Posted on 07/27/2018 6:51:26 AM PDT by daniel1212
Once again a enemy was underestimated, and with the US unprepared for what a God-less malicious deceptive military government would inevitably do. While the severely tortured men were released after 11 months, the ship remains in enemy hands,
From the article, Pueblo remains the second-oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy, behind USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides"). Pueblo is one of only a few American ships to have been captured since the wars in Tripoli.
“Air cover was promised but never arrived. The Fifth Air Force had no aircraft on strip alert, and estimated a two to three-hour delay in launching aircraft.”
Always caught with our pants down.
I guess I never understood this act of war and no response.
Happened under LBJ, Democrat. Typical cowardly Democrat.
My wife watched the original Manchurian Candidate for the first time, and now says she understands why the government is so effed-up.
Nothing has changed!
Sigint / Photint / Elint devices of all kinds, including ships, need to self-destruct if necessary.
And maybe these triggers need to be remote, for instance on low-frequency worldwide bands or by satellite, if necessary.
We’ve seen this over and over again, as many Freepers know well.
It is better to lose a boat, a plane, or even a pilot from time to time than... Well, you know.
Democrats-When air support is needed yet denied and you let your heroes burn, die, or be taken prisoner, you can count on them.
This sentence reminded me of Ben-Ghazi and the Bay of Pigs incidents.
It is almost as if the US command/White House never intended to prevent the capture of the Pueblo, and the crew were only collateral damage.
“From the article, Pueblo remains the second-oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy, behind USS Constitution (”Old Ironsides”)”
I believe that the USCGC Eagle was put into service three years earlier (’42 vs ‘45) and the Eagle is active. I saw her sail into Seattle about eight years ago.
Quite a sight to behold!
I apologize for leaving off the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Eagle_(WIX-327)
BTW, we stole her from Germany during WWII!
Should’a nuked Pyongyang then...
Twas more bluster than effect:
There was dissent among government officials in the United States, regarding how to handle the situation. Congressman Mendel Rivers suggested that President Johnson issue an ultimatum for the return of Pueblo on penalty of nuclear attack, while Senator Gale McGee said the United States should wait for more information and not make "spasmodic response[s] to aggravating incidents".[15] According to Horace Busby, Special Assistant to President Johnson, the president's "reaction to the hostage taking was to work very hard here to keep down any demands for retaliation or any other attacks upon North Koreans", worried that rhetoric might result in the hostages being killed.[16]
The day following the incident on Wednesday 24 January 1968, following extensive cabinet meetings Washington decided upon that their initial response should be to:
a) Deploy air and naval forces to the immediate area.
b) Make reconnaissance flights over the location of the Pueblo.
c) Call up military reserves and extending terms of military service.
d) Protest the incident within framework of the United Nations
e) President Johnson should personally cable Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin.[17][18][19][20]
Although American officials at the time assumed the seizure of Pueblo had been directed by the Soviet Union, it has emerged in recent years that North Korea acted alone and the incident actually harmed North Korea's relations with most of the Eastern Bloc.[21]
On 23 December 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,[29] the U.S. then verbally retracted the ransom admission, apology, and assurance. Meanwhile, the North Koreans blanked out the paragraph above the signature which read: "and this hereby receipts for eighty two crewmen and one corpse".[clarification needed]
Bucher and all the officers and crew subsequently appeared before a Navy Court of Inquiry. A court-martial was recommended for Bucher and the Officer in Charge of the Research Department, Lieutenant Steve Harris for surrendering without a fight and for failing to destroy classified material, but the Secretary of the Navy, John Chafee, rejected the recommendation, stating, "They have suffered enough." Commander Bucher was never found guilty of any indiscretions and continued his Navy career until retirement.[30]
In 1970, Bucher published an autobiographical account of the USS Pueblo incident entitled Bucher: My Story.[31] Bucher died in San Diego on 28 January 2004, at the age of 76. James Kell, a former sailor under his command, suggested that the injuries suffered by Bucher during his time in North Korea contributed to his death.[32]
On 23 January 1968 North Korean patrol boats supported by two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 fighters captured the USS Pueblo northeast of the North Korean island of Ung-do.[1] The seizure of the Pueblo led to President Lyndon Johnson ordering a show of force with a massive deployment of U.S. air and navy assets to Korea. The airlift and deployment of 200+ aircraft was code named Operation Combat Fox[2] while the deployment of six aircraft carriers plus support vessels was code named Operation Formation Star.[3] The operations were supported by the partial mobilization of reservists for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.[3] CIA A-12 Oxcart reconnaissance overflights over North Korea were used to monitor a feared retaliatory mobilization of North Korean forces and when these flights revealed no mobilization or large scale deployments by North Korean forces, Operation Combat Fox forces were stood down.[4]
Soviet response Publicly, the Soviet Union responded by augmenting their naval forces in the Pacific and by sending a letter to the US president Lyndon B. Johnson on 3 February 1968 demanding that the United States scale back their build-up in the Sea of Japan. Privately however, Alexei Kosygin gave assurances to the US ambassador in Moscow (Llewellyn Thompson) on 6 February 1968 that the Soviet Union had no intention to go to war over Kim Il Sung's provocation, as a response to this overture, Lyndon Johnson agreed to withdraw one unnamed vessel "somewhat southward". This exchange enabled Brezhnev to make a subsequent face-saving statement to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that the Soviet letter was answered by the Americans by withdrawing the USS Enterprise from DPRK's shores.[5] - https://wikivividly.com/wiki/Operation_Combat_Fox
“Previously secret documents suggest the Soviets were surprised by the Pueblo incident, first learning of it in the press...?”
Gee...Just like Barky?
Sailors in the US Navy are just as much warriors as any Marine or Army grunt. I don't understand why they gave up without a fight. So what if they strayed into Iranian waters, they signed up to give all. What's happened to my Navy?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/11/uss-pueblo-still-held-north-korea-trump-kim-jong-u/
It should be logical that a nation’s warships should be armed and ready to fight at all times. Our Navy seems to have a problem in this regard.
Just find it weird that something that happened 50 years ago really only seems like 10 or 15. Getting old really skews time perception.
I was on the Enterprise when that happened. We sailed up there at high speed, surrounded by thirty or so ships that I could see, and probably more around and under us. Several of our planes were loaded with nukes in the hangar bay, which was unusual because weps always loaded only on flight deck.
It had been previously docked on the east coast of North Korea. How were they able to sail it around South Korea--under our satellites and reconnaissance aircraft--without being detected? Or did the Obama administration let them do it?
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