, one of the Official Newsletter of the Michigan Company of Military Historians & Collectors
April 10, 2017
“War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation
is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the
spirit of Washington—not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threats to our way of life
justifies resort to conflict.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower, West Point, June 3, 1947.
Our March speakers are Petty Officers Jeffrey Spiegel and Brett Vess. Both are presently
Navy Recruiters with prior naval experience. Jeff served on the USS Fort McHenry LSD-43
as a maintenance supervisor and has a variety of skills. Brett has yet to submit his bio.
MEETINGS take place the second Monday of every month at the Downtown Holiday Inn, 310 Pearl NW, Grand
Rapids, MI 49504 (616) 235-7611. Socializing begins at 6:00 (1800 hrs), dinner at 7:00 (1900 hrs), business meeting
7:15 (1915 hrs), and program at 8:00 (2000 hrs). Ample free parking available
GENERAL STAFF
OFFICERS OF THE
COMPANY
Commandant - Fern O’Beshaw
Executive Officer - Gregg
Metternich
Adjutant -John Bornhofen
Judge Advocate -Jay Stone
Mess Officer - Mike Krushinsky
Sgt-at-Arms - Richard Foster
Editor Cannon Report Kingman Davis
Editor Emeritus - Jose Amoros
Open Mess Chairman - Jay
Stone
Company Notes
We will have a Silent Auction this meeting.
Bring any items you wish to sell and the proceeds will
benefit the Company.
Approaching the 100th anniversary of WWI, many
images of the era can be viewed at <www.artres,com>.
PBS will be broadcasting The GREAT WAR at 9 PM on
April 10,11,and 12.
The editorial opinions and articles in The Cannon Report do not represent any official position of the Michigan Company of Military Historians and
Collectors (MCMH&C) only the opinions of the editor. The MCMH&C is a non-partisan, non-ideological association. All members are welcome to
submit material, letters, “For the Good of the Company items”, etc. Direct inquiries or comments to [email protected]
1
Mercenaries
By definition a mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict who is not a national
or party to the conflict and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities by desire for private gain.”
Mercenaries fight for money or other compensation instead of fighting for ideological interests,
whether they agree with or are against the existing government. In the last century, and as reflected in
the Geneva Convention, mercenaries have increasingly come to be seen as less entitled to protections
by rules of war than non-mercenaries. However, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a
matter of degree, as financial and national interests may overlap. The intent of this article is to deal
with the 18th century mercenaries that fought in the British Army during the American Revolution,
collectively known as the Hessians.
Even though the Colonials had seven thousand French soldiers and nineteen thousand French
seamen assisting them at the siege of Yorktown, they can be viewed as allies rather than hired
combatants. A force of between fifteen and twenty thousand Germans served for seven years against
us; more than twenty-nine thousand were brought to America for this purpose; and more than twelve
thousand never returned to Germany. They made up a quarter of the troops the British sent to
America. They entered British service as entire units, fighting under their own German flags,
commanded by their usual officers, and wearing their existing uniforms. The largest contingent came
from the state of Hesse-Kassel, which supplied about 40% of the German troops who fought for the
British. The large number of troops from Hesse-Kassel led to the use of the term Hessians to refer to
all German troops fighting on the British side. The others were rented from other small German
states.
Before the unification of the over 300 German states of the Holy Roman Empire in 1871, this
area of Central Europe was ruled by princes who readily provided a professional army for hire. In
most of these wars, Hesse-Kassel never became a belligerent by declaring war on any other country.
