Did you know that the only actively commissioned US naval vessel in captivity is docked in Pyongyang, North Korea? On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a former WW2 US Army cargo ship converted into a Navy intelligence-gathering vessel, was captured by the Korean People’s Army. Her crew of 82 men spent 11 months as prisoners during one of the most volatile periods of the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Don’t forget, the Korean War ended with an armistice and is technically still active to this day.
For this special three part series, we took our recording equipment on the road to explore the story of the USS Pueblo through the eyes of Navy veteran and Pueblo crewman John Mitchell, who turned 21 years old while in captivity. Throughout the series, John reflects with us on what has become known as the “Pueblo Incident.”
We welcome you back to the series for Episode 2, “The Incident”. This episode follows the timeline of the USS Pueblo Incident through John’s eyes, beginning with the ship’s capture and ending with the crew’s release from North Korea after 11 months in captivity. Along the way, John shares what life was like as a prisoner of war, from the days spent in places known as “The Barn” and “The Country Club” to the routines, boredom, and hardships that defined those months. You'll hear what kept him going, the moments that tested him most, and the experiences that have stayed with him ever since. Stay tuned for our final episode in the series, “The Return,” as we follow the crew’s return to the United States.
Today’s episode is guest narrated and edited by SNAFUBAR Writer/Researcher Roman Sotomayor. John Mitchell is a member of the Arcata Veterans Hall, American Legion Post 274. Also present during the interviews with John are SNAFUBAR co-host Sara Hart, Writer/Researcher Liam Salcuni, and Producer Abigail Smithson.
SNAFUBAR is regularly hosted by Sara Hart, who is the Chair of the Applied Humanities Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, and Jeff Crane, who is an Environmental Historian and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt. Research and writing for the show is done by Liam Salcuni and Roman Sotomayor.
SNAFUBAR is produced by Abigail Smithson and brought to you by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Sources & Resources
Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A spy ship and the failure of American foreign policy, 2002
Meyer, Column One: Pueblo’s Bittersweet Tribute
Woo, Charles Law Jr., 60; Led Pueblo Crew in Captivity
The American Legion, Arcata Post 274, Manual for Veterans Dependents
>> John Mitchell: I always used to like to hear when I was a kid on things, you know, like on the TV or even on the radios, like guys like Edward R. Murrow, you know, and coming in from some exotic place with some story and you're going, "Where's that?" You know, I like the old broadcast of him from like when he was in Berlin, I think, and before the war started and all that. It's a real insight into all these things rather than, you know, the party line.
>> Roman Sotomayor: That's the voice of John Mitchell. John is a U.S. Navy veteran who lived through the capture of the USS Pueblo by North Korea in 1968 during the Vietnam War, at the time of which he had just turned 20 years old. This episode marks the second of a special three-part series where we interviewed John about his experience during and after the Pueblo Incident. For years, John has been involved in supporting his fellow veterans as they navigate through the VA system. He also participates in other veteran-led organizations like our local American Legion, Arcata Post 274, based out of the Arcata Veterans Hall. My name is Roman Sotomayor, and along with Liam Salcuni, I am a writer, researcher for "SNAFUBAR". In our episodes with John, you'll also hear the voices and laughter of "SNAFUBAR" co-host Sara Hart, producer Abigail Smithson, and Liam himself. We hope you'll enjoy this episode of "SNAFUBAR", "Pueblo, Part 2: The Incident".
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>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade.
>> John F. Kennedy: The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.
>> Douglas MacArthur: Only the dead have seen the end of war.
>> Dwight D. Eisenhower: We will accept nothing less than full victory.
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>> Sara Hart: You're listening to "SNAFUBAR", at Cal Poly Humboldt.
>> Roman Sotomayor: For those of you starting out here in Part 2, we'll give you a bit of a summary before we begin. In Part 1, we discussed how the USS Pueblo came to be, and the many challenges she faced to get seaworthy. We talked about her captain, Commander Lloyd Bucher, and his attempts to petition for alterations to the ship, which were often met with denials. We spoke about Pueblo's mission as a spy ship, and how it was so classified that many of the higher-ups, and even the people on board, didn't know what her purpose was. Yet somehow, as we learned, John's mother managed to figure it all out. Today, we're going to continue using a bit of a different format from our usual style. We have a timeline of events covering the Pueblo incident, and we're going to walk through her capture, the 11-month imprisonment of her crew, and their release. Then, we invite you to join us for Part 3, where we'll talk about John returning to the United States. Now, let's jump into "The SNAFUBAR" with "Pueblo, Part 2" The Incident".
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>> Roman Sotomayor: January 5th to 11th, 1968. We begin here in the thick of the Vietnam War. By this point, around 536,000 U.S. troops were stationed in South Vietnam. The Pueblo departs Yokosuka, Japan, and arrives at Sasebo to prepare for a surveillance patrol off the coasts of North Korea and the Soviet Union as part of an ongoing effort to collect signals intelligence on Communist nations during the Cold War and fighting in Vietnam. Pueblo's orders are to stay at least 13 nautical miles away from the North Korean coast as to remain outside territorial waters. January 21st, 1968. Tensions on the North Korea Peninsula skyrocket following what is known as the Blue House Raid. 31 North Koreans composing of Unit 142 infiltrated Seoul in an assassination attempt on South Korean President Park Chung Hee. The Pueblo crew is not notified of this incident. Additionally, on the 21st, the Pueblo has a brush with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, also known as DPRK, SO-1 class subchaser off Maying-do. The subchaser closed within 500 yards of the Pueblo's port bow, but never broke course or gave any sign of recognizing that the Pueblo was anything but a fishing vessel. Bucher and the officers ultimately decide not to notify COMNAVFORJAPAN of this as they didn't believe they were spotted. For crew members on board the Pueblo like John, this encounter didn't strike them as anything different than business as usual.
