opinion

In January 57 years ago, the US armed spy ship Pueblo was captured in the waters off Wonsan in the East Sea of Korea as it intruded into the territorial waters of the DPRK to commit military espionage activities.

Captured in 14 minutes

On January 21 1968, sailors of the Korean People’s Army who were on routine patrol duty detected an unknown ship in the waters off Kim Chaek City in the East Sea of Korea. It was a strange ship which has a myriad of antennas, but with no nationality marking. The ship reappeared in the sea off Wonsan the following day.

At dawn of January 23, naval warships of the KPA set out for the target and asked it to clarify its nationality immediately.

But it did not respond playing with time.

As it received another signal to identify itself at once, the unknown ship replied that it was a hydrographic vessel, the engine was out of order, so it would go out of the territorial sea when they fixed it and asked the KPA side not to interfere.

Overawed by the repeated warnings and resolute measures of the KPA, the ship raised its flag on the flagpole. And it tried to flee at a high speed, firing a machine gun at the approaching KPA torpedo boat.

Seven seamen of the KPA returned the enemy’s machine-gun fire and captured the vessel.

The USS Pueblo was a remodelled transport ship disguised as a maritime research ship in appearance but, in reality, it was an armed spy ship equipped with up-to-date spy instruments belonging to the US Pacific Fleet. Most of the 83 members of the captured crew were spies with the experience and skills needed for espionage.

However, the spy ship was captured in 14 minutes.

‘Prisoner’ held forever captive

On December 23, eleven months after the capture of the Pueblo, the US government signed an apology letter to the DPRK, recognizing full responsibility and solemnly apologizing for its serious espionage against the country and firmly guaranteeing that no US ship would ever intrude into the territorial waters of the DPRK again in the future.

The captured crewmen were expelled from the DPRK, but the Pueblo could not return.

The ship was tied at Wonsan wharf for over 30 years and then was dragged to the Taedong River in 1999, through the East and West Seas of Korea. It was placed at the site where the US aggressor ship General Sherman was sunk in flames in 1866 as a result of the Korean people’s struggle against its aggression. Koreans ridiculed the ship as a “tomb of the US on water” with the monument to the sinking of the General Sherman as its tombstone.

Now the Pueblo is bound to the Pothong River in the captured weapons exhibition section of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang.

The spy ship teaches a lesson of history to the aggressors and provokers who are hell-bent on the moves for confrontation with the DPRK: Any force will surely be annihilated if it seeks military confrontation with the DPRK.