USS Pueblo (AGER-2)
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The USS Pueblo (ID: AGER-2) is a scout ship of the US Navy , which in 1968 after its hijacking by the North Korean navy has achieved particular fame. It is still owned by North Korea today, making it the only US Navy ship in the world that is in the hands of a foreign power.
In addition to the USS Philadelphia in 1803, the USS President in 1815 and the gunboat USS Wake , which was occupied by Japanese soldiers in the port of Shanghai on December 8, 1941 , the Pueblo is another ship of the US Navy hijacked by an enemy force.
prehistory
The ship was built in the Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. yard in Kewaunee , Wisconsin , and was launched on April 16, 1944 as the freighter FP-344 . In 1954 it was assigned to the reserve fleet. On April 12, 1966, it was again put into service by the US Navy and renamed Pueblo (after the city of Pueblo in the US state of Colorado ). Originally it served as a light freighter. In the following year and a half, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton , Washington, converted the ship into an electronic spy ship, which was opened in May 1967. It was officially declared as an environmental research ship (AGER-2). AGER ( Auxiliary General Environmental Research ) is a joint program of the US Navy and the National Security Agency . The pueblo has a displacement of 909 tons and is powered by two diesel engines that give her a top speed of 12.7 knots . It was armed with two machine guns and had accommodations for six officers and 70 non-commissioned officers and men.
After various exercises off the American west coast, the pueblo was relocated to Yokosuka , Japan , on November 6, 1967 . On November 13, 1967, she reached Pearl Harbor , Hawaii .
Course of events
On January 11, 1968, the pueblo left the Japanese port of Sasebo with instructions to monitor Soviet and North Korean activities within the Korea Strait .
On January 21, a North Korean submarine hunter of Soviet design (the SO-I class) approached the pueblo to within a few nautical miles .
The next day, two North Korean fishing trawlers of the Lenta class approached the Pueblo within about 20 meters. On that day, a North Korean unit attempted to assassinate South Korean leaders, but the pueblo's crew was not informed.
On January 23, a North Korean submarine hunter approached the pueblo and asked them to state their nationality. The American flag was then hoisted on the pueblo . According to its own position determination, the pueblo was outside of North Korean territory at this time.
The North Korean ship ordered the pueblo to stop and threatened to open fire. The pueblo tried to escape but was much slower than the submarine hunter. In addition, three torpedo boats appeared on the Kimm , a little later two MiG-21s and a fourth torpedo boat. The pueblo's machine guns were wrapped in tarpaulin and their ammunition was below deck. The machine guns were not loaded and no attempt was made to man them.
The North Korean ships tried to board the pueblo , but were prevented by evasive maneuvers by the pueblo . A torpedo boat then opened fire with a 55 mm cannon. The smaller ships fired machine gun salvos at the pueblo , which surrendered. Although the pueblo crew had started to destroy the secret information, the sheer amount of information made it impossible for them to destroy all of the material. Only 90% could be destroyed, as the objects thrown overboard and the rising smoke of burned cipher tables immediately appeared suspicious to the North Korean units. Author Robert A. Liston points out in his book The Pueblo Surrender - A Covert Action by the NSA that lightly armed spy vessels typically carry little to no classified material during dangerous operations near enemy territorial waters. The multi-member NSA crew in the secret area of the pueblo had over an hour to destroy secret material before the ship was boarded for the first time.
In the meantime, the High Command of the American Pacific Fleet had been informed of the incident. The crew was promised help, but it never arrived. Apparently nobody wanted to be responsible for an attack on the North Korean ships. When President Lyndon B. Johnson was awakened, the pueblo had already been captured.
The Pueblo initially followed the North Korean ships as ordered, but suddenly stopped outside North Korean territorial waters. She was then fired again and an American sailor, Duane Hodges, was killed. North Korean soldiers went on board, handcuffed and blindfolded crew members, and beat them with Kalashnikovs .
On January 26, 1968, CIA pilot Frank Murray flew a Lockheed A-12 on a reconnaissance flight over North Korea to find the pueblo . He flew north and south four times to take photos of the area in which he had found the ship. On May 8, 1968, CIA pilot Jack Layton flew over North Korea one more time.
Aftermath
The pueblo was brought to the North Korean port of Wonsan . The crew were taken to detention camps, where they were ill-treated and tortured. Treatment worsened when the North Koreans noticed that members of the crew were vilifying their guards in staged propaganda photos with what would later become known in Germany as the finger finger . The photos were published by the North Koreans on the grounds that the crew wanted to overrun.
Following the US government's written admission that the Pueblo was a spy ship, an apology, and an assurance that the United States would no longer espionage in the future, the remaining 82 crew members were released. On December 23, 1968, the crew was brought by bus to the inner-Korean border in the demilitarized zone and released into freedom over the " Bridge of No Return ". The USA then withdrew their concession as extorted. Lloyd Bucher, commander of the Pueblo , and all officers in charge were brought before a US Navy investigative tribunal, which eventually recommended a court martial for the commander and Lieutenant Steve Harris. However, Secretary of the Navy John Chafee declined the recommendation. The commandant was never convicted and remained in the Navy until his retirement.
The pueblo was first opened to the public in Wŏnsan. In November 1998, North Korea succeeded in taking the ship well camouflaged by sea around the Korean peninsula to the capital Pyongyang . There it was in the harbor in the district of P'yŏngch'ŏn-guy Stadtk on the north bank of the Taedong and was one of the largest tourist and propaganda attractions in North Korea. Since the end of 2012 it is no longer at its exhibition site. It is now (2016) on the Pothong , right next to the " Memorial for the Patriotic Liberation Struggle ", and is part of its exhibition.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ The Pueblo Surrender - A Covert Action by the NSA . Bantam. Retrieved November 3, 2009.
- ↑ http://groups.msn.com/ctoseadogs/usspueblocrew1.msnw ( Memento from February 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Francis Landikrov: 40 years ago - The USS PUEBLO incident. In: Marineforum 1 / 2-2008 p. 39 f.
- ↑ USS Pueblo Disappears from Pyongyang. NK News.org, November 29, 2012, accessed March 25, 2016.
Coordinates: 39 ° 2 ′ 26 " N , 125 ° 44 ′ 23.3" E