1984 Nansen Refugee Award
The 1984 Nansen Refugee Award
Three American seamen, Lewis Hiller, Jeff Kass and Gregg Turay of the 94,000-ton tanker merchant vessel USS Rose City, were jointly awarded the 1984 Nansen Award for work with refugees, given yearly by the UNHCR.
The captain of the tanker USS Rose City, Lewis Hiller, was from Carroll, Neb., crewmen Jeff Kass, from Philadelphia, and Gregg Turay, from Seattle.
The Rescue
They were awarded the prize for their roles in the rescue of 85 Indo-Chinese boat people drifting on the South China Sea during were a storm in September 1983. Hiller, the ship’s captain, ordered the rescue organization. Kass and Turay dived into the sea to help some of the refugees who were in danger of drowning.
One of the people saved, along with his eight year old son, was Chua Quach. Quach had just been released after seven and a half years in a re-education camp, where he had been imprisoned for having been a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army. Quach spoke fluent English, and was quoted about his experience and rescue by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers. In presenting the award to the three men, High Commissioner Poul Hartling, commended them for their efforts, without hesitation, to approach the small craft that was overloaded with 85 people, largely women and children, including two pregnant women and an 11 month old baby. He described how Kass and Tourey entered the turbulent waters to rescue some people who had fallen overboard. Their daring rescue of 85 Indo-Chinese refugees in distress by stormy weather in the darkness of the night “deserves to be inscribed in golden letters in the annals of maritime and refugee history,' said High Commissioner Hartling, of Denmark.
Only one person, a sixteen year old girl, was never recovered, although the ship had continued to look for her throughout the night.
The refugees were disembarked at Singapore and subsequently resettled in the United States.
The Nansen Award had previously been presented to prominent figures in the realm of refugee work. This 1984 Award was a departure form that tradition. The Rose City, the tanker whose crew made the rescue, was later recommissioned as the third USS Comfort, a hospital ship with beds for 1000 patients, and twelve operating rooms. It was deployed to Operation Desert Storm in 1990, and later, in 1994, to Haiti.
External links
New York Times Henry Kamm DARING 'BOAT PEOPLE' RESCUE BRINGS HONOR TO 3 AMERICANS, Oct. 9, 1984
Washington Post Oct. 10, 1984 Ruth Marcus Hero: I Did What Anyone Would Have https://www.washingtonpost.com/...i.../b4d04c32-a5da-433d-9331-def99057344d/
UPI October 8, 1984 Three American seaman win highest award http://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/10/08/Three-American-seamen-Monday-won-the-highest-award-of/1772466056000/
Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Navy USS Rose City recommissioned as USS Comfort 3