Lloyd 'Pete' Bucher, commander of USS Pueblo, age 76, Laid to Rest in San Diego today - Feb 3, 2004

Mercury News ^ | 1/29/04 | Seth Hettena - AP

[NormsRevenge]

SAN DIEGO - Former Navy Cmdr. Lloyd "Pete" Bucher, who was commander of the USS Pueblo when the spy ship was captured by North Korea in 1968 and helped his crew survive nearly a year of abuse in captivity only to nearly face a court-martial, has died. He was 76.

[jazzo]

God Bless You, Commander Bucher.

[pbear8]

Eternal Father, strong to save
Whose arm hath bind the restless wave
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.

Thank you Commander Bucher for your gallant service and very great sacrifice.

[It's me]

LLoyd Bucher's funeral was today. It was a beautiful Mass. Many, many people and many Pueblo shipmates.

He was eulogized as an honorable, self-sacrificing, loving, family man and a good Catholic. It was a very touching Mass.

[NormsRevenge]

	Rose Bucher, widow of Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher, right, is consoled by Navy Chaplain Capt. Julian Gnall, left, at the funeral for Bucher at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. AP Photo/Denis Poroy

Captain of USS Pueblo buried in San Diego

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press
Last Updated 5:48 p.m. PST Tuesday, February 3, 2004

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Former Cmdr. Lloyd "Pete" Bucher, the skipper of the USS Pueblo when it was captured in 1968 by North Korea, was buried Tuesday with honors from a military that he felt had abandoned him during 11 months of brutal captivity.

Three men who served under Bucher on the Pueblo helped carry his flag-draped casket to a wind-swept gravesite overlooking San Diego Bay at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. Bucher died on Jan. 28 at a nursing facility outside San Diego at age 76.

James Kell, who served under Bucher on the Pueblo, said in his eulogy that Bucher was a sailor's sailor who thought of others first.

"There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for the crew, starting with that fateful day on the 23rd of January, 1968," Kell told the audience at St. Michael's Catholic Church in Poway.

The lightly armed Pueblo was monitoring communist ship movements and intercepting messages in international waters near the North Korean coast when it was attacked by torpedo boats. One sailor was killed and 82 were taken prisoner. Some of them, including Bucher, were wounded.

After 11 months, the crew was released two days before Christmas, some of them crippled or nearly blind because of the brutality and malnourishment they endured.

"He was beaten more than anybody else," Kell said. "We were all beaten, we all were tortured. But he had it double, triple, quadruple what we got."

Bucher remained angry that the country he had risked his life for had not come to the aid of the Pueblo. "Everybody just forgot we were there," he told The Associated Press on the 20th anniversary of the ship's capture.

In his homily, Monsignor Joseph Finnerty said the trials and triumphs that marked Bucher's life paralleled those from the life of Jesus Christ, "who was also betrayed, abandoned, discouraged, spat upon, preyed upon."

Kell read the audience of friends, relatives, former shipmates and active members of the Navy a message from the actor Hal Holbrook, who portrayed Bucher in a 1973 TV film about the seizure of the Pueblo.

"Pete Bucher was a beautiful man, a patriot who loved his wife and his country and the men who served and endured with him have been an inspiration," Holbrook wrote. "I salute him from my heart."

[NormsRevenge]

Link to AP article in previous post FRom Sac Bee.

Captain of USS Pueblo buried in San Diego

[pbear8]

I'm so thrilled that you were there to witness this and pray for this much-abused man. I pray that his suffering has ended and that he lives forever in safety and peace with Jesus.

I will chant the "In Paradisum" for him. I hope someone chanted it at the funeral Mass today. Often they don't these days and I think it is a beautiful chant.

Thanks for telling me about the Mass, it's good to here how many others thought highly of him.

[Wumpus Hunter]

Commander Bucher came to my high school in the early 70's.

He gave a VERY stirring presentation to us about love of country, love of God, duty and honor. He told of the torture he and his men endured.

He also spoke about the need for a personal relationship with Christ, and how that what what sustained him!

Things sure have turned for the worse in 30 years. Can you imagine the fit the ACLU would have if that were presented in a school today?

[Myrddin]

Dirty little secret part two: the asshole who purposely sent the Pueblo out with inadequate armament sat at the desk across from my father at the Pentagon. My dad took him to task for days over his decision to allow the ship to go out in unsatisfactory condition. He did it anyway. The bastard who made the decision made Captain. I wouldn't share this information except that my dad beat Pete Bucher to the grave Dec 17, 2003.

[Valin]

"Everybody just forgot we were there," he told The Associated Press on the 20th anniversary of the ship's capture.

Some of us did/don't!
We were all gung ho to take out the NKs! We went from (if memory serves) 4 fighters to 3 squadrons in a week. And we sure sure something was going to be done, but as the weeks went on and nothing happened it slowly dawned on us that we were going to let the SOBs gat away with it. All that happened was the price of hookers and beer went up.

[It's me]

What struck me as odd, at the time, was that there were Korean Press people there as well.

Of course, it must be big news for them over there and it's not at all odd. I wonder what was going thru the minds of the Pueblo men.

[NormsRevenge]

Members of a U.S. Navy (news - web sites) color guard carry the casket of Navy Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher as veterans pay their respects at his funeral at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004. Bucher was the captain of the USS Pueblo when it was captured by North Korea (news - web sites) in 1968.(AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

---

We will NEVER FORGET the sacrifices made by brave men such as you and your crew, Sir.