>> John Mitchell: You know, we had our sister ship the Banner before we left, said, "Oh, these things will happen." But they said all in all, there wasn't much of a fear factor to this thing to them. They'd done it many times with no problem. But there was no -- I think it was zero fear factor at that time when they saw those -- the fishing boats, we see some of them too. It really wasn't a big deal.
>> Roman Sotomayor: January 22nd, 1968. On the morning of January 22nd, the Pueblo arrived at Operation Area Mars just outside Wonson Harbor. By this point, the crew had picked up no new or interesting intelligence. The two DPRK ships, Soviet-built Lentra-class trawlers converted for military use, began to circle the Pueblo less than 500 yards away. Then, they fled northeast and stopped about three miles from the Pueblo. At this point, Bucher began to prepare a situation report for transmission to COMISEA, sensing that there might be trouble ahead. The trawlers then hustled back to Pueblo and came within 25 yards of her. The Pueblo had been spotted. Attempts to report this to COMISEA were rife with difficulties. The radio men worked throughout the night trying to connect with COMISEA, but struggled with the ship's weak transmission abilities. After 16 hours and attempting 13 different frequencies, the Pueblo was finally able to notify the station. John isn't certain what was going on in the back rooms of the ship while all this was happening. On board the Pueblo, it was likely that the communications technicians, who John refers to as spooks, were likely trying to develop the next course of action from their secretive room called the SOD-Hut.
>> John Mitchell: You know, they didn't talk to the rest of the crew. They weren't allowed to mingle with us. You know, they were kept away from us. So you know, somebody like me had zero idea what's really going on.
>> Roman Sotomayor: January 23rd, 1968. Early on the 23rd, the Pueblo navigated about 16 miles from Ungdu, a small island near Wonsan Harbor. The communications technicians reported an increase in message traffic, but again, they were unable to quickly translate them without dictionary help, a process which would take them hours. Meanwhile, regular activity continued on the Pueblo for much of the crew. John recalls how they reacted to the presence of the North Korean ships.
>> John Mitchell: It was just more fun, more ships, you know, and, you know, we were out there flipping them the bird or whatever, you know, just something to do to harass them, believing they were going to not do anything. But nobody was, like, scared at that point.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Come lunchtime, excitement broke out again. A North Korean SO-1 subchaser was descending upon them at speeds faster than those the Pueblo was capable of matching.
>> John Mitchell: Right till the last minute, it was like just a big sideshow, you know, something fun to watch, you know. Oh, now we have subchasers out here, you know. Oh, they got soldiers and you could see AK-47s in their hands. Oh, well, you know, this is really fun. It was like almost the next day before the message got to Washington that we'd been taken. So it's just going to go downhill from here, you know. This is the turning point right here.
>> Roman Sotomayor: The subchaser began to circle the Pueblo at a distance of 500 yards. Soon after, they raised international signal flags requesting the Pueblo report her nationality. Up until this point, Pueblo had been flying an international flag of a hydrographer. The standoff continued for 15 minutes. Then, three P-4 torpedo boats appeared. Now, remember, Bucher had been communicating with the captain of the USS Banner prior to Pueblo's mission. And Banner had endured harassment during her time at sea. Many of the crew didn't seem to feel they were in any danger, as the Pueblo was still within international waters. Bucher had the crew signal to the North Korean ships that Pueblo was in international waters and intended to stay in the area until the next day. Then, they began to contemplate their options. Scuttling was not possible, as the ship would take too long to sink, and the ocean depth was such that North Korea could easily recover anything they sought. Communications with COMISEA continued in the background. Suddenly, two Soviet MiG-21 fighter jets flew overhead, with additional ships approaching, including the ship they had spotted a day earlier. By 1 p.m., one of the North Korean ships transmitted their intent to capture the USS Pueblo to land. DPRK soldiers, armed and ready, began to transition from the subchaser onto one of the torpedo boats, and started to close in on the Pueblo. By now, it became clear to Bucher that the best option was for the Pueblo to flee. He signaled to the North Koreans that he was departing the area. Again, Pueblo's communication attempts were stymied by routine frequency changes that essentially put them on a temporary hold.
>> John Mitchell: We should have had carrier pigeons.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Yeah, right.
[ Laughter ]
It might have been faster.
>> John Mitchell: That is a proven way of sending messages. I think a lot of people now, maybe, I don't know how many generations, have no idea how really primitive the electronics was at that time.
>> Roman Sotomayor: January 23rd, 1968, 2:30 to 2.55 p.m., local time. Pueblo is unable to escape the encircling ships, and her attempts frustrate the North Koreans who begin to open fire upon Pueblo with cannon and machine gun rounds. The P-4s would expend more than a thousand rounds of ammunition. These attacks wounded several crewmen, including Bucher, who was grazed by flying metal.
