Posted on 06/07/2008 2:49:49 PM PDT by Jonah Johansen
Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.
"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger!"
Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War..........
.....Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I posted it because it contained a report on recently declassified information I had not seen before and recent interviews with witnesses, I had not seen before, either.
I myself went from strongly believing the attack was deliberate and the Israelis’ knew it was an American ship, to believing it plausibly could have been the result of the ‘fog’ of war. After reading this article it seems pretty hard to maintain that the Israelies did not know it was an American ship.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5076
June 8, 1967
“Israel attacks USS Liberty”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “ In all, 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded in the two-hour attack. In the attack’s aftermath, the Liberty managed to limp to a safe port.”
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Israel later apologized for the attack and offered $6.9 million in compensation, claiming that it had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. However, Liberty survivors, and some former U.S. officials, believe that the attack was deliberate, staged to conceal Israel’s pending seizure of Syria’s Golan Heights, which occurred the next day. The ship’s listening devices would likely have overheard Israeli military communications planning this controversial operation. Captain McGonagle was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic command of the Liberty during and after the attack.”
I can't wait until we get another RAT administration. /UltraMegaGigaDrippingSarc
And damn the both of them to hell.
I am a big supporter of Israel, but anybody who doubts this was a deliberate attack by the IDF is sadly uninformed or simple minded.
Ditto.
A short term anti-semitic bump
Hard to believe that the Israeli military, who is just as advanced as ours and probably smarter, would do this without knowing who they were bombing.
Ping
I sincerely hope that you are not calling me anti-semitic Doctor Don, because I am a tireless supporter of Israel and the Jewish people’s right to exist.
Because American pilots have never attacked friendly surface units.
However, since naval history is in my line of work, I've done a LOT of primary research on the attack and I have no doubt that the Israeli defense forces knew exactly what they were doing, especially when their patrol boats swarmed the Liberty and torpedoed her. Lyndon Johnson and Dean Rusk thought so too at the time, but were very much afraid of encouraging the Soviets to enter the war by condemning and abandoning Israel.
they couldn’t sink it or is it thought that they were not really trying to sink it? 4 attacking aircraft for 2 hours bombing and strafing one defenseless ship and it still managed to limp into port? any Ideas Cindy?
Has anyone ever come up with a VERIFIABLE explanation as to why the Israelis would deliberately attack a USA ship?
Okay, it's time to play the devil's advocate. Does anyone here remember the extreme tension preceding and during the Six Day War? Israel stood virtually alone against Nasser et.al. and their screaming "We will kill the Jews!" and the drum beats went on for weeks and weeks. As a school child I can remember a science teacher saying that Israel was going to be destroyed. All of Israel prepared for the worst, just read the newspapers of those times.
What happened to our ship, our men, would be inexcusable if you don't consider that the Israelis were looking at another mass murdering 22 years after WWII.
Read about the times, the tensions, the speeches made in the U.N. when it was made obvious that Israel could expect no help, and the Egyptians, the Syrians, and finally the Jordanians, were expecting to move right in after massacring the Israeli Jews. The Arabs worked themselves into such a fury of propaganda that it was enough to scare anyone.
Following their torpedo attack, the torpedo boats moved up and down the length of the ship (both the port and starboard sides), continuing their attack, raking the ship with cannon and machine gun fire.[21] In Malta, crewmen were later assigned the task of counting all of the holes in the ship that were the size of a man’s hand or larger. They found a total of 861 such holes, in addition to "thousands" of .50 caliber machine gun holes.
Survivors report that the torpedo boat crews swept the decks of USS Liberty with continuous machine gun fire, targeting communications equipment and any crewmembers who ventured above decks.[22]
Damage control firefighters, who had already risked their lives merely by appearing on deck, had to abandon their efforts because their fire hoses had been shredded by machine gun fire.[23]
Survivors also report that the torpedo boat crews fired on the inflated life boats launched by the crew after the captain gave the order "prepare to abandon ship."[24] This order had to be rescinded because the crew was unable to stand on the main deck without being fired upon and the life rafts were destroyed as they were launched.
No, there isn't an excuse for Israel killing American sailors. They did it because they knew they could get away with it.
"The ground control station stated that the target was American and for the aircraft to confirm it," Forslund recalled. "The aircraft did confirm the identity of the target as American, by the American flag.
"The ground control station ordered the aircraft to attack and sink the target and ensure they left no survivors."
********************************************************* Sounds completely plausible to me, and I doubt that the missing NSA recordins were actually destroyed. But, they are probably locked up in a vault somewhere, probably at NARA or at Fort Meade. The interviews cited in this story seem authoritative to me, and might finally be the break that Ennes and the Liberty crew have been looking for all this time. I hope so.
2. The supposed gain for Israel in these speculations is never sufficient to the risk. In both 1967 and 1973 Israel was dependent on the US President not just ‘helping’ but the US President virtually emptying our warehouses of ammunition and equipment to replace Israeli battle losses. The level of help received by Israel was not analogous to Roosevelt supplying Churchill prior to WWII, it was analogous
to Roosevelt supplying Eisenhower prior to D-Day.
No reason I have ever seen advanced, was sufficient to run the risk of US material support hesitating for even a single day.
The second question.
It is clear why the cover up on the Israeli side; but, Why the extraordinary cover up on our side. Even at this late date, 41 years after the fact, the false story, the cover up continues. Where is the gain for the United States, why do the Navy, the CIA and the NSA persist in maintaining what is such an obvious transparent lie.
I support Israel 100%, in its struggle with Hamas, Hezbolla, the PLO and Iran. If in a moment of crisis when the survival of an entire country was on the line, an Israeli Commander made a horrible stupid inexcusable decision, and the Israeli Government lied about it and tried to cover it up to save its tail;that does not in any way effect my support for Israel. I am angry that they still do not take full responsibility, but one terrible mistake does not undo decades of courageous action.