The troops were rented for service in other armies, and Hesse-Kassel itself had no stake in the
outcome of the war. Thus, it was possible for Hessians to serve with the British and Bavarian armies
in the War of the Austrian Succession, even though Britain and Bavaria were on opposite sides of the
war. Hesse had become a "mercenary state" by renting out the Landgrave’s (prince) regiments to fund
his government. Hesse-Kassel like most of the other German principalities still had serfdom. Once
these troops entered British Territory, where serfdom was illegal, they were still bound by the military
code. Their officers were for the most part the upper stratum of society. The only ways a Hessian
regular soldier could become a free man under these circumstances was desertion or capture. Serfdom
was only abolished in Hesse-Kassel in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Hessian troops included jäger (light infantrymen whose civilian occupations made them wellsuited to patrolling and skirmishing on an individual and independent basis, rather than as part of
military unit), hussars (a member of any one of several types of light cavalry), three artillery
companies, and four battalions of grenadiers (a specialized soldier used in assault operations,
grenadiers were chosen from the strongest and largest soldiers). Most of the infantry were chasseurs
(sharpshooters), musketeers, and fusiliers. Line infantry were armed with muskets, while the Hessian
artillery used the three-pounder cannon. The elite Jäger battalions used the büchse, a short, largecaliber rifle well-suited to woodland combat. Initially the average regiment was made up of 500 to
600 men. Later in the war, the regiments had only 300 to 400 men.
The primary reason for employing foreign troops to fight the Colonials was that it was cheaper
than trying to locate, train and equip native Englishmen. During the 18th century, public perception of
standing armies as instruments of a despotic government obliged Parliament to keep Britain’s
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peacetime forces as small as possible. Being a maritime country Parliament had a difficult time as it
was finding enough men to crew her armadas. Press gangs roamed English seaports and were well
known for the physical coercion they used in
forcefully recruiting men into the Royal Navy during
the 17th and 18th centuries. It was, however, a
practice which Parliament had first sanctioned
several centuries earlier. The Crown claimed a
permanent right to seize men of seafaring experience
for the Royal Navy, and the practice was at various
times given parliamentary authority. Impressment
was vigorously enforced during the naval wars of the
18th century by Acts passed in 1703, 1705, 1740 and
1779. The men pressed into service were usually
sailors in the merchant fleets, but might just as often
been ordinary apprentices and laborers.
To quickly augment his Majesty’s forces in
America and put down the rebellion, the most
expedient course was to hire an already well-trained
and disciplined army. The first German troops to
start for America were the Brunswickers. These
marched from the German state of Brunswick on
February 22, 1776, two thousand two hundred and
eighty-two strong, and were embarked at Stade, near
the mouth of the Elbe. The first Hessians set out
from Kassel early in March, and were shipped from
Bremerlehe, near the mouth of the Weser. The
second division was embarked in June. Together
they numbered between twelve and thirteen thousand
men. They were for the most part excellent troops
and well equipped, for the prince of Hesse’s little
army was one of the best in Germany. The march
from Brunswick or Kassel to the port of embarkation
was a comparatively simple matter. The troops
passed from the territory of their own prince into the
Hanoverian dominions of the King of England, and
then reached to the sea. The Prince of Waldeck sent
his regiment through Cassel without trouble. The
Prince of Hesse-Hanau, the Margrave of Anspach-Bayreuth, and the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst had a
longer road and more difficulties before them. The journey from the inland principalities to an
embarkation port passed through many smaller states. Any one of the little states might make trouble
if permission for the passage of troops was not obtained, and after running the gantlet of them all,
there was danger of still more serious hinderance when the flotilla came to Rhenish Prussia.
Difficulties had already arisen between the local authorities and the English recruiting officers, and
although the first regiment from Hanau, in the spring of 1776, was allowed to pass unmolested,
trouble was brewing. While waiting to be inspected and accepted men sometimes deserted or were
recruited by other mercenary officers working for other princes.
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Frederic the Great of Prussia found the practice of using serfs as soldiers abhorrent, and when
they marched through his state he levied a duty on each soldier, the same that was charged for cattle.
Other states followed suit but that did not deter the mercenary states from continuing the practice.