>> John Mitchell: A bunch of us are standing out on the deck, forward deck, and we're watching all this circus go on around us. And we thought, you know, it was pretty entertaining, actually. You know, I mean, you don't have any idea. And the executive officer came to a hatchway and opened it up and said, "You guys need to come in." And he just said it in kind of a real polite kind of way. And so we all just politely ignored it, you know, and we're having fun out there. And we don't want to go inside. You can't see anything. And it wasn't just a minute, probably, because he thought we would be right behind him. He opened it up and says, "I'm not asking, I'm telling." So we took the hint, got inside, went down a passageway. I went all the way to the back, to the galley, the kitchen galley, and looked through one of the round hatchways you'll see in the movies. And I kind of stick my head out. And one of the -- I call them PT boats, they're subchasers, came around the fantail, which is the back of the ship, and just cut loose, just opened fire. And bullets were just pinging off of the ship everywhere. And I just went into like a trance, like, what? And your brain can't process this thing, you know. It's just nothing in your whole life you're prepared for. No matter how many war movies you saw, you still don't know. And some guy grabbed me by the collar, pulled me back, and shut that hatch.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Now that firing had begun, Buker orders Pueblo to comply with the North Korean ships, following them east toward shore. In the meantime, the crew hustled to destroy classified materials. However, as we covered in the first episode, Pueblo was loaded down with 450 pounds of documents, which would essentially take an estimated 9 to 12 hours to destroy. In an attempt to buy more time to destroy the documents, Pueblo stopped in the water, faking malfunction. This earned them another attack from the subchaser and torpedo boats, which led to more wounded and critically injured fireman Duane Hodges.
>> John Mitchell: So I was told to go burn documents, which was just in the area which we ate. And people were sitting everywhere with metal trash cans, you know, burning them one page at a time. No ventilation in there. So there's no fresh air coming in. And finally, somebody came over and said, "Hand out helmets." Because stuff they were starting to fire was coming through, like the one that killed Hodges. And there would have been more to come. So I'm handing these out. There's a bunch of guys in the past crowded into the passageway. And they come around and they open fire again. And at the first few seconds, I didn't think too much about it. I'm still standing there. Well, okay. And I turn around and there were pinholes all down the side of the ship, right where we were standing. Those bullets, if you want to call them that, or shells, just didn't have enough poop to cut through, luckily for all of us.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Despite efforts to burn and dump sensitive material overboard, only a small percentage of the classified documents are destroyed in time. By now, the North Koreans decide to board the Pueblo. At 2:33 p.m., the last message is sent to COMISEA, stating, "Four men injured and one critically, and going off the air now and destroying this gear." The North Koreans seized control of the Pueblo and heard the crew at gunpoint. Pueblo's crew are tied up, blindfolded, and beaten with rifle butts and bayonets during the roundup. Hodges succumbed to his injuries as the only fatality of this incident.
>> John Mitchell: So we went down that passageway, and here's guys in winter gear, with the hats with the little flappy things for the ears. They always seem to have them, but have them up. And they've all got AK-47s. There's a bunch of officers. And as we lined up, they were prepared enough to tie us all up and blindfold us. So they put us down where we slept. And so we couldn't see, and we're tied up. And so, you know, obviously it's not going to get any better than that, you know, for a long time. Then they hauled us back up on the ship. But at this time we’re timed up in Wonsan harbor. So they take us off there just -- I don’t know what kind of pier they had, or what they had going, because it was just one board, a plank, from the ship to the dock. But they had to kind of like, hand walk us, two or three guys across that plank until they got us where we could just walk. We don’t know what it was, they took us in some kind of building. You know your mind starts trying to fill in the blanks so you go, “well it looks like a big long shed,” it could’ve been 10 feet long, I have no idea. We were sit in chairs similar to this, just the old-time flat-back wooden chairs. And your mind’s just racing like, “what’s going to happen here?” Trying to -- I don’t know. It’s just weird. Your brain goes so fast I can’t even remember what all I was thinking.
>> Roman Sotomayor: The North Koreans navigate the Pueblo into Wonsan Harbor, and the crew's 11 months of captivity begin.
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>> Roman Sotomayor: January 24th to 28th, 1968. The 82 surviving crewmen are transferred to Pyongyang over the course of a bus and train ride. During the transfer, they are beaten by their captors, and North Korean civilians scream and curse at them, banging on the walls of the buses as they pass. There, they are confined to a run-down four-story building surrounded in fencing. The crew would dub this location, "The Barn".
>> John Mitchell: They took us right from the buses, and then they had kind of a long line of guys to the door, and everybody got to take a shot at you. Then, once we were inside the building, that stopped. Those guys didn't come in the building. And then we were placed in rooms with four people. And, oh, my luck, I'm in a room with three spooks. You know, real -- I mean, I was a reservist. You don't get real excited about the Navy. It's not going to be your whole life unless you really love it. So you don't get really excited. These guys are lifers, as we call it, guys who are working towards retirement. These guys are spooks. Now, are they going to talk to me now, you know, at this point, or am I all by myself? They turned out to be really good guys. Good guys.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Enlisted men and officers were separated from one another. The enlisted men were placed in rooms of four each. Their rooms were 12 feet wide and 17 feet long with ratty furnishings. Cracked windows allowed for the freezing North Korean winds to come in, and heating was scarce if present at all. In these early days, the captive crewmen are kept in dark and cold, fed only a thin gruel of turnip soup and the occasional crust of bread.
