The standoff between the US and China over the spy plane and its crew is bringing back painful memories for Cdr Lloyd Bucher, the skipper of a US navy spy ship captured by North Korea in 1968.
It was on January 23rd that year when storm clouds, portents of the coming year, scattered across the Sea of Japan as the spy ship USS Pueblo gathered intelligence off the coast of North Korea.
The Pueblo, with a crew of 82 led by Cdr Bucher, was confronted by a flotilla of North Korean patrol boats, boarded and ordered to proceed to the port of Wonsan. The Pueblo became the first US ship to strike its colours in enemy presence since the Civil War.
President Lyndon Johnson contended that the Pueblo was in international waters and called the seizure a "wanton, aggressive act"; North Korea said the ship was within its 12-mile territorial limit. One crewman died of wounds suffered during the ship's capture. His body and the remaining 82 men were released on December 23rd after a US apology ended 11 months of captivity.
But before their release, the crew was tortured and subjected to long periods of solitary confinement. The supply of food was minimal. One man, Petty Officer Charles Law, saw his weight go from 215 lb to 126. He became legally blind as a result of malnutrition.
Today, Cdr Bucher lives quietly in San Diego, California, after retiring from the navy in 1979. But the ordeal of the 22 men and women now in China has brought back his own experience.
"For the first three days I thought I was going to be executed. The protections of the Geneva Convention just did not exist because we were spying," he told the New York Post.
He says the current situation is somewhat different and makes him more hopeful for the crew. "Luckily for those guys the Chinese are more civilised and they have billions and billions of dollars in trade with the US at stake."
While that is so, the words between the US and China seem harsher by the day. Many foreign policy experts who predicted the impasse would last only a few days are now expressing surprise and concern that what began as an international mistake and incident may now be developing into a true international crisis.