USS Pueblo Crew Short Story
THE DIGIT AFFAIR by Stu Russell
((Read from the perspective of being held in captivity in North Korea.))
In June, we were taken to the Club for yet another film. Unlike the usual fare of feature films of the
war movie, labor hero genre, we were shown two short subjects. One was a film about the DPRK
soccer team's visit to the play-offs in London. The other was about a US service man's body being
returned to the UN side at Panmunjom by the DPRK. Two different subjects, but one common action
united the two films.
The film about the soccer team began with the North Korean team arriving in London and driving
through the streets in a bus festooned with flags of the DPRK. As the bus drove down the street
one proper English gentlemen complete with derby and umbrella spotted the bus and flipped it off.
The man must have been a Korean War vet and he was giving the bus the finger. Whoever was
taking the pictures zoomed in on it. A murmur went through the crew, the KORCOMs didn't know
what the finger meant.
This was further demonstrated in the second film in which a U.S. Navy Officer flipped off the
cameraman. They left it in. We now had a weapon! Back in our rooms we were elated, this was
one more thing we could use to discredit the propaganda we were being forced to grind out.
Several crew members expressed caution, but the general attitude was use it. We had been
captured, but we never surrendered. Damn the Koreans, full fingers ahead!
The finger became an integral part of our anti-propaganda campaign. Any time a camera
appeared, so did the fingers. A concern grew among us that sooner or later the Koreans
would notice this and ask questions. It was decided that if the question was raised, the
answer was to be that the finger was a gesture known as the Hawaiian Good Luck sign,
a variation of the Hang Loose gesture. In late August one of the duty officers asked about
the finger and seemed to be accepting of the explanation, but most of us realized that our
zeal to ruin their propaganda would come back to haunt us.
