Bucher, Lloyd (Mark) (‘Pete’) (1929-2003)

US naval officer. In January 1968, he surrendered the Pueblo, when fired on by the North Korean navy. He and his crew were imprisoned until December 1968, and forced to confess the ship had been inside North Korea's waters, and thus had been spying. In 1969 it was recommended that Butcher be court-martialed, but this did not occur.

He was born in Pocatello, Idaho. Orphaned as a child, he spent his early boyhood being shuffled between adoptive parents in Idaho and relatives in California until 1938 when he went to St Joseph's Children's Home in Culdesac, Idaho From 1941 to 1945 he attended the famous Boys Town (near Omaha, Nebraska); after leaving to spend two years in the navy, he returned to graduate with his class in 1948, then went on to the University of Nebraska, where he majored in geology. He spent most of his career in submarines. His first command of a surface ship came in May 1967. Bucher was never given a major command and he retired from the navy in 1973; it was 1990 before he and all others on the Pueblo were awarded the medals given to other POWs. In his retirement Bucher enjoyed a new career as a painter.