USS Pueblo is an American military vessel designed for intelligence-gathering, specifically by Signals intelligence (SIGINT) and Electronics intelligence (ELINT). By intercepting enemy signals, encrypted information could be gained and deciphered. On 11 January 1968, USS Pueblo headed northward through the Tsushima Strait into the Sea of Japan to execute its purpose. It received orders to intercept and conduct surveillance of enemy naval activity and to gather signal and electronic intelligence, specifically from North Korea. On 23 January 1968, in the midst of its intelligence operation, USS Pueblo was challenged and captured by North Korean SO-1. It was taken into port at Wonsan .
USS Pueblo was launched at Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Wisconsin, on 16 April 1944. It was designed for freight and transportation purposes for the U.S. Army, designated as FP-344. Initially, the ship was used to train civilians for the Army. After a decade of serving its purpose, FP-344 was decommissioned in 19542.
On 12 April 1966, the retired vessel was transferred to U.S. Navy and was rechristened as USS Pueblo. While it did serve its freight and transportation purposes as light cargo ship, on 13 May 1967, it was converted to an intelligence gathering ship. During its transformation, however, it was announced that it will be used specifically for oceanographic studies3. In fact, its public designation was AGER-2 (Auxiliary General Environmental Research). It was outfitted with actual oceanographic equipments and carried two civilian oceanographers4. However, under the surface, a detachment of Communications Technicians worked in a triple-locked compartment worked with very sensitive intelligence technologies4. For example, i...
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...a contingency plan, this incident could have been averted entirely.
Works Cited
Crawford, Don. Pueblo Intrigue; A Journey of Faith. Wheaton, Ill: Tyndale House Publishers, 1969.
Gallery, D V. The Pueblo incident. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1970.
Naval History and Heritage Command. "U.S. Army Ships--U.S. Army cargo ship FP-344 (1944-1966)." Accessed March 1, 2014. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/army-sh/usash-ag/fp344.htm.
USS PUEBLO (AGER-2). Accessed March 1, 2014. http://www.usspueblo.org/v2f/attack/attacked.htm.
U.S. Department of the Navy. Pueblo’s Radio Transmissions:MEMORANDUM FOR MR. FRANK SLATINSHEK (STAFF COUNSEL, SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTE, Pueblo INQUIRY).Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.13 March 1969.
U.S. Department of the Navy. Statement of John H. Chafee, Secretary of the Navy, on Pueblo Court of Inquiry.06 May 1969.
Prior to the dispatch of September 24, the information which the Japanese sought and obtained about Pearl Harbor followed the general pattern of their interest in American Fleet movements in other localities. One might suspect this type of conventional espionage. With the dispatch of September 24, 1941, and those which followed, there was a significant and ominous change in the character of the information which the Japanese Government sought and obtained. The espionage then directed was of an unusual character outside the realm of reasonable suspicion. It was no longer merely directed to ascertaining the general whereabouts of ships of the fleet. It was directed to the presence of particular ships in particular areas; to such minute detail as what ships were double-docked at the same wharf….These Japanese instructions and reports pointed to an attack by Japan upon the ships in Pearl Harbor. The information sought and obtained, with such painstaking detail had no other conceivable usefulness from a military
The service of the code talkers was not declassified until 1969, after which public attention grew. The purpose of this investigation is to assess what factors led to differences in the amount of public attention given to the Navajo code talkers and their Comanche counterparts after the declassification. Factors possibly affecting the fame of both tribes’ code talkers will be examined to gain an understanding of why the Navajo received more public attention. These factors include circumstances surrounding their training prior to their service, their performance during the war, and their situation after the war. Due to the limited number of works regarding the Comanche co...
assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They served in all six
Gailey, Harry. The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Novato: Presidio, 1995.
The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 15 November 1932. The ship served with honor from Pearl Harbor through the last campaign of World War II, sinking in action two weeks before the end of the war. On 30 July 1945, while sailing from Guam to Leyte, Indianapolis was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-58. The ship capsized and sank in twelve minutes. Survivors were spotted by a patrol aircraft on 2 August. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once, and the surrounding waters were thoroughly searched for survivors. Upon completion of the day and night search on 8 August, 316 men were rescued out of the crew of 1,199.