After being appraised for fitness by British agents and put aboard a British ship, only then did
payment begin. The accepted men came completely equipped at the expense of the Germanic princes,
except as to horses for the light cavalry. The King of England promised to pay and feed them on the
same scale as his own soldiers "to let his corps enjoy all the emoluments of pay that his Britannic
Majesty allows them”, that is to say, not to pay them on a lower scale and pocket the difference. The
British government, however, did not trust the princes. From the time of the arrival of the troops in
America their pay was sent directly to them and did not pass through through their respective
sovereigns. This precaution was adopted with all the German auxiliaries except those of HesseKassel, whose Landgrave succeeded in distributing the funds himself. Moreover the soldiers were to
be cared for in British hospitals, and the wounded not in condition to serve were to be transported to
Europe at the expense of the King, and landed in a port on the Elbe or the Weser. The princes agreed
to furnish the recruits that should be annually necessary for the corps, to discipline and to equip them,
but if it should happen that “any of the regiments, battalions, or companies of the corps should suffer a
loss altogether extraordinary, either in a battle, a siege, or by an uncommon contagious malady, or by
the loss of any transport vessel in the voyage to America, his Britannic Majesty was to make good the
loss of the officer or soldier, and to bear the expense of the necessary recruits to reestablish the corps
that should have suffered this extraordinary loss.”
The King of England agreed to pay the Duke of Brunswick(the first to offer his services), under
the title of levy-money, for every soldier the amount of 30 crowns, equal to £7 4s. 4 1/2d. He was to
grant, moreover, an annual subsidy amounting to £11,517 17s. 1/2d. from the day of the signature of
the treaty so long as the troops should enjoy his pay, and double that amount (viz., £23,035 14s. 3d.)
for two years after the return of the troops into their Most Serene Highness's dominions. In
consideration of the haste with which the troops were equipped his Majesty granted the Duke’s men
two months' pay previous to their march, and undertook all expenses from the time of their leaving
their quarters. One more provision of this treaty deserves special notice, as it has excited the wellwarranted indignation of all who have execrated these bargains for the sale of human blood. It runs:
"According to custom, three wounded men shall be reckoned as one killed; a man killed shall be paid
for at the rate of levy-money." This clause, which does not appear in the subsequent treaty with
Hesse-Kassel, stands in the Brunswick treaty in the same article with, and immediately before, the
provision for making good any extraordinary loss from battle, pestilence, or shipwreck. It may be
taken to mean that the King of England undertook to bear the expense of a recruit to fill the place of a
Brunswick soldier actually killed in battle, but that the Duke must replace at his own cost one who
deserted from the ranks or died of sickness, unless in case of an "uncommon contagious malady.” At
any rate, the fact remains that the Duke of Brunswick contracted to receive a sum amounting to about
$35 for every one of his soldiers who would be killed in battle, and $11.66 for every one who might be
maimed. It is probably now impossible to discover how much England actually paid out on this
account. The payments were not entered under their proper heading in the bills sent to Parliament
from the War Office. It has been suggested that the cabinet did not care to meet the criticism which
this item in the accounts would have raised.
The first Hessian troops to arrive in North America landed at Staten Island in New York on
August 15, 1776. Their first engagement was in the Battle of Long Island. The Hessians fought in
almost every battle, although after 1777, the British used them mainly as garrison and patrol troops.
An assortment of Hessians fought in the battles and campaigns in the southern states during 1778–80
(including Guilford Courthouse), and two regiments fought at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.
4
Americans, both Rebel and Tory, feared the Hessians, believing them to be rapacious and brutal
mercenaries. Meanwhile, Hessian diaries frequently express disapproval of the British troops' conduct
towards the colonists, including the destruction of property and the occasional execution of prisoners,
the latter being doubly upsetting when German-Americans were among them. The British common
soldiers, in a similar fashion, distrusted the primarily German-speaking Hessians and hence, despite
their strong military performance, often treated them with contempt. It was not until the Germans
learned a smattering of English were they finally given some acceptance by the British troops.