>> John Mitchell: The Barn was not a good place. So you're in a box with no ventilation. At one point -- they would come to the door, and they never would open the door. It was like they didn't really kick it open, but they would throw it. So it would hit the bed, and just go bang. And if you weren't ready for it, you know, you'd come out of your chair. And one day, I don't remember how long it was into this thing. We were always trying to keep track of time. And they opened the door, and it was a whole different thing. They stepped back into the hallway, and they looked at us, and you could tell something was wrong. It turned out we smelled so bad. We were even -- we were that bad even to them, and they weren't the cleanest guys in the world. And so, they came and got us, put us the bus. Probably didn't go 10, 15 minutes. And we went into what was a Japanese-styled bathhouse. We all got to wash down, and they had hot water, tons of hot water. It was like going to heaven, you know. What's heaven? Place of wash, you know, with lots of hot water. And then, if you managed to get really cleaned off really quick enough… this big long cement tank of water for sitting in… you could get in there and get a few minutes in there before they wanted you to get out. Because they had to -- they ran us through this thing in teams. We weren’t all in there together. They put so many at a time. Couple or three rooms at a time until they got us all done and then back on the bus. You know, something like that can just make you live more days. The days are easier for a little while, just because of that shower. You’re just thinking about, “well maybe they’ll give me another one. Maybe we’ll stink so bad they’ll be back.” You know, that didn’t happen but… [laughs]
>> Roman Sotomayor: February to March, 1968. Negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea began on February 5th at Panmunjom in the DMZ, the demilitarized zone. The North Koreans demanded that the U.S. sign an admission of guilt that Pueblo violated North Korean territorial waters and engaged in espionage, issue a formal apology, and assure it will not spy or intrude again. This came to be known as the "three A's", admit, apologize, and assure. Naturally, these talks didn't go well. State Department analysis predicted, "They will brook no changes. They will try to exploit the situation. Then, when we have agreed to sign their document of confession and apology, they will return the crew. They will not return the ship." Meanwhile, the crew of the Pueblo settled into their new daily routines under their captors' strict rules of life. This included occasionally holding stress positions any time they were not eating, sleeping, or being interrogated. They had to ask permission for the smallest physical acts. Meals continued to be of poor quality, offering little nutritional value to the crew. Many of the men began to slowly starve as a result.
>> John Mitchell: Now, what you were just saying, that didn't happen to everybody at that point. I mean, I didn't really get that kind of treatment, and I'll talk about it at the end. It did happen to people, and one of the guys, he was a Marine, and he wasn't going to take their shit. You know, okay. They brought him out, and his face was -- you couldn't see his eyes, he was so puffed out. His nose, his face was just like one ball of like, it wasn't even like black and blue or anything. It was just puffed. So they obviously knew what they were doing to him. And so I brought him out and put him in the middle and said, "This is what we can do." And then they took everybody that went back to the rooms. And I went, "Whew." Yeah, I don't want to go down that road until I have to.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Bucher worked in the background to maintain military discipline and morale. He covertly appointed CQM Law as the senior enlisted leader to keep the crew unified and the two devised ways to communicate with one another. Their interrogators demanded they sign statements admitting to spying. The crew resisted at first, providing only gibberish, lies, or any other methods they could to spurn their captors. But this only led to further beatings, some lasting for hours upon end. As a result, these forced confessions began to emerge first from the officers, then from the enlisted men. Lerner, in his book "The Pueblo Incident", which we draw heavily on for our series, suggests that the survival of the crew was by and part a result of their defiance in the face of their captors, that it offered them a way to confront and resist their subjugation. For John and the men in his room, sometimes these small victories, like the bath, took the shape of things you wouldn't have expected.
>> John Mitchell: One of the other guys in my room, he was from New England, and we get in there, and they would bring you these little teapots full of hot water, and you had four cups. That had to last a long time. So they bring the water the first couple of days, and he goes, well, guess what? And he reaches in his pocket, he pulls out a teabag. Like, we're all going, "Oh, man, you know, that's great. You know, we got it made. Now we get tea." So we'd make a pot of tea, and then we'd hide that, and then found out he had a whole pocket full of them.
[ Laughter ]
And we're going like, "Excuse me, guy, but when did you have time to get teabags?" I don't know. He must have thought we were going to stay a while, all the teabags he had. But so, you know, there's always these weird little things that happen that sometimes just make your day. And it cuts the boredom because, you know, in spite of the fact people are getting hit, you can kind of get used to that, punches once in a while. But the boredom is like, they get you up at 6 o'clock in the morning, and you go to bed at 10 o'clock at night. And sometimes in the middle of the night, they come out and kick the door open just to wake you up. And so it was just -- you know, it was like I say, it's pure hell or pure boredom. There's not something else going on.
