About the USS Pueblo . . . .
As you might recall, the USS Pueblo was captured by North Korean forces on January 23, 1968.
The crew was released some 11 months later – after going through hell in captivity. But the North Korean government never did release the ship.
The ship was initially taken to Wonson on North Korea’s east coast. But some time in the late 1990s, it was towed around the Korean peninsula and taken to Korea’s west coast.
For a while, it apparently disappeared from sight. But it’s now reappeared.
Apparently it’s been towed up the Pothong River to Pyongyang. According to an article at Breitbart.com,
it’s expected to be be unveiled this week as the centerpiece of a renovated war museum to commemorate what North Korea calls “Victory Day,” the 60th anniversary this Saturday of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.
Great. Just freaking great.
Hopefully ND:tBF will visit it. And when he does, I hope he finds a wet and slippery spot on the deck – then slips, falls, and busts his fat ass.
Category: Navy, North Korea
It would be even better if ‘lil Fat Boy fell in the river and floated far enough out to sea to get harpooned!!
It was a very sad day when this happened. Still sad. Many folks were wondering even then what had happened to this country when this occurred.
And tie that in with Walker/Whitworth, and I still wonder why those guys are drawing breath.
Although I hear Whitworth has cancer. And I hope it fucking HURTS.
The slip and fall with associated fractured head and perm brain damage does sound very appealing. However, he is such a non-player in the realm of real men, I might suggest a volley of laser guided, cruise missiles, or similar precision munitions launched to coincide with their victory celebration. That would please my dear departed father and his fellow Korean Warriors very much.
I second that idea, MCPO.
As #4 suggested: Any kind of high altitude precision guided munition, through the middle of the deck, sink it in place, break it into several pieces. After all, it’s still US property, we can dispose of it as “we” (that royal plural we) please.
But I can’t see THAT happening with the current campaigner-in-chief.
(Side joke: does that make “him” the CoC-of-the-walk?)
I’m not following that ‘Victory Day’ business. The Norks invaded the South to forcefully unify the country under communist rule. Sixty years later, the country remains bifurcated and the South has a 24-hour McDonalds in Seoul. So, what does Victory Day celebrate?
Air Cav–it’s like that bully who sucker punched you, whereupon you knocked the shit out of them and they claimed victory, or they’ll threaten to get their big brother (in this case, the Chinese) to beat you up.
In economic terms, it’s kinda like Obama claiming victory because “we’re back to where we were” as he stated the other day.
Johnson was still President when the USS Pueblo was taken. I was working CINCPAC J3A3 (Special Ops) as an admin NCO and on duty in the Command Post that day. I vividly remember Admiral Sharp coming into the Command Post then going into the inner more security area glass walled room where higher classified than Top Secret was handled. From his gestures it was apparent something happened that really pissed him off. My shift ended before I learned what it was about but in the ensuing days we all waited for our country to do something, and waited, and waited. When Johnson visited our HQ we were restricted to our offices with doors closed. Nixon was subsequently elected and when he visited we were permitted to mingle. Guess Johnson thought some of the hard core would object to his inaction while getting richer through his wife’s airline hauling troops to Nam’
American hardware used for propaganda purposes? I say we destroy it in place with a single Tomahawk. Light tactical nuke loadout, but just one should do. Wouldn’t want to go wasting taxpayer money that could be put to better uses like Presidential vacations, right?
I was stationed at a Nike Hercules Missile base in Germany the day that happened. We had guys that were getting ready to get out put on hold( I guess you call it Stop Loss now) and of course our Alert Status went up. Sad time for our country that day.
I have always felt that Bucher should have fought back. He would have lost but he should have made the NorKs sink the Pueblo. The loss of the equipment to the NorKs was a much greater loss than the lives of the crew. Bucher was an orphan and his judgment was clouded in that his crew had become his family. I know the Pueblo was armed only with a couple of M-2’s but to strike his colors without a fight was disgraceful. He did not give the Tech crew time to destroy their crypto gear or other classified gear or documents. The true shame of this fiasco was the absolute lack of any response. Aircraft had been launched, both fighters and bombers, but they were recalled by the whitehouse.
…Let me suggest this: strap a JDAM kit to a concrete-filled MK84 2000 lb bomb, to be dropped from a B-2 at altitude. The kinetic energy alone would be sufficient to tear the ship apart, and it would bury itself so deep in the mud that the Norks would never find it. Their response would be limited to the old cartoon line: “I don’t know HOW ya did it, but I KNOWS YOU DID IT!!!”
Mike
SLBM target Naow!
#13 – Mike K – awesome as usual
Frank G
The NSA has finally declassified Damage Assessment report from the PUEBLO:
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/uss_pueblo/Cryptologic-Cryptographic_Damage_Assessment.pdf
NavCWORet: that is among a boatload (intentional pun) of other NSA docs released fairly recently regarding the Pueblo. Its in the archive at one of the links in this article:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=34188
Hondo, thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen those other documents. Being someone within that community within the Navy, it’s always been a sore spot with us as to how the whole situation went down with them.
NavCWORet: no issue, CWO. I also am rather pissed as to how the USS Pueblo was hung out to dry on that mission.
The mission well might have been important enough to send a ship with issues and light armament to perform same in spite of the risk; I can’t assess that. But to do that with stupid ROE and no plan for ready backup in the event things “went south”? That is IMO unpardonable – and “Big Navy”, PACOM, and USFK all IMO share in the blame for that lack of contingency planning. At a minimum, IMO planes should have been on 24/7 strip/deck alert to launch from both the Eisenhower and in Osan while they were near NK. None were.
The USS Pubelo made its share of mistakes before and (perhaps) during that mission in terms of training and in not purging material they never should have had on board when captured. But those errors were IMO dwarfed by the institutional screw-ups that led to a ship with serious issues being left hanging in the wind alone when NK attempted to take that ship.
Lyndon and Navy brass didn’t want to “offend” anyone by taking any military action. Very politically correct.
Bedwetters