The most note-worthy contact with the Hessians was when General George Washington's
Continental Army crossed the Delaware River to make a surprise attack on the Hessians on the early
morning of December 26, 1776. In the Battle of Trenton, the Hessian force of 1,400 was wiped out by
the Continentals, with about 20 killed, 100 wounded, and 1,000 captured. Those captured in the battle
were paraded through the streets of Philadelphia to raise American morale; anger at their presence
helped the Continental Army recruit new soldiers. Most of the prisoners were sent to work as farm
hands. Many prisoners were held in camps at the interior city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lancaster
was a center for the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deustch), who treated the German prisoners well. The
Hessians responded favorably; some volunteered for extra work assignments, helping to replace local
men serving in the Continental Army. Americans tried to entice Hessians to desert from the British
and join the already large German-American population. The Continental Congress authorized the
offer of 50 acres of land to individual Hessian soldiers to encourage them to desert the group. British
soldiers were offered 50 to 800 acres, depending on rank. After the war, many POWs never returned
to Germany and instead accepted American offers of religious freedom and free land, becoming
permanent settlers. By contrast, British prisoners were also held in Lancaster, but these men did not
respond favorably to good treatment – they tried to escape.
For the most part the Hessians understood neither the cause for which the Americans were
fighting, nor, at first, the language in which the statesmen of both contending parties argued their
different claims. But had they understood far more than they did, their feelings would still have been
on the side of royal prerogative against popular rights. There was no instance in which one of the
German officers engaged in this war used any expression showing him to have been in sympathy with
the liberal intellectual movement of the eighteenth century. This conservatism was not necessary to
make them go where they were ordered, nor did it prevent some of them from heartily wishing
themselves at home again after a campaign or two in America. Once there, we find them talking about
the despotism of Congress. This absurd idea was probably suggested to them by the English, and was
taken up by the anti-American press in Germany. There is little doubt, too, that many, both of the
officers and soldiers, looked forward with pleasure to active employment in America, if only to break
up the monotony of garrison duty.
About 30,000 Germans served in the Americas, and, after the war ended in 1783, some 17,313
returned to their German homelands. Of the 12,526 who did not return, about 7,700 had died—1,200
were killed in action, and 6,354 died from illness or accidents, mostly the former. Approximately
5,000 German troops settled in North America, either the United States or Canada. Many of them
became, in the end, citizens of the republic they were sent to destroy.
In southeastern Pennsylvania the large contingent of German-Americans welcomed the
captured Hessians. They worked hard and the food provided and the language employed made a large
number desirous of remaining. In addition, other Hessians became members of their host’s families
for there was a large number of available females that needed husbands. Plus they would not have to
serve in the Colonial Militia and were allowed to work their own land provided that they sold their
surplus to the patriots.
5
FUZES
A fuze is a device that detonates a munition's explosive material under specified conditions.
The word "fuze" is often spelt "fuse" by those unacquainted with artillery usage. This is incorrect.
"Fuse", derived from fusus, the past participle of fundo, means "to melt", e.g., the term "fuse-wire"
used in electrical circuits. "Fuze", on the other hand, is the shortened or modern method of spelling
"fuzee", meaning a tube filled with combustible material. It is a derivation of fusus, a spindle and
from the French fusee, a spindle full of thread. It is well to make this point at the outset. There were
three critical secrets that were pivotal to victory in WWII: the creation of the Atomic Bomb; the
location of D-Day Invasion; and the Proximity or VT Fuze.
Prior to 1940 artillery shells had two distinct types of fuzes, those that were initiated either on
contact or after a pre-determined amount of
time (usually measured in seconds). Each
of these type had many variations, but
neither one was found to be effective in
bringing down fast, high-flying aircraft.
Early in 1939 the British had anticipated
such a problem but lacked the technical
expertise to develop a fuze that could
destroy a plane in flight. In locating a
target, bearing and altitude was easy to
determine, but the speed of the aircraft
made range a very difficult but vital
number.
During the Blitz of 1940 the English
were made acutely aware of the need to have a fuze that detonated within fifty to seventy-five feet of
the target, a proximity fuze. Using the available technology they determined that over 10,000 shells
were fired to get one hit on a plane. The Royal Navy and the US Navy also realized that a better
approach was needed to protect her ships from enemy bombers. With the urging of American
physicists and engineers the National Defense Research Committee was formed to develop new
technology to meet and defeat the enemy. Based at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh
Section T was formed to develop a radio transmitter that could be put in the nose of an artillery shell.
