Veteran aboard USS Pueblo recounts experience on anniversary of capture by North Korea
PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) - Today marks the 57th anniversary of the capture of the USS Pueblo.
On January 23, 1968, the naval spy ship was attacked and captured by a North Korean vessel, in what was at the time a highly publicized international incident.
It took nearly a year to bring the 83 American crew members back to our country.
One of the men onboard that vessel, former Marine Corps crewman Robert "Bob" Chicca, said his 11 months of captivity in North Korea is a period he will never forget.
His ordeal is an inspiring testament of faith, but also a somber reminder of just why relations with North Korea are tense to this day.
"I was just temporarily assigned to the ship for a 30-day mission that got unexpectedly extended for a long time...my conditions were very brutal," Chicca said.
After 11 operations from injuries he sustained while in captivity, he says, "You just begin to appreciate what it is to be back here in America with some faith in God to help get you through it."
Chicca shared his firsthand account of the ship’s capture to an appreciative audience on Thursday afternoon at the Center for American Values in Pueblo.
He says he was grateful that American officials were able to bring him back home after months of tense negotiations. However, part of that was a requirement that the commander of the USS Pueblo confess to spying; something he agreed to only after threats that his men would be executed.
That act would end up making the men pariahs upon their return. "They actually wouldn't let me in the building. Eventually, someone even took a hammer to my car," Chicca said.
That prompted him to retire as a Marine Corps intelligence specialist.
The U.S. still denies that the USS Pueblo entered North Korean waters. Officials say they never left international waters and any evidence to the contrary was fabricated.
To this day, the USS Pueblo remains in North Korea where it has been converted into a Cold War Era museum.