Rest in peace, Patriot.

[AmericanVictory]

The justification was that when the ship was approached he surrendered his weapon and encouraged his men to do so rather than putting up even token resistance. This was a stark contrast with his subsequent leadership when they were all tortured so brutally. The real villians IMO were those who selected the ship and outfitted it. It was a defenseless hulk whose only weapons, 50 cals, were relics that jammed immediately upon being fired. Those lower down all too often pay for bad decisions higher up, and take the blame.

[pbear8]

North or South? Were they in the church or just on the sidewalk. I wonder what they thought about all the other crewmembers who came. I wonder if they were surprised about that.

I suppose to them any time that they can humilate the US, it's news.

[NormsRevenge]

FRom the OC Register

Wednesday, February 4, 2004

A tale of a fateful trip

INFAMOUS MISSION: The USS Pueblo is shown underway in the 1960s. Lloyd “Pete” Bucher was in command of the infamous spy ship that sparked an international crisis when its crew was taken hostage Jan. 22, 1968, by North Korean patrol boats. UNITED STATES NAVY

From staff and news service reports

Former Navy Cmdr. Lloyd "Pete" Bucher, who commanded the Navy spy ship Pueblo when North Korea seized it in 1968, was buried Tuesday in San Diego, separated by years and miles from the controversy that will define his place in history. Following is a look at Bucher's story:

THE ATTACK

The capture of the slow, lightly armed Pueblo by North Korean gunboats on Jan. 23, 1968, was an international incident that caused the Navy anger and anguish. In giving up without firing a shot, Bucher became the first skipper to surrender an American warship since the War of 1812.

The Pueblo was in international waters off North Korea, monitoring ship movements and intercepting messages, when North Korean boats surrounded it. When the Pueblo did not surrender at once, it came under a cannon barrage that killed one crew member and wounded 10 others, including the skipper, who was hit in the legs by shrapnel.

USS PUEBLO

Class: Light cargo ship
Launched: April 1944
Recommissioned: 1967
Length: 176 feet, 6 inches

OTHER AMERICANS CAUGHT SPYING

May 1, 1960
A U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers took off from Pakistan to photograph ICBM development sites in the Soviet Union. Power's plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile, which was previously thought impossible because of the plane's extreme cruising altitude. Powers was captured and later convicted of espionage and sentenced to three years imprisonment and seven years of hard labor. He served just under two years of his sentence before being traded for Soviet spy Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich Abel.
April 1, 2001
A U.S. EP-3E Navy aircraft, officially on "routine surveillance" mission off the Chinese mainland, collides with Chinese fighter plane. The Navy aircraft is forced to land on Hainan Island in the South China Sea, and the 24 American crew members are detained by Chinese authorities. Talks are stalemated for 10 days as the United States demands the return of the crew, and China demands an official apology. On April 12, one day after the United States gives China a letter apologizing, the plane's crew is released and return to the United States.

Despite his agony, he wrote in a book: "My feelings were of an almost overwhelming need to retaliate by shooting back. But our .50-caliber machine guns were no match for 57-millimeter automatic cannons. It was certain death to try to shoot back."

A YEAR IN CAPTIVITY

After the surrender, the men of the Pueblo were held in cement-block cells. During their captivity, crew members said, they were beaten, burned on radiators and had their teeth kicked out. Bucher was beaten and tortured into signing a confession. They were released just before Christmas 1968 after signing confessions that they had "spied in North Korean waters."

Bucher recalled that he weighed 127 pounds, compared with his normal 200.

The United States condemned the confessions as forced and false. To effect the release, Washington had grudgingly issued a formal apology - one that it repudiated after the crew was safely out of North Korea.

THE CONTROVERSY

It soon became clear that the ordeal of Bucher was far from over. Top Navy officials were furious that more than 600 pounds of secret papers and electronic equipment had fallen into North Korean hands.

And some officers expressed humiliation that the Pueblo was becoming a tourist attraction in North Korea.

A Navy Court of Inquiry criticized Bucher's surrender of the ship. The court recommended that he face a general court-martial for allegedly failing to defend the Pueblo.

Navy Secretary John H. Chafee turned down the court-martial, saying crew members "have suffered enough."

THE FALLOUT

Bucher recalled in an interview in 1977, "it became a difficult thing for the Navy to know exactly what to do with me." He was assigned to desk duty, then helped organize the mining of North Vietnamese waters and, later, the removal of the mines. Years later, Bucher said he remained angry that commanders had failed to come to his aid.

"The U.S. at that time had enormous military forces in the western Pacific within five minutes flying time of us," Bucher told The Associated Press in 1988. "I would have thought something could be mustered to come to our aid. But everybody just forgot we were there."

In 1989, the Pentagon gave prisoner of war medals to Bucher and the crew. Until then, the U.S. government had maintained they were detainees rather than POWs because United States and North Korea were not at war.

LATER YEARS

Bucher, who retired from the Navy in 1973, had been in declining health for months. He spent his last years in Poway, where he lived at a secluded ranch. He grew avocados, studied art and painted watercolors. He died last week at age 76 at a nursing facility.

[It's me]

Oh, I haven't a clue whether they were from the North or South. They were in the church and were very respectful.

They may very well have been from a newspaper published in America. Actually, that is what I assumed.

[noleway]

I'm sorry to see you go "uncle" Pete.
Your picture is hanging on the wall in Oslo, Norway.

I will never forget you or Rose.

Much Love from

Jan Thomas Eagye.