>> Roman Sotomayor: March, 1968. The North Koreans permitted a few letters to be sent home from the men as propaganda about their conditions, wanting the U.S. to believe the men were being treated with care. But the men again slipped in subtle cues to their family as a way to convey the reality. One man, fireman Bill Massie, wrote to his family that he was, "excited to return to Illinois so that I can attend the Rockford Memorial Fair." While it sounds natural, Rockford Memorial is actually a hospital, meaning he needed medical help.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, some guys that were -- we had a guy in the room that he was a pretty sharp guy, pretty sharp guy. And he sat there and made up all these, he used names like of movie stars and stuff, and then wrote scenarios that never happened, but sounded good on paper. And he was really clever at it. I never could think of much, and I didn't want to really sit there and do it for all day. So I just put as little as possible. And sometimes they would say, "Oh, you didn't write enough," and give it back to you, and you'd have to add, you know, two, three more BS paragraphs until they were happy. But you've seen them, and they're not that long. Like I say, we had a couple guys in the room that wrote some pretty clever ones. Most of the other people just kinda wrote homey little things that, would sound like a little kid almost, “Hi, I’m fine, how are you?” You know? That kind of talk. You go, “nobody sounds like that.” Yeah, it’s just -- you never knew what to you because you never really knew what they wanted. I don’t know, sometimes they made a bigger deal out of something than others. So you just had to play it by ear. So you always start whatever they wanted you to do you start little and work big. Give yourself some room.
>> Roman Sotomayor: April to August, 1968. In the midst of lower food conditions, with some food causing men to develop worms, mosquitoes, flies, and other vermin, the men continued to find ways to fight back. The North Koreans forced the crew to pose for propaganda photographs, but the crew took this opportunity to flash what they convinced the North Koreans was the Hawaiian good luck sign, which was in fact actually the middle finger. These continued acts of defiance helped the crew preserve their dignity, and they were recognized by the U.S. as acts of rebellion. Negotiations dragged on throughout the summer with little movement. Throughout this time, the men's daily suffering continued. Heat and vermin plagued them at their initial prison. Beatings continued. Some of the captives were allowed to give, "leniency speeches," where they could read statements of gratitude about the DPRK as a way to avoid punishment. With time dragging on, the North Koreans would soon move members of the crew to a new location.
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>> Roman Sotomayor: By mid-year, the crew was moved to a large facility on the outskirts of Pyongyang, which they called, "the Country Club." Conditions there were slightly improved. Enlisted men were put into rooms of four to eight, with officers again placed by themselves.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, the four guys in my room and then another room was moved in with us. And so most of them were spooks, too. I think we had myself, we had a cook. I think we had one more just regular guy. I can't think, whatever. I can't think, but I don't know. But, yeah, they just put -- and, again, even though it looks like a big room, you've got four beds on this side and you've got a table at the end and you've got eight chairs around this pretty good-sized table like this, but still there's no room. And you sit all day from the time -- the only time you have to walk to get your food and walk to go to the bathroom, which is another whole story, going to the bathroom. Our room, we were luckier than most because the bathroom was right across the hall from our room. And so they had less time to thump on you. We always call it thump. And so you always had to go together. So here's eight guys, and you go and stand in, and then one guy go in and get done, and then rotate to the back. So I went through the -- you know, so that gives you way too much time standing in the hallway with the guards. But in spite of the fact you didn't want to get hit, sometimes we would -- like if you were at the back and the guard was standing at the front looking off, you'd make a big, loud fart noise. And at first I think they weren't sure what you were doing. And then they figured out pretty quick we were faking it, the sound. So then they'd come up and down, look each person in the eyes, trying to figure out which guy did it. And if they couldn't, they'd just smack somebody real quick. And so that'd become like a game. Can you do something and get away with it? And people go like, "Well, then you're going to get hit." And you go, "What's your point?" You know, it's like even though you knew you were going to get hit, or maybe somebody else got hit, you did it, and somebody else got hit for you. We call that a real triumph. We get back to the room, "Gotcha." You know, "Gotcha." You know, so entertainment can get really strange.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Some crews were allowed limited group activities like volleyball for exercise, which permitted them to continue to find ways to pass messages to one another.
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, I was doing messages. I don't know how I got picked. I don't know. They just picked that name out of a hat trick or something. I have no idea. You know, I got to go to his room, not every day, and there was no messages written down. I would have to memorize everything he wanted passed on, go to my room after there. And I don't even know what I was doing there. I would go in with a bucked and kind of play like a mop in the floor and dink around and kill time. And they could tell I was killing time. And then they would try to come in the room, and Bucher would step in front of them. And they'd tell him to get out of the road, and he would just go off on some weird fantasy thing, you know, and just yammering away. And sometimes he scared me. Like, is he acting or is this real, you know? So he was good at it. And they would just -- he would back them out in the hall and then try to close the door. Well, then they don't want the door closed. But all the time this is happening, every time he gets a chance, he tells me something. It was just a weird way of doing it. Sometimes they'd just totally leave us alone, and he'd tell me what he wanted. And really, there wasn't a lot to tell, to do. It was more just because he was trying to keep protocol. Some days he didn't have anything. He would just, "Oh, tell the crew, everything's okay. I'm okay. You know, you're doing a good job." Yada, yada. You know, just a lot of morale things most of the time.
