator), Jana K. Lipman (Translator), Russell Leong (Editor), David K. Yoo (Editor)

Overview

Ship of Fate tells the emotionally gripping story of a Vietnamese military officer who evacuated from Saigon in 1975 but made the dramatic decision to return to Vietnam for his wife and children, rather than resettle in the United States without them. Written in Vietnamese in the years just after 1991, when he and his family finally immigrated to the United States, Trần Đình Trụ’s memoir provides a detailed and searing account of his individual trauma as a refugee in limbo, and then as a prisoner in the Vietnamese reeducation camps.

In April 1975, more than 120,000 Indochinese refugees sought and soon gained resettlement in the United States. While waiting in the Guam refugee camps, however, approximately 1,500 Vietnamese men and women insisted in no uncertain terms on being repatriated back to Vietnam. Trần was one of these repatriates. To resolve the escalating crisis, the U.S. government granted the Vietnamese a large ship, the Việt Nam Thương Tín. An experienced naval commander, Trần became the captain of the ship and sailed the repatriates back to Vietnam in October 1975. On return, he was imprisoned and underwent forced labor for more than twelve years.

Trần’s account reveals a hidden history of refugee camps on Guam, internal divisions among Vietnamese refugees, political disputes between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.S. government, and the horror of the postwar “reeducation” camps. While there are countless books on the U.S. war in Vietnam, there are still relatively few in English that narrate the war from a Vietnamese perspective. This translation adds new and unexpected dimensions to the U.S. military’s final withdrawal from Vietnam.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824872496
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	04/30/2017
Series:	Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies , #21
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Trần Đình Trụ (Author)
Trần Đình Trụ is a former naval commander in the South Vietnamese Navy. He has lived in Texas since 1991.

Bac Hoai Tran (Translator)
Bac Hoai Tran, formerly lecturer of Vietnamese at UC Berkeley, is the Vietnamese language coordinator of the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Jana K. Lipman (Translator)
Jana K. Lipman is associate professor of history at Tulane University.

Table of Contents

Introduction Jana K. Lipman 1

Chapter 1 My Early Life 31

Chapter 2 Coming of Age 38

Chapter 3 The Evacuation 48

Chapter 4 The Refugee Camp on Orote Point 56

Chapter 5 The Repatriates 64

Chapter 6 Give Us a Ship 83

Chapter 7 Camp Asan, Guam 90

Chapter 8 The Struggle 97

Chapter 9 The Viêt Nam Thu'o'ng Tín 107

Chapter 10 Receiving the Ship 118

Chapter 11 Leaving Guam 134

Chapter 12 The Return Voyage 145

Chapter 13 Arrival at Vung Tàu 152

Chapter 14 Reeducation Camps 165

Chapter 15 Moving from Camp to Camp 182

Chapter 16 Winds of Political Change 191

Chapter 17 The Day I Left Prison 202

Acknowledgments 209

Editorial Reviews

The memoir provides a searing account of the experiences of one such repatriate: Trần Đình Trụ, a former Republic of Vietnam (RVN) naval officer who captained the ship that sailed the repatriates back to Vietnam.

Choice

With its elements of despair, hope, and faith, the memoir has specific poignancy as a narrative in terms of what Joseph Campbell would refer to as the hero’s journey. In this case, the rise, fall, and rise again of one man’s journey to be a “good husband and father.

Teri Shaffer Yamada

Eloquent and intricate, the translation [by Bac Hoai Tran and Jana K. Lipman] brings non-Vietnamese speakers and readers a concise narrative that respects the palpability of Trần Đình Trụ’s struggles put in writing. Able word choices manage to evoke the same specific sentiments as the Vietnamese equivalent. . . . Specialists and non-specialists alike will find this translation into English enriching and useful; the historical elements along with the pull of betrayal, loss, and suspense make the memoir an informative and intriguing read. . . . Trụ’s narrative, along with its translation, contribute an important perspective that, while being indeed a Southern Vietnamese perspective, draws upon the complexities of political positions and sides rather than advocates them.

Southeast Asian Studies

Trụ’s story is told simply. Admirably so. Although the memoir necessarily tells the story from his political point of view, Trần Đình Trụ does not resort to hyperbole. The prose in the translation is elegant and accessible to broad audiences, yet conveys an emotional tenor befitting the story. Ship of Fate adds an important voice to the Vietnam War literature.

Thu-huong Nguyen-vo

[T]his memoir provides one of the most vivid illustrations of the shock and loss experienced by noncommunist and anticommunist Vietnamese during and after the fall of Saigon. The decision to return looks puzzling in hindsight, but it is more understandable when situated to the context described in this memoir.

H-Net Reviews (H-Asia) - Tuan Hoang

★ 04/01/2017
Lipman (Guantánamo: A Working-Class History Between Empire and Revolution) and Tran (Crossing the River) present an English translation of the eloquent and inspiring memoir of South Vietnamese naval officer Trân, who fled Saigon along with thousands of other evacuees after the fall of the city to the communist North Vietnamese in April 1975. Separated from his wife and children during the chaotic departure, Trân, along with many others who had been similarly separated from family members, chose to return to Vietnam rather than begin a new life as a refugee in America, enduring 13 years of imprisonment in "reeducation" camps before finally reuniting with his family. While Lipman's introduction provides a clear, concise overview of the political and military situation in Vietnam, Trân's account is particularly noteworthy for elucidating the reasons these Vietnamese evacuees chose to repatriate to their homeland despite the opposition of both the U.S. and communist Vietnamese governments. Candid reflections on the Vietnam War and the author's responsibilities as a husband, father, and naval officer are equally valuable. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers interested in 20th-century history and the conflict in Vietnam.—Sara Shreve, Newton, KS

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