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Lloyd M. Bucher

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Military Personnel

The Resume

    (September 1, 1927-January 28, 2004)
    Born in Pocatello, Idaho
    US Navy officer
    Was captain of the signal intelligence ship USS Pueblo when it was captured by North Korea (January 23, 1968)
    Held captive with his crew for eleven months

Why he might be annoying:

    He had wanted to command a submarine, but his lack of training in nuclear energy limited his options as more of the sub fleet converted to nuclear power.
    He had the Pueblo's machine guns mounted at exposed positions at the bow and stern.
    As a result, when the Pueblo came under attack, he decided not to send anyone to man the machine guns, figuring they would be cut down by enemy fire before they could reach the guns.
    He was the first US naval commander to surrender without firing a shot since 1807.
    His crew was unable to destroy much of the cryptological material on the Pueblo, resulting in a major security breach.
    He eventually signed a confession that the Pueblo had violated North Korean territorial waters.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was given up for adoption by his birth mother, then was orphaned at age three when his adoptive mother died of cancer and his adoptive father was imprisoned for bootlegging.
    After drifting through homes of various relatives and Catholic orphanages in Idaho, he wrote the Father Flanagan and was accepted at Boys Town (1941).
    Several of his requests for modifications to the Pueblo, including installing an emergency scuttling system and replacing burn barrels with a fuel-fed incinerator to allow for speedier destruction of classified materials, were denied for budgetary reasons.
    Before the Pueblo left Japan on its intelligence mission, his superior, Rear Admiral Frank L. Johnson, told him, 'Don't start a war out there.'
    He was wounded by shrapnel when North Korean ships fired on the Pueblo.
    While imprisoned, he went on a five-day hunger strike to protest the conditions he and his men were being held in.
    He agreed to sign a confession only after the North Koreans threatened to execute the members of his crew in front of him.
    He slipped a stealth insult into the confession when he wrote, 'We paean* the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People's Republic of Korea]. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung' (*Literally 'praise highly,' but pronounced like 'pee on.')

Credit: C. Fishel


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