North Korea is planning to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the Korean War, known in North Korea as "Victory Day," by unveiling a new home for the only U.S. Navy ship in the hands of a foreign government, the USS Pueblo, the Associated Press reports.
The Pueblo, captured by North Korea in 1968, was given a fresh coat of paint and will be displayed on the Pothong River in Pyongyang as part of a war museum. To North Koreans the ship serves as a reminder that the nation has gotten the upper hand over the United States in the past.
The Pueblo was an older ship, already 40 years old, and lightly armed when it was captured by North Korea. Since the ship was a spy ship large guns would blow its cover. When it was surrounded by six North Korean ships and MiG fighters in the air above the crew of 83 had no chance. One sailor was killed during the capture and the rest were detained, according to the Associated Press.
"I got shot up in the original capture, so we were taken by bus and then train for an all-night journey to Pyongyang in North Korea, and then they put us in a place we called the barn," Robert Chicca told the Associated Press. "We had fried turnips for breakfast, turnip soup for lunch, and fried turnips for dinner...There was never enough to eat, and personally I lost about 60 pounds over there."
While in the custody of the North Koreans members of the crew were subject to brutal conditions as well as beatings. Despite conducting intelligence operations the crew did not have much information that was pertinent to the North Koreans, according to the Associated Press.
"The Koreans basically told us, they put stuff in front of us, they said you were here, you were spying, you will be shot as spies," Earl Phares told the Associated Press. "Everybody got the same amount of beatings in the beginning."
The crew was held in North Korea for 335 days before they were released. When they returned to the United States the Navy considered court-martialling the ship's captain, Cmdr. Lloyd M. "Pete" Bucher, since the ship didn't fire a shot before being captured and much of the intelligence material was seized, the Associated Press reports.
"It would have been nice to take out some of the guys, some of them, and maybe go down fighting, but it would have been total suicide," Phares said. "We never thought anything would happen, and we weren't supposed to create an international incident."
While there have been many efforts to have the ship returned to the United States the outlook of that happening any time soon is pretty bleak.
