Lloyd M. Bucher

Lloyd M. Bucher
Receiving the Purple Heart
Nickname	"Pete"
Born	(1927-09-01)September 1, 1927
Died	January 28, 2004(2004-01-28) (aged 76)
Place of birth	Pocatello, Idaho
Place of death	San Diego, California
Place of burial	Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, San Diego, California
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Navy
Rank	Commander
Commands held	USS Pueblo (AGER-2)
Battles/wars	World War II Cold War *Korean DMZ Conflict (1966–1969) *Vietnam War
Awards	Purple Heart Prisoner of War Medal

Commander Lloyd Mark "Pete" Bucher (1 September 1927 – 28 January 2004) was an officer in the United States Navy, who is best remembered as the Captain of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2), which was captured on January 23, 1968 by North Korea.

Early life and education

Bucher was born in Pocatello, Idaho, where he was given up for adoption by his birth mother, and was orphaned at an early age (his adoptive mother dying of cancer when he was age 3). He was raised by his father, grandparents, various other family members, his father again, then drifted through a series of Catholic orphanages in Idaho until he read a magazine article about Father Flanagan's Boy's Town in Nebraska. He wrote to Father Flanagan and was surprised when he wrote back to Bucher. Bucher was accepted at Boy's Town in the Summer of 1941, and for the rest of his life considered it to be his home. Bucher flourished at Boy's Town, making honor roll the majority of his time there and playing football, basketball, track and baseball. Like most young men during World War II, he dropped out his senior year to enlist in the Navy, serving the last year of the war and for 2 years afterward (1945–1947). As an enlisted man, Bucher reached the rank of quartermaster second class and obtained a high school diploma. He then worked in construction and as a bartender before entering the University of Nebraska on a football scholarship in 1949. While attending university, he signed up for Naval ROTC. He graduated with a BS degree in 1953 and was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Career as a submariner

In January 1954, Bucher was called to active duty and served as division and education officer on the USS Mount McKinley (LCC-7). It was in mid-1955 that Bucher was admitted to submarine school at New London, Connecticut. After graduation, Bucher served as torpedo and gunnery officer of the submarine USS Besugo (SS-321), operations officer of the USS Caiman (SS-323), and assistant plans officer for logistics on the staff of Commander, Mine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet. From 1961 to 1964 he served on the submarine USS Ronquil (SS-396) rising from third officer to executive officer, after which he became an assistant operations officer on the staff of Commander Submarine Flotilla Seven in Yokosuka, Japan. Bucher loved submarines and his greatest desire was to command one. However, Bucher was a conventional submariner not trained in nuclear power, and his career options became limited when the submarine force became increasingly populated by nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear-trained submarine officers effectively hand-picked by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover in the 1960s. As a result, when Bucher screened for command, he was slated for command of an auxiliary surface vessel outfitted for communications and signals intelligence (COMINT/SIGINT) collection, in this case, USS Pueblo (AGER-2).

The Pueblo incident

While monitoring North Korea, the Pueblo came under attack by North Korean naval forces, primarily motor torpedo boats, even though U.S. Naval officials and the crew have claimed the ship was in international waters at the time. North Koreans boarded the ship and took her to the port at Wonsan. For the next 11 months, Commander Bucher and his crew were held as POWs by the North Koreans. Initially, they were treated relatively well, with good food and living accommodations. However, their treatment turned harsher when the North Koreans realized that crewmen were secretly giving them the finger, which they explained as being a "Hawaiian good luck sign", in staged propaganda photos they had been taking of the crew. From that time on, the crew took beatings by the North Korea guards on a regular basis.

Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, was given psychological tortures such as being put through a mock firing squad in an effort to make him confess. Eventually the Koreans threatened to execute his men in front of him, and Bucher relented and agreed to 'confess to his and the crew's transgression.' Bucher wrote the confession since a 'confession' by definition needed to be written by the confessor himself. They verified the meaning of what he wrote, but failed to catch the pun when he said "We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il Sung" ("We paean" sounds almost identical to "we pee on"). Following an apology, a written admission by the U.S. that Pueblo had been spying, and an assurance that the U.S. would not spy in the future, the North Korean government decided to release the 82 remaining crew members. On 23 December 1968 the crew was taken by buses to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) border with South Korea and ordered to walk south across the "Bridge of No Return". Exactly 11 months after being taken prisoner, the Captain led the long line of crewmen, followed at the end by the Executive Officer, Lieutenant Ed Murphy, the last man across the bridge. The U.S. then verbally retracted the ransom admission, apology, and assurance. Meanwhile the North Koreans blanked out the paragraph above the signature which read: "and this hereby receipts for 82 crewmen and one dead body" (Fireman Duane Hodges was killed by North Korean gunfire during the taking of the Pueblo).

No American military operations have been attempted to retrieve the USS Pueblo. The ship is still officially carried as in commission in the United States Navy's Naval Vessel Register, although it remains in North Korea as a "tourist attraction".

The Navy court of inquiry

Following the release, Commander Bucher was subjected to a court of inquiry by the Navy. A court martial was recommended. However the Secretary of the Navy, John H. Chafee, intervened on Bucher's behalf and no action was taken against Commander Bucher. Bucher followed his orders to not start any international incidents, and he felt that while a ship could be replaced, lives could not. Bucher succeeded in his task, as war did not result from the unprovoked attack on Pueblo. The US Government finally recognized the crew's sacrifice and granted Prisoner of War medals to the crew in 1989.

Commander Bucher was never found guilty of any indiscretions and continued his Navy career until retirement in the rank of Commander.

In 1970, Bucher published an autobiographical account of the USS Pueblo incident entitled Bucher: My Story.

Death and burial

Commander Bucher died on January 28, 2004. He was buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California. The Poway-Bernardo Mortuary, which was featured in the A&E reality TV series Family Plots at the time, handled the funeral services. One of the episodes of the series was dedicated to the Commander's funeral services.

External links

• Lloyd M. Bucher at Find a Grave
• Maness, Michael Glenn (2007). Would You Lie to Save a Life: Love Will Find a Way Home (Google eBook). AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4184-7819-3. http://books.google.ca/books?id=JfmfFr1hz04C.  "Commander Lloyd M. 'Pete' Bucher's heartrending story and his choice to 'lie to save lives' is the single focus of this book," p. 17
• Lloyd M. Bucher Papers at the Hoover Institution Archives