A Writer's Journey 4

Fire! Fire!

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Travel on a cargo ship loaded with bombs.

Although it is forty years since I received a box full of my mother’s letters and began writing her story, some stories have led to research. I was just 20 months old when our family faced this situation, so I must depend on the writings of others. Since the Internet brought new possibilities, I have searched and compared dates, names, and places mentioned in those letters. In this story, the facts in her letter about a fire onboard a ship named Taiping are confirmed by my brother Samuel’s written memories (used with his permission) and my father’s record of the same situation.

I searched for the ship on the Internet. Two years after our miracle survival, a vessel with the same name sank while transporting refugees from Shanghai to Taiwan. This colored picture is of a model of the original ship created for a movie called “The Crossing.” SS Taiping

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My brother, Samuel, who was five years old at the time, remembers:

Samuel’s story

It was January in 1947 and winter. The trip (from Shanghai to Tientsin - now Tianjin) after the first stormy day went smoothly, and we children spent a lot of time on deck because the cabin was so cramped. In the evening, I (Samuel) stood on the deck and watched as a Chinese man smoked a cigarette and then threw the burning cigarette over the railing onto a bundle of bamboo on the lower deck.

The next day, father rushed into the cabin to tell mother: “There's a fire on the ship. It's a threatening situation. Mother started to dress us in warm winter clothes for leaving the boat. I rushed to the window to see if I could see anything.

“Mother, the ship has stopped, and there is ice in the sea,” I reported to mother what I saw. “Now, a boat leaves the ship. Some men are trying to row but can't get anywhere because there's ice.”

I sneaked out of the cabin and went to the ship's restaurant, where I thought father had gone. The restaurant was full of people. From there, I heard my father’s voice as he prayed fervently in Chinese. I started back in the direction of our cabin and saw three men. One had a white chef's hat and a white apron. He laughed almost hysterically as he grabbed the two men's hands and pulled them towards the restaurant. As the men passed me, I could smell the smoke on the soaked clothes of the two men.

Dad’s story

Wednesday, 22 January 1947, was Chinese New Year's Day. We arrived outside the port of Tangku early in the morning and dropped anchor. We waited for the pilot to come on board. But since the Chinese New Year's Eve had just started, the ship could not find a pilot and, like many other ships, had to anchor outside the harbor. A stoppage of a few days was expected.

Suddenly there was a shout: Fire! Fire! The ship is burning!

I looked out the window of the fair and saw big flames rising high. I saw thick smoke and flames rising from the foredeck, just above the hold. The wind had picked up and was blowing from the bow to the stern, so the smoke and flames threatened to engulf the whole ship in its greedy gills. The smoke penetrated the cabins and the dining room, and it seemed we would soon have to leave, but where? I hurriedly ran to close the windows and continued to the bridge to find the captain. As I ran there, I remembered my nightmare before leaving for the trip. Now it seemed to be coming true. There were only two lifeboats on the ship.

There were more than 350 passengers on board, among them soldiers of the Chinese National Army, several officers, and civil servants, and the crew comprised 80 men. But the lifeboats, of which there were only two, had room for only 96 people. Life belts were nowhere to be seen. There seemed to be five or six life rings, and the quickest got hold of them. They were hardly valuable, as ice floes were on the sea's surface.

I asked the ship's captain if the boat couldn't be turned so that the flames would go away from the ship! Then they wouldn't set the whole ship on fire right away.

“We can do nothing,” the captain replied with a pained expression. “The steam has been let out of the machines after anchoring. It takes a long time to get it up again.”

“Can't that fire be put out then? Where are the fire extinguishers?”

“It has already been tried, but the water pipes have frozen. You can't get water in them.”

Around us were many other ships at anchor, and urgent SOS signals were sent to them. But, unfortunately, none of them seemed to care or give any sign of noticing our distress or coming to our help.

I ran back to my family. There was complete confusion among the passengers. Finally, during the general panic and confusion, a high-ranking Chinese officer came to me and said: “Listen, missionary, we are all in great danger. Unless your God helps, we are all doomed. Do you know what's in the hold as cargo?” he continued with a look of terror in his eyes. “This ship is loaded with bombs and gasoline! These munitions are for the Manchurian Army. If God doesn't help us, we'll all blow up soon.”

However, believers have a powerful weapon in prayer. I answered the general:

“Call everyone here to the big mess. We all will pray.” The general did the work as ordered. The passengers knelt, and all cried out in prayer.

Apart from us Finns, including three new Finnish lady missionaries, all the other passengers were Chinese. In addition, many officers and teachers from Peking University and the chancellor were traveling to join their families to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

(One of the three new missionaries, Miriam Pynnönen, mentioned in her memoir about their discussions of how to save us, kids, from the fire by each taking one of us and jumping into the sea. They realized the futility of the idea. No one would have survived the icy water.)

Dad continued his story. While we were praying, two young Chinese men wet their clothes and proceeded to throw bundles of burning bamboo into the sea. I looked out the window and saw how the men were throwing bundles of burning bamboo into the sea, which generally took ten men to handle. The men swayed as if moved by a supernatural force. Soon the rest of the ship's crew came to help. The fire had melted the frozen water in the pumps, and the extinguishing equipment was also fixed. Soon they were in control of the fire, and the passengers sighed in relief.

Two men in their twenties came to the mess when the crew stayed behind to take care of the after-extinguishing with water hoses. They explained: "While you were praying, we thought that we must plunge into the middle of the fire and empty the deck cargo," the men told the other passengers who were listening quietly. It turned out that they were Christians and had prayed that God would let them succeed. They said they had received supernatural powers, so they continued throwing large, burning bundles into the sea without even burning their hands.

When the after-extinguishing was done, it was apparent that the fire had already burned a large area above the wooden hatches of the cargo hold. It would have been only a moment when the flammable cargo exploded and threw the entire ship and passengers into the air in thousands of pieces.

We started a thank you and testimonial meeting in a fully packed salon. The listeners were people who would otherwise hardly ever come to spiritual discussions. They listened with great interest.

A Writer’s Journey will continue.