1968: The Pueblo Incident
The USS Pueblo was a Banner-class environmental research ship that was attached to Navy intelligence as a spy ship. On January 23, 1968, the Pueblo was attacked and captured by North Korean forces in what became known as the "Pueblo incident". The seizure of the ship and her 83 crew members came less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union address that year. It was also a week before the start of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Three days earlier 31 North Korean soldiers had crossed the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and killed 26 South Koreans in an attempted attack on the South Korean Blue House (the executive mansion) in Seoul.
The incident arose after North Korea claimed that Pueblo deliberately entered that nation's territorial waters for the purpose of spying. In fact the ship's logbook showed that the shop did so several times, although the United States government insisted that the vessel was in international waters at the time that it was seized.
The Pueblo was commissioned at New Orleans on April 7, 1945, served as a Coast Guard–manned Army vessel used for training civilians for the Army. It was designated as FS-344. The ship was transferred to the United States Navy on April 12, 1966 and was renamed USS Pueblo after Pueblo and Pueblo County, Colorado. Initially, the shil was a light cargo ship, but was later converted to an intelligence gathering ship on May 13, 1967.
On January 5, 1968, the Pueblo left the U.S. Navy base at Yokosuka, Japan, in transit to the U.S. naval base at Sasebo, Japan. From there the ship left on January 11, 1968, and headed north through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan. The ship's mission was to conduct surveillance of Soviet Navy activity in the Tsushima Strait and to gather signal and electronic intelligence from North Korea.
At 5:30 p.m. on January 20, 1968, a North Korean modified SO-1 class Soviet style submarine chaser passed within 4,000 yards of the Pueblo about 15.4 nautical miles Mayang-do. Two days later, in the afternoon of January 22nd, two North Korean fishing trawlers Rice Paddy 1 and Rice Paddy 2 passed within 30 yards of the Pueblo, on the same day that a North Korean unit made an assassination attempt in the "Blue House" executive mansion against the South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The crew of Pueblo had no knowledge of this. The next day, January 23rd, the Pueblo was approached by a submarine chaser and her nationality was questioned. The Pueblo responded by raising the U.S. flag. The North Korean vessel then ordered Pueblo to stand down or be fired upon. The Pueblo attempted to maneuver away, but was much slower than the submarine chaser. The Korean vessel fired several warning shots and then three torpedo boats appeared on the horizon and then joined in the chase. Soon two MiG-21 fighters also arrived along with a fourth torpedo boat and a second submarine chaser. U.S. Navy authorities and the crew of Pueblo assert that before the capture, the Pueblo was miles outside North Korean territorial waters, but North Korea maintains that the vessel was well within North Korean waters.
The North Korean vessels attempted to board the Pueblo, but the Pueblo maneuvered to prevent this for over two hours. A submarine chaser then opened fire with a 57 mm cannon, killing one member of the Pueblo crew. The crew had been attempting to destroy classified material on board, but only a small percentage of this material was destroyed.
The Pueblo was in radio contact with the Naval Security Group in Kamiseya, Japan during the incident. The Seventh Fleet command was aware of Pueblo's situation, but promised air cover never arrived. The Fifth Air Force had no aircraft on alert, and the USS Enterprise was 510 nautical miles south of the Pueblo and her four F-4B aircraft on alert were not equipped for an air-to-surface engagement.
Pueblo followed the North Korean vessels as ordered, stopping immediately outside North Korean waters. She was again fired upon, and a sailor, fireman Duane Hodges, was killed. The ship was finally boarded at 2:55 pm by crew from a torpedo boat and a submarine chaser. The Pueblo's crew members had their hands tied and were blindfolded, beaten, and prodded with bayonets. Once the Pueblo was in North Korean territorial waters, the ship was boarded again.
The first official confirmation that the ship was in North Korean hands came five days later, on January 28, 1968. Aerial photography taken two days earlier showed the Pueblo to be in the Wonsan harbor area surrounded by two North Korean vessels.
In Washington, government officials could not agree on how to handle the situation. Congressman Mendel Rivers suggested that President Johnson issue an ultimatum for the return of Pueblo or a nuclear attack would follow. Senator Gale McGee called for a diplomatic solution. Horace Busby, Special Assistant to President Johnson, said that Johnson was working "very hard here to keep down any demands for retaliation or any other attacks upon North Koreans". He was worried that rhetoric might result in the hostages being killed. There was also speculation that the seizure of Pueblo was being directed by the Soviet Union, although subsequent evidence suggests that this was not the case and that the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with the Soviets.
