Pacific Stars &
Stripes, Dec. 2, 1953
YOKOSUKA, Japan, Dec. 2- Months of kindly, sympathetic
endeavor on the part of a Navy chaplain and a Navy doctor culminated
yesterday in the rescue of a tiny blue-eyed, blond foundling from
the oblivion of a Korean orphanage. The tot is aboard the USNS
General Gaffey bound for the U.S. and adoption.
The story began last July when the chaplain, Lt.JG
E.O. Riley, discovered the eight-month old infant, obviously of Caucasian
parentage, in the Star of the Sea Orphanage at Inchon. The moment
he saw the child, Riley determined he would be a misfit if allowed
to grow up in that environment.
He learned that the baby had been abandoned at
the dispensary of the Army Service Command at Ascom City, halfway
between Inchon and Seoul while the shooting war was at its peak.
From this, a priest at the orphanage had named the tot George C. Ascom.
With the concurrence of his skipper, Captain L.
T. Hayward of the Carrier Point Cruz, Riley began the intricate process
of clearing international barriers to sending the baby to the U.S.
It was his intention to place him in a Dubuque, Iowa, orphanage for
adoption by American parents.
While he was working at this-a task which took
him more than four months-another Navy officer found the blue-eyed
blond among the all-brunette ménage of the orphanage. Lt. Hugh
C. Keenan, a doctor on the Hospital Ship Consolation, reacted the
same way Riley had, but his plans were a little more definite. He
wanted to adopt the baby himself.
Working together, Riley and Keenan finally unwound
all the red tape necessary to have the child admitted to the U.S.
A week ago he sailed for Japan aboard the Point Cruz.
Thus, thanks to two Navy officers, the little boy
whose blond hair and blue eyes made him the "black sheep"
among a race of black-haired, black-eyed people, is going to a land
where he can grow up among his own kind.
PSS-318
