Thursday, April 5, 2001

By Steve Liewer, Yokosuka bureau chief

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Military forces from an Asian communist power seize a U.S. Navy vessel on a secret mission to intercept communications. The crew is held captive, their fates and conditions not immediately known.

An EP-3 spy plane off of China in 2001? How about the spy ship USS Pueblo off of North Korea in 1968?

This week’s incident has suddenly prompted plenty of reflection by the 83 living crew members of the Pueblo, who survived 11 months of interrogation and torture in a North Korean prison camp, and their families.

"When I saw it on the news, they had the yellow ribbon," said Pat Kell, of El Cajon, Calif., whose husband, James, was a Navy cryptographer aboard the Pueblo. "It made me feel sick inside. It’s kind of like déjà vu."

Retired Navy Cmdr. Lloyd "Pete" Bucher, who lives in a rural hilltop retreat in Poway, Calif., was hoarse from media interviews when reached by telephone Wednesday morning. He said when he heard of the seizure of the EP-3, he was struck by the similar circumstances.

"We were operating in international waters, confronted by a foreign power," Bucher said.

The Pueblo, a tiny World War II-vintage supply ship newly reconditioned for spy service, sailed out of its home port of Yokosuka, Japan, on Jan. 5, 1968. After a brief stop at Sasebo Naval Base, Japan, the ship braved frigid temperatures and stormy seas for its maiden mission in the Sea of Japan, in international water about 15 miles off the coast of North Korea.

On Jan. 23, four North Korean torpedo boats circled the Pueblo and ordered it to follow them into port. Bucher tried to steer the ship farther out to sea, but the North Koreans opened fire, killing one crew member.

Outgunned and outmanned, he reluctantly proceeded to port. Over the next 11 months, the crew members were beaten and starved.

Naval analyst and historian Norman Polmar says the time, place and circumstances of the EP-3 capture are so different from those of the Pueblo that comparisons are meaningless.

"It’s like comparing an apple and a lump of coal," Polmar said.

China, he said, is a sophisticated world power that trades extensively with the United States, and the two countries share long-established — although sometimes prickly — diplomatic relations. North Korea was and is an isolated, third-tier nation with whom the United States had fought a relatively recent war. Diplomatic contacts, formal or informal, did not exist. Neither country’s leaders knew much about the other.

Many analysts say China has plenty of reasons to end the crisis quickly and with no harm to the plane’s crew. The United States buys billions of dollars worth of Chinese products each year, and China-U.S. military ties have been increasing each year. Also, Beijing is currently the front-runner to land the 2008 Summer Olympics, a bid it badly wants to win.

North Korea in 1968 was trying to establish itself on the world scene. Inflicting a humiliating blow on the mighty United States served just that purpose.

So far the Chinese apparently have not harmed the EP-3’s 24-member crew, while the Pueblo’s crew was severely beaten from the first day. Still, several Pueblo survivors said, the worst part of their captivity was the mental torture of not knowing whether they be freed or if the government was doing anything on their behalf.

Bob Chicca of Bonita, Calif., was a Korean linguist and one of two Marines assigned to Pueblo when it was seized.

"I imagine they’re fairly terrified, not knowing what’s going on, (but knowing) that they’re international pawns," Chicca said. "They’re probably eating well, but they’re scared stiff."

"The first week or so of captivity is such a shock. So many of the problems they’re going to face will come up in that time," Bucher said. "The unknown really begins to hit home in a couple of days. Hopefully, they’ll be home by then."

Chicca, Kell, and Ralph Bouden of Yuma, Ariz. — who was then a master chief petty officer — all were assigned to the sod hut, the ship’s secret communications detachment.

Kell has frequently lectured about life as a prisoner of war to Navy survival classes in San Diego. He said today’s sailors are much better trained to survive as hostages than those in Pueblo’s day.

"Mentally, you just have to have faith in your country, faith in God," he said. "Just don’t give up."

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