I am part of the “boat people” generation. Our family left war-torn Vietnam in the 70’s. I have vivid memories of the escape. While it was harrowing, to a 12 year old boy, it was an adventure. The reality was a lot more tragic.

It is estimated that half of the 1.5 million people escaped Vietnam perished in the South China Sea. I can attest to that at some degree since dozens of my relatives never made it, including an uncle and a cousin who also was my childhood best friend.

Existing documentaries about them were usually told at a macro level and in the political context of the Vietnam conflict from American point of view. Human strategies were usually sensationalized at grand scales– inevitably emphasizing the positive: the message of hope, undeterred determination, overcoming wretched beginnings, etc… I’ve always felt that there was a lack of the element of raw story-telling, and that these tragedies are most appropriately captured and depicted at the intimate personal level without the context of politics.

So I was intrigued when I read about documentary called “Bolinao 52“, airing on PBS this week. It documents the journey of Tung Trinh, as she retraces and re-tells her torturous journey as a survivor.

Trinh’s rickety boat set out with 110 people in 1988– only 52 survived (thus the name of the film). It spent 37 desperate days stranded in the open sea with people fighting hunger, thirst and hopelessness. The young mother saved her precious ration of water for her boy, drinking his urine instead. She took turn to bail water from the leaky boat after the engine died. Her companion died next to her one night. In the darkest hours, the survivors turned cannibals and ate the dead. Minh, the leader of the boat rationed the human flesh to those who have the strength to bail water. Later, Minh was accused of murdering victims for their flesh.

They ran into USS Dubuque, an American Navy ship heading to the Persian Gulf. A few men dove into water and swam 500 yards to the ship, desperately seeking help. The sailors shook a monkey rope sending one of the men back into the water. The exhausted man drowned while the men looked on. Captain Alexander Balian, the commander of the ship, ordered a few sailors to give them the beef stew left over from lunch. Then he ordered his men to abandon the ship and head straight to Persian Gulf to fulfill their mission: protecting oil tankers from Irianian missiles.

The survivors were eventually picked up by a Filipino fisherman and were towed to the town of Bolinao.

Captain Balian was later court-martialed. In a collectively generous gesture, all 52 survivors submitted their signatures as a petition to pardon Captain Balian. But the U.S. Navy found him guilty of dereliction of duties and stripped him of his duties in 1989.

Tung settled in the U.S. with her boy, while Minh found refuge in Europe after the U.S. denied his entry into the country.