Charles Law Jr., 60; Led Pueblo Crew in Captivity

Charles B. Law Jr., a survivor of the North Korean attack on the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo who was brutally beaten and starved to the point of blindness during the 11 months of the crew’s captivity in 1968, has died.

Law, 60, was found dead Tuesday at his home in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa after failing to report to work at a bail bonds office. The cause of death was complications of diabetes.

He was chosen as the leader of the Pueblo’s 77 enlisted men when they were segregated from Cmdr. Lloyd “Pete” Bucher and the other officers Jan. 23, 1968, the day North Korean forces attacked and seized the ship in international waters.

“He would frequently take abuse for somebody in the crew who had broken the so-called rules of life that they ordered everyone to follow,” Bucher told The Times on Thursday.

Law was designated the crew’s leader, the retired commander added, because “I couldn’t think of anyone who could do the job better and persevere better than Chuck Law.”

Law dropped out of high school at 17 to join the Navy. He was a 10-year veteran when the Pueblo set sail on a winter day 33 years ago. He was the quartermaster with eyes so sharp that he often bet Bucher a six-pack of beer that he could spot the first stars of evening. Law, Bucher said, won a lot of beer.

The Pueblo had been at sea for almost two weeks when it was assaulted in the Sea of Japan, many miles from the North Korean coast. A converted cargo vessel, it was poorly equipped to defend against the 25 MIGs, SO-1 gunboats and P-4 torpedo boats that surrounded it. As the crew feverishly destroyed sensitive documents, the Pueblo was riddled with gunfire and easily overcome.

One crewman died in the attack. Bucher and the remaining 81 crew members were taken to a concrete bunker in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, where they were held and tortured for months before moving to somewhat better quarters outside the city.

When they were not exercising, eating or sleeping, they were forced to sit at small desks in a repentant pose--hands on thighs and heads bowed.

“We had to ask permission to light a cigarette or blow our noses,” Law later told a Navy court of inquiry.

Meals consisted of a few slices of bread, a bowl of soup or shredded vegetables that Law said were as tasty as “half-boiled grass.” He shrank from a robust 215 pounds to 126.

Law, then 27, was chosen to maintain Navy discipline among the enlisted men. He communicated with his commander during exercise periods, exchanging information in the confusion of contact during games of football, basketball and volleyball.

Bucher constantly relayed words of encouragement and defiance. Sometimes he ordered the crew to keep straight faces during his propaganda performances, such as the time he flashed an upraised middle finger in a guard’s face and told him it was a “Hawaiian good luck sign.”

When the crew members were not exercising or confined to their rooms, they were being beaten. Law received the brunt of the punishment.

The worst came shortly after the North Koreans learned that their prisoners had humiliated them in a propaganda picture published abroad. The photo showed the prisoners giving their captors the Hawaiian good luck greeting. The caption said, “The Navy has made fools of [North Korea].”

Thus began what the survivors called “Hell Week,” a period of merciless torture in December 1968, shortly before their release.

Law was beaten with a 2-inch pole until it broke in half, then with the halves until they, too, broke. Then he was battered with a 4-by-4 about 300 times.

At one point he was taken to an adjoining room to watch Bucher undergo similar treatment.

What kept him going, Law said, was remembering Bucher’s admonition on defiance: “If they catch us, we’ll lose the battle, but we’ll win the war.”

All the time they were in captivity, Law and the others expected the United States to retaliate. “I thought we were going to die and the Korean War would get revved up again,” he told the New York Post earlier this year.

Instead, the Pueblo and its crew came to symbolize troublesome questions of patriotism and duty.

Because the Pueblo was not involved in a declared war or conflict, like Vietnam, the U.S. government refused to designate Bucher and his crew prisoners of war. When they came home, they were ordered to testify at an eight-week Navy Court of Inquiry during which they were questioned about the loss of the Pueblo and whether the captain and crew had violated the U.S. military Code of Conduct by revealing more than name, rank and serial number.

Courts-martial were initially ordered for the top officers, but their discipline was later downgraded to reprimands. Ultimately, the secretary of the Navy vetoed any punishment.

Law, however, was cited by the naval court for his leadership and for “willingly accepting punishment intended for his shipmates.”

Told by doctors that he had large blind spots in both eyes from malnutrition during his captivity, he was offered a medical discharge, but he became a survival training instructor and served for 10 more years.

After retiring from the service in 1979, he worked in the San Diego area as a bartender and a bail bondsman.

In 1990, 22 years after their ordeal, Law was among 63 Pueblo officers and crew members who received POW medals during a ceremony in San Diego. It had taken an act of Congress to get them.

Law is survived by his mother, Mara F. Law, of Olympia, Wash., and a brother, Lawrence, of Las Vegas.

A memorial program will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Hillside Park, 840 Buena Terrace, El Cajon.