During the first World War, the US military saw great benefits in relying on the Choctaw and Comanche languages to relay important messages in the battlefield (Bixler 37). When World War II began, it was the idea of an anglo-american called Philip Johnston who suggested to once again use Native American languages to send important messages during the war (Bixler 39). Philip Johnston was a World War I veteran who was born in 1892 to a missionary who lived in the Navajo Reservation. Growing up, Johnston was able to become a fluent speaker in the Navajo language and during World War II, he alongside 4 other Navajo Indians were the first to help develop the Navajo language as code for the war (Bixler 39). This turned out to be a great idea because according to a book title “Navajo Code Talkers” by Nathan Aaseng, in the year of 1940, there were “fewer than 30 people outside the Navajo tribe that knew their language (19). In addition, during the years prior to the start of WWII, Germany had sent out German students to study various Native American tribes, but they failed to connect and penetrate the Navajo tribe during those years(Aaseng 19). Thanks to this, the Navajo code talkers became one of the most well known and effective code units during and beyond the end of WWII. It is estimated that as many as 3,600 Navajo tribe members served overall during the years of WWII (Aaseng 10). Out of those 3,600 members, about 540 of them enlisted in the marine corps and about 420 became qualified as Navajo Code Talkers (Paul 117). These Code Talkers played a huge role in many of the biggest battles against Japan in the Pacific arena. A quote from communications officer Major Howard M. Conner of the fifth Marine Division states that if “Were it not for the Navajo, the Marines would have never taken Iwo Jima”(Davis
“AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” This is the message sent out by radioman Kyle Boyer at 7:58 a.m. Sunday December 7, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. The empire of Japan had attacked the United States’ Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. For months the US Intelligence community, as well as others around the world, had been intercepting and decoding transmissions from mainland Japan to their diplomats and spies in the US. We had cracked their Purple Code, and knew exactly what military intelligence was being transmitted back and forth. The Dutch also cracked Purple and informed our government of the Japanese plan and were shocked to hear reports that we were taken by surprised. Even more disturbing, months before the attack a British double agent, Dusko Popov, codenamed Tricycle, turned over to the F.B.I. detailed plans of the Japanese air raid, which he had obtained from the Germans. The government had the information, and did nothing with it.
Hackett, Charles W. Declarations of Josephe and Pedro Naranjo. Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin's Attempted Reconquest 1680-82. University of New Mexico Press, 1942.
The U.S. Navy nurtured into a challenging power in the years previous to World War II, with battleship construction being revived in 1937, commencing with the USS North Carolina . It was able to add to its fleets throughout the early years of the war when the US was still not involved, growing production of vessels both large and small. In a conflict that had a number of amphibious landings, naval superiority was important in both Europe and the Pacific. The mutual resource...
Blair Jr., Clay, (1975). Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, p. 78. p. 1072. Buell, Thomas B. -. (1987)
Over the year and a half between Pearl Harbor and Midway the United States made headway with various technological and military advantages. One of the most important of which was the code breaking efforts of Commander Joseph J. Rochefort Jr. “Most of the U.S’s information [on Japan] came from Rochefort. R...
Lawson, Robert L., and Barrett Tillman. U.S. Navy Air Combat: 1939-1946. Osceola, WI: MBI Pub., 2000. Print.
Operation Crossroads: Fact Sheet. (2014, 07 13). Retrieved from Naval History & Heritage Command: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq76-1.htm
Kathryn book Life in the Pueblo is based on excavations that she did at Lizard Man Village (Kamp, 1997). This was a small pueblo located in Arizona which is believed to be inhabited between 11th and 13th century. These ancient excavations were first carried out by United States Forest Service and were parts of Grinnell College field school (Kamp, 1997). The aim of the book was to describe Lizard Man Village and present excavation processes and analysis. Kamp 1997 offers archaeological interpretation of the site in relation to the past understandings. She bring out successfully three narratives. These narratives include ethnographic data in relationship to traditional accounts from Hopi (a place which is believed to be the first resident of Lizard Man) (Kamp, 1997). He also bring out clearly the issue of archaeology as well as fictional account basing it on both ethnography and archaeology.
Robinson, Admiral Samuel M. A Brief History of the Texas Navies. Houston: Sons of the Republic of Texas, 1961.