quote:
Would love to hear some of those. You know the USS Pueblo is still being held by North Korea and there is a push to have the ship returned to the US by its former crew.

Yes I know. My father-inlaws library is a shrine to it and the men he served with. There were two oceanographers on board, himself and another guy he is very good friends with to this day. The have reunions every five years. I have met most of the crew including the captain, Pete Bucher. He painted several pictures that hang in our house. My father-in-law and his friend were used as decoys, doing legitimate ocean mapping and such, while the electronics warfare people below deck were listening in on North Korean signals. He did a lot of stuff to the Soviets too but still can't talk about it because of disclosure laws in the military. But I put two and two together and figured out that they would go into Vladivostok Harbor by submarine and plant listening devices on a communications cable that ran the length of the harbor on the ocean floor.

The Pueblo has the distinction of being the only US Navy ship ever surrenders to the enemy. To fight gunboats and MiGs strafing them would have been a suicide mission for them. All they had, I seem to recall, was a .30cal Browning deck gun. Captain Bucher died a few years ago and I know at the time of his death he was still not forgiven by the US Navy for this. They actually wanted him court marshaled for surrendering the ship but the JAG knew they didn't have a case against him because he was acting in the best interest of his men

This post was edited on 8/14/13 at 4:56 pm