>> Roman Sotomayor: The men had to endure, "re-education" sessions with propaganda officers. Basketball was banned, so they played kickball with baseball rules and played an improvised version of Monopoly with cards, a game that was also banned.
>> John Mitchell: I mean, that whole time was just a time of pure boredom. You know, you kind of mentioned the indoctrination classes. Those didn't go well for them. They never convinced anybody of, like, two minutes of what they said. Stuff they said was so outrageous. They showed us very clearly that they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Now, they had people during the Korean War that really, really knew what they were doing. They were really into this break you down, rebuild you into what they wanted you to be if they could. They never really -- if they wanted to do that, they wouldn't have put us together. You can't break a guy when you've got a group. You can't break a group. It doesn't work. So you know, but they would send us to classes every day.
>> Roman Sotomayor: May 8th, 1968. North Korea issues an ultimatum. At Panmunjom, the 11th meeting between sides leads to a key moment. North Korean General Pak presents U.S. General Woodward with a prepared document, a verbatim confession for the U.S. to sign. The confession declared that Pueblo, "illegally intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on an espionage mission," and demanded the U.S. apologize and guarantee no further intrusion. This would force the U.S. to admit guilt on all counts. Over the next several months, these meetings at Panmunjom developed into a deadlock. Both sides insisted upon apology. Both sides denied their guilt. The impasse continued as the summer wore on for the crew. Back in the U.S., public opinion of the so-called Pueblo crisis grew increasingly heated. The Johnson administration faced heavy criticism for not retaliating or rescuing the crew. The Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, launched back in late January of the same year, increased domestic turmoil in the U.S. and overshadowed the Pueblo incident. The Johnson administration remained adamant that the return of the crew was a top priority for them. September to November, 1968. By late August, the U.S. attempted to circumvent North Korea's demands for a signed confession by trying to pull a linguistic gambit over the DPRK. General Woodward offered to, "acknowledge the receipt of the crew," as a way to receive the crew back without making any actual confession. General Pak, however, saw through this and denounced this attempt as, "petty stratagem." The situation freezes over in October, with the U.S. refusing to provide any unambiguous apology or admission of guilt. Amidst these diplomatic relations happening outside, the crew continued to find ways to pass time. Often their discussions centered around the one thing that plagued them most, hunger.
>> John Mitchell: So we had lots of time. So we'd get up in the morning and we'd go eat and we'd come back and we'd go, somebody would go, let's talk about candy today. We would spend that amount, whatever, 12, 15, 13 hours and stuff, we would do the whole day speaking of candy. You could fill up one, two, three days on just that. Or then you go into ice cream and then we'd have, you know, whatever day. But it was always about food. Yeah, you think you wouldn't want to think about food, but you're just so obsessed with hunger that that becomes the only thing you talk about, the one thing you don't have. And once they had a holiday, they would have a big national holiday. And so they would kind of let you get really kind of cleaned up that day. And maybe you'd get an apple. And once we got a little package of cookies, little wafers. So we'd go back to the room. Some guys are just going gobbling them down, you know. And I go, "No, no, no, no, not me." I ate one wafer. And I put it in my mouth and let it melt. And people go like, "Well, what was your point?" And I said, every day that I was alive, I would reward myself with a cookie. So every day when I woke up, I go, as I go to bed, I get one of those to put in my mouth and let it melt. Those little packets -- if I'd got enough of them cookies, I could have lasted forever, you know. Just one more cookie. And it was a sad moment when I ran out, you know. So, yeah. But food was the obsession. Food -- yeah, we talked about every kind of food and every way you could cook it and make it.
>> Roman Sotomayor: On this regiment of starvation rations, weight loss began to take its toll on members of the crew as the year drifted into autumn.
>> John Mitchell: Some guys more. It's interesting. A lot of people can be fairly the same size and you get exactly the same amount to eat. And some people burn off, lose a lot more body weight than others. You know, I'd always been fairly thin. I mean, I lost quite a bit, but I don't know, 30, 35 pounds, I think. I don't think, looking in pictures, I don't think I looked that much lighter in my face. But I don't know that there was a lot of movement could be done in my face.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Continuing through autumn, things, once again, began to change. The deadlock of negotiations translated into mounting frustration of the captors, which they took out on the prisoners. Interrogations in fall 1968 became less about gathering intelligence and more about punishing the prisoners. By October, some crewmen sense that their tormentors are growing desperate to break their spirits. Beatings and other abuses intensify in frequency. Quartermaster Charles Law, who we referred to earlier as the informal leader, often volunteered for extra punishment to spare the younger sailors from it. On at least one occasion in fall 1968, Bucher himself is forced to watch as his men are beaten in front of him as a form of psychological torture. As if this wasn't trouble enough, Hell Week, as the crew would come to call it, was about to begin.
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>> Roman Sotomayor: December, 1968. In early December, the North Korean authorities finally discovered the true meaning of the crew's Hawaiian good luck sign, after Kim Il-sung personally saw a foreign newspaper that explained the prisoners had been flipping the bird at the North Koreans. This realization sends North Korean officials into a fury. The guards begin what the Pueblo crew called Hell Week. Around December 12th, 1968, all 82 crewmen are subjected to the most brutal, round-the-clock torture of their captivity. They are beaten mercilessly with rifle stocks, clubs, and whatever objects the guards can find. Many reflect on this, stating they thought they would be killed during Hell Week. Each man was forced to sign a new statement, apologizing for the "middle-finger incident".