This was a period of large vacuum tubes made of glass that could never stand the forces
generated by gunfire. To have the vision and arrive at the solution teams were set up consisting of an
experimental physicist, an engineer, and an amateur radio operator or HAM. These teams of three
were perfectly suited to complement each other and advance the thinking toward the building of a
radio activated fuze. The first goal was to prove than an electronic fuze could work in practice as well
as theory with a 50% reliability before the Navy would consent to production.. Assuming there was
about 500 parts to a fuze; and 300 were of the sensitive kind so that if one failed the fuze failed. If
each of those 300 parts had a 1% failure rate then the final fuze would only operate 4% of the time,
unacceptable. Another problem was an antiaircraft shell was fired at 2700 feet/second, generating
about 20,000 Gs. In one test a fly was put in the shell, fired and recovered. When opened the fly
could not be found, except for a small greasy spot on the bottom.
The fuze not only had to be dependable but rugged enough to handle production and storage in
all kinds of weather. Before transistors only glass tubes were available and the smallest were made by
Sylvania and Raytheon for use in their hearing aids; a miniature version of an amplifier system about
the size of a pack of cigarettes. These miniature tube were made more rugged and by early 1942 a
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design was finalized. After testing 52% of the fuzes detonated at a predetermined altitude above
water. The Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance. released the funds and production began. In August, 1942,
aboard the USS Cleveland, 3 drones were launched and made torpedo runs toward the Cleveland, all 3
were shot down by a 5”/38 caliber naval gun expending less than 20 shells. Full production started
immediately, and just in time. The Battle of
Midway had occurred that June but the
combat air cover had destroyed most of the
Japanese planes. The next confrontation
was the Battle of Guadalcanal, and the USS
Helena was the first ship to shoot down an
enemy plane using the 5” shell with a VT
(Proximity Fuze) attached.
The sailors were told that 15-20% of
the shells fired would probably explode
prematurely but with no danger to the gun
crews. Another 15-20% might not work at
all; but the remaining 60-70% would work
most of the time. The effectiveness of such
a shell was like having a naval destroyer
with three 5”/38 dual turrets now having
eighteen guns firing on target. Many
variations of the VT fuze were developed,
early models were powered by batteries
dubbed antiaircraft or double A batteries
whose size is still in use today. The dry
cell variation only had a shelf life of 3
months, somewhat less in the humid
environment of the Pacific. An
improvement was the Mark 53 on the left.
It was powered by a dry plate battery that
when fired from a gun the rapid
acceleration would break an ampule of acid
and energize the circuit.
When it was determined that a fuze
could be designed and applied to mortars,
105mm and 155mm cannons the war took a dramatic turn in the Allies favor. Shells could now
detonate at various heights above ground and provide a deadly airburst on advancing infantry. The
Pentagon refused to allow the Allied field artillery use of the fuzes in 1944, although the United States
Navy fired proximity-fuzed anti-aircraft shells during the July 1943 invasion of Sicily. After General
Dwight D. Eisenhower demanded he be allowed to use the fuzes, 200,000 shells with VT fuzes or
(code named "POZIT") were used in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. They made the Allied
heavy artillery far more devastating, as all the shells now exploded just before hitting the ground. It
decimated German divisions caught in the open. The Germans felt safe from timed fire because they
thought that the bad weather would prevent accurate observation. The effectiveness of the new VT
fused shells exploding in mid-air, on exposed personnel, caused a minor mutiny when German
soldiers started refusing orders to move out of their bunkers during an artillery attack. U.S. General
George S. Patton said that the introduction of the proximity fuze required a full revision of the tactics
7
of land warfare. The Pentagon was afraid that if an American artillery battery was overrun the VT
fuzes would fall into enemy hands and a countermeasure could be devised if the fuze was reversed
engineered. After the war it was revealed that the Germans had been working on a proximity fuze
since 1939 but by wars end had not yet made one.