The Pueblo was taken into port at Wonsan and the crew was moved twice to prisoner of war camps. The crew later reported that they were starved and tortured while in North Korean custody. Their treatment became worse after North Koreans realized that crewmen were secretly giving them "the finger" in staged propaganda photos. Commander Lloyd M. Bucher was psychologically tortured, by being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. The North Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him causing Bucher to agreed to "confess to his and the crew's transgression." Bucher wrote out a coerced confession though in an act of defiance, he wronge "We paean the DPRK [North Korea]. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung". (Bucher pronounced "paean" as "pee on.")
Negotiations for the release of the crew took place at Panmunjom. South Koreans were displeased about being left out of the negotiations. The South Koreans were afraid that the North Koreans would try to exploit the situation against them. The meetings at Panmunjom were generally unproductive. The North Korean negotiators were not empowered to make immediate decisions and had to defer to their government.
The American government ultimately agreed to provide an apology containing a written admission by the U.S. that the Pueblo had been spying. The apology contained an assurance that the U.S. would not spy in the future. Once this occurred, the North Korean government agreed to release the 82 remaining crew members. On December 23, 1968, the crew was taken by buses to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border with South Korea and ordered to walk south one by one across the "Bridge of No Return". Exactly eleven months after being taken prisoner, the Captain led the long line of crewmen, followed at the end by the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Ed Murphy, the last man across the bridge. The U.S. then verbally retracted the apology, and assurance.
Bucher and all the officers and crew subsequently appeared before a Navy Court of Inquiry. A court-martial was recommended for Bucher and Lieutenant Steve Harris for surrendering without a fight and for failing to destroy classified material. But Secretary of the Navy John Chafee, rejected the recommendation, stating, "They have suffered enough." Commander Bucher continued his Navy career until retirement. Bucher died in San Diego on January 28, 2004, at the age of 76.
The USS Pueblo is still held by North Korea. In October 1999, she was towed from Wonsan on the east coast, around the Korean Peninsula, to the port of Nampo on the west coast. After the stop at the Nampo shipyard Pueblo was relocated to Pyongyang and moored on the Taedong River. In late 2012 Pueblo was moved again to the Botong River in Pyongyang next to a new addition to the Fatherland Liberation War Museum.
The incident arose after North Korea claimed that Pueblo deliberately entered that nation's territorial waters for the purpose of spying. In fact the ship's logbook showed that the shop did so several times, although the United States government insisted that the vessel was in international waters at the time that it was seized.
The Pueblo was commissioned at New Orleans on April 7, 1945, served as a Coast Guard–manned Army vessel used for training civilians for the Army. It was designated as FS-344. The ship was transferred to the United States Navy on April 12, 1966 and was renamed USS Pueblo after Pueblo and Pueblo County, Colorado. Initially, the shil was a light cargo ship, but was later converted to an intelligence gathering ship on May 13, 1967.
On January 5, 1968, the Pueblo left the U.S. Navy base at Yokosuka, Japan, in transit to the U.S. naval base at Sasebo, Japan. From there the ship left on January 11, 1968, and headed north through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan. The ship's mission was to conduct surveillance of Soviet Navy activity in the Tsushima Strait and to gather signal and electronic intelligence from North Korea.
At 5:30 p.m. on January 20, 1968, a North Korean modified SO-1 class Soviet style submarine chaser passed within 4,000 yards of the Pueblo about 15.4 nautical miles Mayang-do. Two days later, in the afternoon of January 22nd, two North Korean fishing trawlers Rice Paddy 1 and Rice Paddy 2 passed within 30 yards of the Pueblo, on the same day that a North Korean unit made an assassination attempt in the "Blue House" executive mansion against the South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The crew of Pueblo had no knowledge of this. The next day, January 23rd, the Pueblo was approached by a submarine chaser and her nationality was questioned. The Pueblo responded by raising the U.S. flag. The North Korean vessel then ordered Pueblo to stand down or be fired upon. The Pueblo attempted to maneuver away, but was much slower than the submarine chaser. The Korean vessel fired several warning shots and then three torpedo boats appeared on the horizon and then joined in the chase. Soon two MiG-21 fighters also arrived along with a fourth torpedo boat and a second submarine chaser. U.S. Navy authorities and the crew of Pueblo assert that before the capture, the Pueblo was miles outside North Korean territorial waters, but North Korea maintains that the vessel was well within North Korean waters.