>> John Mitchell: Yeah, I mean, mine was a little more personal because they figured out Bucher was getting messages to all of us. Somehow they knew that. And, of course, that's what they came and got me for. You know, so it was a little more on like on a personal level, what they did. And they wanted me to confess to it. You know, I knew what they got me for. So yeah, I mean, I don't know, everybody's beatings were different. Maybe they had different people running their own show. I think it was "Newsweek" magazine they had in their hand, and they didn't even say anything. They just come in, flash the magazine, and you go, "Oh, shit." You know what was coming right there, you know. So the first they moved us, like our room was eight. I don't know. I think there was 12. So they moved another room. They did it -- I don't know why they did. And we were not allowed to go to bed at all. We knew more was coming, but that was the first thing they did. No going to bed. No sleeping. Oh, we had to put our head between our knees and our hands to our sides, I think, whatever. And you have to sit that way for all day. And the bend over part can get pretty -- sit in a chair all day, you know, your butt starts to hurt after a while. Especially when your meat's gone, your hip bones dig in pretty hard. But with your head bent over between your knees, that gets to be, all by itself, excruciating after enough time. But one by one, they would come start, take guys out of the room. And, you know, I have no idea what I looked like when I get back, but I had guys later said, "We saw" -- because I was one of the first ones they took away. And guys went -- they weren't supposed to look at me when I came in. But everybody's eyeballing out of the corner of their eye. And they went, "Oh my God, really?" You know. So I go to this room and there's soldiers in there. There's this officer. He's got a gun on the table, you know. He's either going to use it or he ain't. So it's pretty black and white. So it's not a thing to worry about. And so they just start in. I write a bunch of shit, give it to him. Ah, and he screams and yells and goes on and, you know, threatens. And then after you do that a couple times, then what they did to me is I had to kneel on a wooden floor and then you had your feet flipped back. So the tops of your feet are laying on the floor. So you got them stretched out. And then they put, I don't know what size, but they put a square long board behind my knees and then I was supposed to hold a chair, wooden chair over my head. Well, crap, I could hold that about a minute and then they would just start kicking me, you know, all up and down my body, my back, my ribs. I came back, I had one broken rib. Surprised me it was that little. And I've never had knee problems since, so I've always had pretty strong legs. So I've got to kind of think that that helped. Because they would do it over and over, so, you know, that kind of stuff. Put the chair up, put the chair up, on, hours. Then they'd stop. You'd go back and write more pages. Then they'd repeat it, you know. And they'd punch at your head and stuff. And finally, I'd written 20, 30 pages, somewhere in that, I think. And the officer's sitting in the chair. And a guy comes up behind me and puts a gun in the back of my head. And this was a little hard. And he looks behind himself, and there's a little row of hills back there. And the sun's going, kind of coming down. And he goes, "You're never going to get to see the sunset." Well, we're talking about the next five minutes, you know. He goes, "You're not going to see the sunset." And then something happened. I didn't know what it was exactly. They call it psychological death. If they're going to kill you, fuck it, you're out of there. I had this feeling of calm, this feeling like I'm free. And I think what happens is they can see that happen. And they know they've lost you because that's when everything ends. And I wasn't the only one that I think had happened to. It's called psychological death. You have no fear. You shoot me, I'm gone. Otherwise, you're going to let go of me. You're going to let me go home. I know you are, sooner or later. We've won. And then, you know, they took me back to the room. And just from the time I went in, they put us all a big group in one room, from there on, things are a blur. Time means nothing, doesn't exist, you know. Pain stops at a certain point. It's gone. You get flashes of it kind of when they're doing it. But the reality is, it hurts a lot more at the beginning than it does at the end. And the only thing that pissed me off is when they got done, they came in with a bucket and a rag. And there was blood on the floor and blood on the wall. And they go, clean it up. And I'm going, "You fucking bastards. I got to clean up that mess? You made it. You know, you did this." So that almost made me more angry than getting it there, that I got to clean it up. And everybody had to do that, that I know of. They had to clean up their own blood. But now I'm pissed. That's the first time I was really, really pissed.
>> Roman Sotomayor: Mid-December, a deal is struck. With only weeks left in office, President Johnson grows determined to get the Pueblo home by Christmas. It was decided that the U.S. would sign Pyongyang's statement, then release a public statement of their own, disavowing the content in the document. On December 17th, 1968, General Woodward met with General Pak and informed him that he would sign the document so long as the crew was released immediately afterward. North Korea agrees to this exchange, and the 26th meeting at Panmunjom is scheduled for December 23rd. During those days, treatment improves for the crew. They receive better food and the beatings stop as their captors prepare to release them.
>> John Mitchell: They came in, and they took me away again. I'm going, "Oh, no, not this again." And I walked in the room, and here's a bunch of other guys walking, just walking around and talking. I'm going, "What's going on?" They said -- everybody has something up all the time. So we go, "What's up? What's up, you know?" Well, they brought in hard-boiled eggs, and I call them wax packs. I'm not really sure. It's like they put it on you to make your -- it'll take black and blue away real fast. Eggs will break that down, the blood, and absorb your body, absorb it, clears up your skin, helps the swelling go down. So they just put us in a room and kept doing this stuff to us because -- and we're going like, they ain't doing this for nothing, you know?