A particularly successful application was the 90mm shell with VT fuze with the SCR-584
automatic tracking radar and the M-9 electronic fire control computer. The combination of these three
inventions was successful in shooting down many V-1 flying bombs aimed at London and Antwerp.
These were difficult targets for anti-aircraft guns due to their small size and high speed. Over the
course of the German V-1 campaign, the proportion of flying bombs flying through the coastal gun
belt that were destroyed rose from 17% to 74%, reaching 82% during one day. A minor problem
encountered by the British was that the fuzes were sensitive enough to detonate if the shell passed too
close to a seagull; a number of seagull "kills" were recorded.
Over 22 million VT fuzes were made at 110 plants in America. By 1944 a large proportion of
the American electronics industry concentrated on making the fuzes. Procurement contracts increased
from $60 million in 1942, to $200 million in 1943, to $300 million in 1944 and were topped by $450
million in 1945. As volume increased, efficiency came into play and the cost per fuze fell from $732
in 1942 to $18 in 1945. This permitted the purchase of fuzes for approximately one billion dollars.
The main suppliers were Crosley, RCA, Eastman Kodak, McQuay-Norris and Sylvania. There were
also over two thousand suppliers and subsuppliers, ranging from powder manufacturers to machine
shops. It was among the first mass-production applications of printed circuits.
A Line On A Map
It staggers my belief that someone can haphazardly run his finger across a map and set in
motion a series of events whose consequences were allowed to unfold without questioning the
justification of future actions resulting from such an arbitrary determination. The Cold War had not
yet begun. Five days earlier Nagasaki was almost obliterated, but on August 14, 1945, General
Marshall and his staff were gathered in the Pentagon to prepare recommendations for the president
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff for halting Soviet expansion; and the butterfly first spread its wings. It
was decided that a series of checkpoints should be established around the regions where Soviet
expansion might be stopped. Very little thought was put into how some of these checkpoints were to
be sustained once established. One young officer walked over to the National Geographic Map of the
Pacific and pointed to the Japanese governed peninsula of Korea.
Colonel Charles Hartwell Bonesteel III was a third generation soldier, a graduate of West Point
and a Rhodes Scholar. He drew his finger across the entire breadth of the Pacific, along a latitude line
that almost precisely joined San Francisco with the Korean capital of Seoul. Both lay thirty-seven and
a half degrees north of the equator—an uncanny coincidence. The European checkpoints had already
been decided, why not add another one in the Far East? The Soviets were still in Manchuria but they
soon agreed to go into Korea and accept the surrender of all Japanese forces north of the 38th parallel
and the Americans, when landing in the south, would assume control of the remaining Japanese
troops. Immediately two separate spheres of influence were created in this part of the world. One
under the general influence of America and the other, called the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea, first under the direction of the Soviets and later, the Chinese Communists.
Simon Winchester writes in Pacific: “Many military strategists have speculated that the world
might have been a far safer place if postwar Korea had been divided four ways, among the United
8
States, the Soviet Union, the Republic of China, and the United Kingdom, as was first proposed. Or if
the Soviets had been given free rein to invade all of Korea, and be done with it. In this latter instance,
there would have been no Korean War, for certain—merely a Leninist satrapy in the Far East that,
most probably, would have withered and died, as did other Soviet satellite states.
Instead, the Pacific’s Ocean most volatile choke point was created, innocently and unthinkingly,
by one swift sweep of a grease pencil held by Charles Hartwell Bonesteel III. Like so many other alltoo-swift border creations his would leave a legacy both unimagined and unimaginable. Bonesteel
would live until 1977 and would see the many consequences of his casual defacement of that National
Geographic map, not the least the horrendously lethal war that erupted five years later, and then
thousands of subsequent cross-border shootings,kidnappings, incursions, tunneling and myriad other
nuisances for which the 38th Parallel is still known today.” To end the Korean Conflict an armistice
was signed merely to prevent further hostilities. One provision of that agreement concerned the future
of Vietnam and its relationship to the French (a topic to be addressed in a future issue).
