gruesomely tortured and was barely alive. “Look at his just punishment!” shrieked a communist translator, claiming the man was a South Korean spy and implying that Bucher was in for the same treatment. The captain bravely refused to sign. He finally caved when the North Koreans threatened to shoot his men, one by one before his eyes, and brought in his youngest sailor, a 19-year-old, as the first victim.

Despite such terror, the pain of his wounds, bouts of hepatitis and other illnesses, and the loss of about half of his body weight, Bucher proved a superlative leader in prison. He persistently demanded better food and medical treatment for his men and at one point went on a five-day hunger strike to protest the miserable meals of rice, turnips,and chunks of a fish so smelly and disgusting that his men dubbed it “sewer trout.” He urged them to defy their captors in whatever ways they could and often led by example, mocking the prison guards and their rules. When the communists tried to take propaganda photos of them, the sailors raised their middle fingers to ruin the pictures, telling the clueless North Koreans they were displaying the “Hawaiian good luck sign.”

Unbeknown to the captives, the Johnson administration was doggedly trying to free them, negotiating privately with the North Koreans at the village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. For months the communists demanded that the U.S. government sign a false admission that the Pueblo had violated their territorial waters in order to