The North Korean vessels attempted to board the Pueblo, but the Pueblo maneuvered to prevent this for over two hours. A submarine chaser then opened fire with a 57 mm cannon, killing one member of the Pueblo crew. The crew had been attempting to destroy classified material on board, but only a small percentage of this material was destroyed.
The Pueblo was in radio contact with the Naval Security Group in Kamiseya, Japan during the incident. The Seventh Fleet command was aware of Pueblo's situation, but promised air cover never arrived. The Fifth Air Force had no aircraft on alert, and the USS Enterprise was 510 nautical miles south of the Pueblo and her four F-4B aircraft on alert were not equipped for an air-to-surface engagement.
Pueblo followed the North Korean vessels as ordered, stopping immediately outside North Korean waters. She was again fired upon, and a sailor, fireman Duane Hodges, was killed. The ship was finally boarded at 2:55 pm by crew from a torpedo boat and a submarine chaser. The Pueblo's crew members had their hands tied and were blindfolded, beaten, and prodded with bayonets. Once the Pueblo was in North Korean territorial waters, the ship was boarded again.
The first official confirmation that the ship was in North Korean hands came five days later, on January 28, 1968. Aerial photography taken two days earlier showed the Pueblo to be in the Wonsan harbor area surrounded by two North Korean vessels.
In Washington, government officials could not agree on how to handle the situation. Congressman Mendel Rivers suggested that President Johnson issue an ultimatum for the return of Pueblo or a nuclear attack would follow. Senator Gale McGee called for a diplomatic solution. Horace Busby, Special Assistant to President Johnson, said that Johnson was working "very hard here to keep down any demands for retaliation or any other attacks upon North Koreans". He was worried that rhetoric might result in the hostages being killed. There was also speculation that the seizure of Pueblo was being directed by the Soviet Union, although subsequent evidence suggests that this was not the case and that the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with the Soviets.
The Pueblo was taken into port at Wonsan and the crew was moved twice to prisoner of war camps. The crew later reported that they were starved and tortured while in North Korean custody. Their treatment became worse after North Koreans realized that crewmen were secretly giving them "the finger" in staged propaganda photos. Commander Lloyd M. Bucher was psychologically tortured, by being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. The North Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him causing Bucher to agreed to "confess to his and the crew's transgression." Bucher wrote out a coerced confession though in an act of defiance, he wronge "We paean the DPRK [North Korea]. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung". (Bucher pronounced "paean" as "pee on.")
Negotiations for the release of the crew took place at Panmunjom. South Koreans were displeased about being left out of the negotiations. The South Koreans were afraid that the North Koreans would try to exploit the situation against them. The meetings at Panmunjom were generally unproductive. The North Korean negotiators were not empowered to make immediate decisions and had to defer to their government.
The American government ultimately agreed to provide an apology containing a written admission by the U.S. that the Pueblo had been spying. The apology contained an assurance that the U.S. would not spy in the future. Once this occurred, the North Korean government agreed to release the 82 remaining crew members. On December 23, 1968, the crew was taken by buses to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border with South Korea and ordered to walk south one by one across the "Bridge of No Return". Exactly eleven months after being taken prisoner, the Captain led the long line of crewmen, followed at the end by the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Ed Murphy, the last man across the bridge. The U.S. then verbally retracted the apology, and assurance.
Bucher and all the officers and crew subsequently appeared before a Navy Court of Inquiry. A court-martial was recommended for Bucher and Lieutenant Steve Harris for surrendering without a fight and for failing to destroy classified material. But Secretary of the Navy John Chafee, rejected the recommendation, stating, "They have suffered enough." Commander Bucher continued his Navy career until retirement. Bucher died in San Diego on January 28, 2004, at the age of 76.
The USS Pueblo is still held by North Korea. In October 1999, she was towed from Wonsan on the east coast, around the Korean Peninsula, to the port of Nampo on the west coast. After the stop at the Nampo shipyard Pueblo was relocated to Pyongyang and moored on the Taedong River. In late 2012 Pueblo was moved again to the Botong River in Pyongyang next to a new addition to the Fatherland Liberation War Museum.