One of the most egregious incidents following the Korean Conflict was the capture in 1968 of
the USS Pueblo. It was to be the first seizure of an American naval vessel since the British seized the
USS President off New York City in 1815. A shabby little ship that was part of a secret navy spying
program called Operation Clickbeetle. Initially the plan was to take as many as seventy elderly,
clapped-out, and inexpensive vessels, most of them deemed useless for anything but razor blades.
They would be stuffed to the gills with electronic espionage apparatus and ordered to hug the
coastlines of countries that Washington thought were troublesome. They would then run out their
aerials and listen to radio chatter. Budget constraints forced the fleet size to be reduced to three and
the Pueblo was the first mothballed runt of litter and she drew the trickiest assignment. She was to be
the eyes and ears in the far Western Pacific for the National Security Agency (NSA). The tugboat-size
ship had a couple of canvas covered, downward pointing machine gun on deck under a tarp that made
her look more like a Pacific islands tramp steamer.
9
Fitting out in Bremerton, all the equipment was installed by NSA engineers who worked in
code-locked cabins. Dozens of radio aerials and radar dishes were mounted all over the ship and from
two high masts built amidship. The Pueblo arrived at her home port in Yokosuka after stopping two
days for repairs at the U.S. base in Sasebo on January 5, 1968. Her orders were to sail for two weeks
up and down the coast of North Korea from the DMZ to the Soviet frontier. She was to be on the
lookout for any newly built antiaircraft batteries and any of the four submarines sold by the Russians.
She was told to maintain complete radio silence except for any event of a real emergency. After two
weeks she was to return to her homeport.
After nine days into her maiden voyage she started her second trip, 15 miles out up the Korean
coast. Nine days earlier thirty-one North Korean commandos from the 124th Army Unit had traveled
to within 1/2 mile of the presidential palace with orders to kill the South Korean president, his family,
and personal staff before they were discovered. Fleeing into the surrounding hills a running gunfight
ensued and six thousand ROKs searched till all the North Koreans were killed. Unbeknownst to the
Pueblo this now was a dangerous time to sail near North Korea. Coming upon a North Korean trawler
who stopped within 25 yards of the American ship, her commander Lloyd Bucher, was alarmed as a
large number of fishermen began taking pictures while displaying fierce expressions. One sailor later
remarked “they looked like they wanted to eat our livers.” It took the better part of the day for Bucher
to compose a heavily encrypted message and send it to fleet headquarters on the one channel available
on the ship.
The next day a circling USAF patrol plane saw a large number of North Korean sub chasers
heading toward the Pueblo and radioed back to Japan to warn the ship below. No warning was sent
and the USS Pueblo was soon fired upon. She started broadcasting in the clear that she was under
attack while technicians with axes and sledgehammers hacked away at the electronics. There were
hundreds of papers to be burned or shredded in only one small incinerator and a one-piece-at-a-time
shredder. Small fires were set but the smoke filled the classified radio room and the techs trying to
destroy the equipment were driven out by the smoke. The North Koreans ceased firing when Bucher
turned his ship toward the coast and followed the lead patrol craft toward the North Korean port of
Wonsan continuing to burn intelligence as smoke poured out of every porthole. Within seconds of
touching dock soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets boarded the vessel. Thus began eleven months
of captivity filled with beatings, interrogations, starvations and humiliations till the United States
apologized for her transgression.
On Christmas Day, 1968 the eighty-two surviving crewmen (one had died during the attack)
were released and led one by one across the "Bridge of No Return”. Ironically they were first greeted
by now General Charles Hartwell Bonesteel III. Bucher and all the officers and crew subsequently
appeared before a Navy Court of Inquiry. A court-martial was recommended for the CO and the
Officer in Charge of the Research Department, Lt. Steve Harris for surrendering without a fight
(neither of the two 50 cal. machine guns were operable) 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. The USS Pueblo is still held by North Korea. It was towed to the west coast
port of Nampo for repairs then relocated to Pyongyang and moored on the Taedong River where she
now serves as a floating museum.
Today, Pueblo remains the second-oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy, behind the
USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides”).
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