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Clogged Channels. Bucher's orders were to eavesdrop on all electronic transmissions coming from the North Korean shore, to chart shoreside radar sites, and to observe and report shipping in the area, particularly the movements of Soviet submarines. On Jan. 16, Pueblo took up a station off Chong-jin and slowly began working her way south. On Jan. 21, a Soviet-built subchaser passed about 1,000 feet away from Pueblo while steaming toward Wonsan harbor. The next afternoon, two small, grey boats, apparently government fishing craft, circled Pueblo. Bucher immediately tried to alert his headquarters in Japan. However, it took between twelve to 14 hours for his message to get through because of difficulties in obtaining a clear frequency in radio channels clogged with air-to-ground traffic.
At 11:55 a.m. the next day, a North Korean subchaser steamed into view and quickly circled Pueblo twice at 500 yards. The Koreans were suspicious. They demanded by signal flag, "What nationality?" Bucher ran up the U.S. ensign, identifying Pueblo as an American naval vessel.
The Capture. Soon the subchaser was joined by three 50-knot torpedo boats and another subchaser. One subchaser hoisted a signal: "Heave to or I will fire." Bucher personally checked his distance from shore by radar and was satisfied that he was 16 miles from the nearest land, four miles beyond the limit claimed by North Korea. The captain then fired off a situation report with CRITIC (critical) priority, which meant that it would go to the White House. Moments later, one of the torpedo boats tried to land a boarding party.
Bucher dismissed the possibility of scuttling Pueblo. The vessel was only in 180 feet of water, a depth from which North Korean divers could easily have recovered the classified material. And it would have taken 21 hours to sink the ship.
The three torpedo boats took up positions on both quarters of Pueblo. Bucher's .50-cal. machine guns were useless, cloaked by frozen tarpaulins that would take an hour to remove. "I did not," he said, "think there was any point of going to war—I was completely outgunned." The subchaser again hoisted a signal flag ordering "Heave to, or I'll fire." Bucher ignored it. The subchaser opened up with 57-mm. cannons. Pueblo's bridge was sprayed with shrapnel, wounding two enlisted men. The skipper suffered seven wounds in his right ankle and leg. Another metal shard ripped into his rectum. At this point, two MIGs screamed overhead. One fired a salvo of rockets that harmlessly hit ten miles ahead of Pueblo.
Fireman Duane Hodges was hit by a shell that penetrated his right leg and exploded. He died shortly thereafter, the only man mortally wounded in the attack. Frantically, the crew responded to Bucher's order to destroy the secret material and electronic gear on board. This task would have taken several hours, and it was far from complete when the ship was boarded at 5:30 p.m. Bucher thus became the first skipper to surrender a U.S. Navy ship without a fight in peacetime.