USS Pueblo (AGER-2) 1/144 scale
The USS Pueblo was a signals intelligence ship of the US Navy that was commissioned in 1967. She was converted from a Army Camano Class Coastal Freighter (later Navy AKL class) and used a cover story of an oceanographic research ship and carried appropriate equipment and winches for that work. She was attacked and seized in international waters by the North Koreans in January 1968 during the ship's first deployment. One crewman was killed, serveral were wounded and spent the next 12 months as North Korea's prisoners and suffered brutal treatment. The crew was released in late December 1968, but the Pueblo is still held by the North Koreans and serves as a propoganda tool, but is still a commissioned US Naval ship.
The build started with the hull of the old Frog/Novo Shell Welder coastal tanker. The hull was cut down to a scale 177' length (it is a small ship) and the stern and bow bulwarks were cut down to better represent the Pueblo. The deck, superstructures, masts, antennas and about everything else were all scratch built. Photo etch railing stanchions came from Saemann and ladder and inclined ladder (stairs) came from Gold Medal Models.
Fantastic job on this build. I remember that incident. @kanddhenning
Nice job. After the NKs nabbed the Pueblo, they shared the captured commo gear with the USSR. They used it or replicas to verify the crypto codes that John Walker supplied the Sovs during that time frame.
The Pueblo was loaded down with technical manuals and documents. Commander Bucher pleaded with the navy to allow him to reduce the number of documents and also asked for better destruction techniques/equipment since this mission was one of the first into North Korean waters, but was denied. Instead they sent him more technical manuals! As the ship was attacked and before being seized, the communication technicians tried to destroy equipment, but all they had were a sledgehammer and fire axe. Thanks to the boatload of manuals, the North Koreans and Russians were able to rebuild most of the damaged equipment. At the time, the loss was not thought to be significant-since neither of them had the codes-but no one knew that Walker was supplying everything that the Russians needed.
That’s a beautiful model, very neat work.
Excellent model and awesome conversion work, David! Very interesting story!
Very nice build, David @kanddhenning
Thanks for the historical part, was not aware of this.
Very nice! I built the Shell Welder once and it was horrible... Your result is super!
Outstanding modeling! This is the sort of thing that I wish I had the patience for.
Superb scratch building, really outstanding. I didn't know about that incident. Thank you for the information no this ship.
Wow, David (@kanddhenning), what a great job converting and scratchbuilding a ship that is seldom modeled. I was in high school in 1968, and between Vietnam and North Korea, I was sure I was going to be drafted and sent somewhere unpleasant. Well done on this. I never would have thought to use the old Shell Welder to create this.
Meaningful for me, as the Captain, Lloyd Bucher lived in my town. He painted/ produced a commemorative poster for the San Diego Fire Department on our Centennial, a really nice guy.
Thanks everyone for the comments. Some good books on the subject are Commander Bucher's "Bucher: My Story" and Armbrister's "A Matter of Accountability". There is also an old tv dramatization from the 1970's on youtube: The Pueblo Incident.
This was another "what was I thinking" projects. I keep saying that I won't tackle another-but end up doing it again!
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
Very nice and dignified display piece of historical modeling David.
A fantastic conversion. I was eleven when the Pueblo was seized. I remember a free the Pueblo movement during that year, as Vietnam was hot and heavy at that time taking military action against North Korea would have stretched our military. With the USS Liberty incident. around the same time, the idea of utilizing the lightly armed ships this way that they did, cruising by themselves for the most part did not make sense. You're putting a ship and its crew that could barely defend the ship in harm's way.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.