>> Roman Sotomayor: December 23rd, 1968. Exactly 11 months to the day since their capture, the Pueblo crew is set free. On the morning of December 23rd at 11:30 a.m., U.S. and North Korean delegations convene at Panmunjom. At a tense ceremonial meeting, General Woodward signed the North Korean document. Then, just as planned, Woodward immediately repudiates the confession. He declared, "I will sign the document to free the crew and only to free the crew." His statement was spoken aloud and entered into the record, making it official that the U.S. apology was not genuine. Within minutes, the crew is escorted across the Bridge of No Return at the DMZ. The 82 sailors, along with the flag-draped coffin of Duane Hodges, pass into South Korea. Bucher led the way with his crew following behind him in single file. Navy medics and diplomats rushed forward to receive the men. In total, the men had endured 335 days of captivity. The Pueblo remains in North Korean hands in Pyongyang to this day as a, "museum to American war atrocities," making it the only U.S. naval vessel actively in captivity.
>> John Mitchell: They marched down the hall. They had a bunch of brand-new clothes sitting on the floor, and they said, "Throw your clothes, strip down, put them there, put them on." Out the door and on a bus, on a train. I don't know why they put us on a train, because it wasn't very far to the border. Then they threatened us at the border. "If you turn around, nobody else gets to cross the bridge." I got about halfway, and that's the first thing I did, you know. Okay. "Fuck you." And then walked up. And because it's the demilitarized zone, the buses there, I think, were Red Cross buses. And they gave us some little package, like, they wanted you to have something. So they had a comb, deck of cards, a little candy and everything. And I think that the Navy or who -- no, we actually were in the charge of the Army. There was no Navy there. There was -- I didn't know who he was. He was kind of a small guy, four stars on his shoulder. It was General Bonesteel, big time. And he came over to me and put his arm around me. And he says, "You need anything? You see me. I got your back." I didn't even know who the guy was. Had to look him up later, you know. And I'm going like, "Shit. All right, dude." You know, some people are real like that. And it's interesting like that. Well, like, you see, that bothered me in a different way. I guess because being treated the way we were, they try to take your humanity away from you. And then that gesture of humanity meant more to me than that first meal I got. You know, they gave us chicken soup and crackers and something they thought was not too overboard. Milk. I don't know. It was kind of a whirlwind. You get off. You go in. You eat. You walk out. You get on a Huey. You know, they fly you. We flew over the city. And so I'm looking down at the house. I was afraid I was going to fall out. I was not some soldier used to jumping out of doors, you know, and they just stuck you in. You go in sideways and you're looking out and there's no safety belt. There's nothing. You're just sitting in a seat. You know, I've never been in one. I'm going like, crap. I'm trying to find everything there is to get a hold of because they're going, you know. And then we landed at the -- I got 101st or something, Evac Hospital at the edge of Seoul. And Evac Hospital is the ones you see in "MASH", MASH units, grab and run. But this was pretty permanent. You know, you could tell, they had quants and huts and all that. And that's what we stayed in. That was pretty cool. We go in, got a shower, got pajamas to put on. The lady comes, gives you a menu. And I go, there were three things on the menu. Well, steak's not -- that's pretty like number one. And I'm looking. I said, "Man." This lady comes and she says, "What would you like for dinner?" Then I said, "Man, they all look good. I don't know what to order." She says, "Order all three. I don't give a shit."
[ Laughter ]
>> Roman Sotomayor: Now freed from their 11 months of captivity, the crew has an opportunity to receive proper meals and medical care before they're flown back to the U.S. But what will await them upon their return? What challenges and trials will they have to face? We're going to pause our timeline here and turn to those questions next time in "The SNAFUBAR" for "Pueblo, Part 3: The Return."
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>> Roman Sotomayor: Today we took you through the timeline of events as experienced by the crew of the USS Pueblo. We discussed the human rights abuses faced by them during their captivity and the tumultuous negotiations that occurred in order to secure their release. Sources will be provided, but we want to give another shout out to Mitchell B. Lerner, whose detailed 2002 book, "The Pueblo Incident", has enhanced our research. In Part 3, we'll meet with John again to hear what happened to the crew of the USS Pueblo after they returned home and close with his reflections on how this experience has affected him over the years. Those interested in learning more about this period of Pueblo's lifespan are encouraged to read the books we used for today's episode, Bucher's "My Story", and of course, Lerner's "The Pueblo Incident". You can also find past interviews with John on "Stories of Sacrifice" and "Veterans Breakfast Club" by searching his name on Spotify and YouTube. John has also participated in putting together a booklet titled "The Manual for Veterans Dependents: What Every Veteran Spouse Should Know Before Their Veteran Dies." This book contains guidance on preparing for the death of a veteran, along with research sources and forms to assist in the process. You can find this book in PDF form on the Arcata Veterans Hall website, which will also be linked in the show notes. We're signing off here from "The SNAFUBAR". See you next time.