Apparently the IDF wasn't really up to the task if they couldn't sink the Liberty with 5 torpedos and all that cannon fire.Or should be believe the IDF airmen and sailors tried to minimize casualties by mostly firing high?
I have no way of learning the truth of this matter,but have believed for some time this was a deliberate attack on a vessel that was reporting Israeli movements to the Russians,who were passing the info along to the Arabs.
The whole attack seemed designed to end any further communications.
Ir reminds me of our “accidental” bombing of a Chinese communication facility during the Kosovo campaign.
They must have known the mariners on the US Ship were Democrats.
What they apparently did not anticipate was the capability of the NSA to listen in on their military frequencies and record every word that passed between the IAF pilots and their ground controllers.
It now makes perfect sense as to why NO ONE om the Johnson Administration believed the Israeli excuses for the attack, since NSA and senior U.S. government officials (like Rusk and Clifford) actually had the transcripts from the attack as it happened.
BTW, the USS Liberty was a converted World War II Liberty cargo ship, which might explain why is was so tough.
Someone ought to make a movie about the attack since it is a very compelling and disturbign story.
Just because the post portrays Isreal in a bad light doesn’t mean anyone is anti-semitic.
Hell I NEVER believed it was an accident, I also support the Jewish state.
2. Shame on our side for leaving them out of 20 minute air cover.
J.Q. "Tony" Hart, then a chief petty officer assigned to a U.S. Navy relay station in Morocco that handled communications between Washington and the 6th Fleet, remembered listening as Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in Washington, ordered Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, commander of the America's carrier battle group, to bring the jets home.
When Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help, Hart said, McNamara retorted that "President [Lyndon] Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors."
I despise McNamara.
Domestic politics.
I support Israel 100%, in its struggle with Hamas, Hezbolla, the PLO and Iran...that does not in any way effect my support for Israel. I am angry that they still do not take full responsibility, but one terrible mistake does not undo decades of courageous action.
The fact that you have to make that statement should be evidence enough as to why LBJ and others felt that a cover-up was necessary.
You left off the sarcasm tag. "Following their torpedo attack, the torpedo boats moved up and down the length of the ship (both the port and starboard sides), continuing their attack, raking the ship with cannon and machine gun fire.[21] In Malta, crewmen were later assigned the task of counting all of the holes in the ship that were the size of a man’s hand or larger. They found a total of 861 such holes, in addition to "thousands" of .50 caliber machine gun holes.
The one thing everyone forgets is that this occured during a war of survival. The Israelis literally had their backs to the sea. Wrong decisions were made, that happens in every war, but the Israelis were threatened with extinction. Read some history, some newspapers of those days - nobody expected the Israelis to win.
What disturbs me about all this is that somehow this one terrible incident is always used to bash Israel over the head.
It is entirely conceivable that the initial attack by the IAF was accidental by trigger happy fighter jocks in the middle of a war. But then after they realized they were bombing, strafing, and napalming an American ship, the Israeli high-command then ordered them to finish the job so that the U.S. would never really know what happened.
When the Liberty proved too tough a nut to crack from the air, the Israelis then sent the torpedo boats out to do the job that the fighters couldn't. But the Liberty took the torpedo too (but five missed, which surely would have destroyed her if they had struck). By then, the USN had been alerted that someone was attacking the Liberty and was on the way (at least it was believed), so the Israelis had to back off, and then play stupid.
Sounds plausible to me.
You know, that sounds pretty plausible to me, and removes the conspiracy aspect of it, which was making me cringe, even as I posted it.
Using the Liberty incident against Israel is akin to using My Lai against the United States of America.
Or, in another sense, Kasserine Pass -- to prove the Ul.S. military is incompetent.
All were mistakes. Tragic ones. But mistakes, nonetheless.
No one is bashing Israel over the head, but this is a historical incident that really happened, and Israel has never really owned up to its responsbility for the attacks.
A+Bert must be about 90 now, if he's still kicking. He threw his own 83 birthday party on FR about 7 years ago. But the weird thing is, I caught up with him while reading Liberty Forum a few years ago and they had some real anti-semites. Bert wouldn't join them.
The answer is on this thread. Anybody who puts out any information that is embarrassing to Israel will be attacked. The officials just didn't want to pull the pin on a political hand grenade
Unless my rubber ducky makes me an expert on seaworthiness, I ain't, but I alwaays understood that the Liberty Ships were cheap, replacable hulls. They were built to last only their life expectancy which was only a couple of years. I read somewhere that they were prone to buckling in the middle.
Devil's advocate. So since the order above was to sink the target and ensure no survivors, WHY WAS THE SHIP NOT SUNK? Planes, 5 torpedo boats, etc., etc., and it only LIMPED HOME?? What were Israeli's incompetent?
The Israel back-to-the-wall arguement doesn't really hold water. By the time they attacked the Liberty the Israelis had broken the back of the Egyptian Army in the Siani
Every Egyptian that wasn't already a prisoner was running for the canal and, in most cases, not making it.
The Egyptian (and Jordanian, and Syrian) air force was destroyed on the first day
When the Liberty was attacked the Israelis had in effect already removed the threat to their national existance
They just goofed the execution of the attack on the Liberty. The planes did well enough. The torpedo boats were supposed to finish her off.
Most Liberty survivors accounts talk about 5 torpedos and one hit. There were probably six torpedos launched (two from each boat) with one malfunction on launch (it happens)four clean misses and one hit.
The Israeli boats were originally designed to carry four torpedos apiece but probably downloaded two to compensate for the top weight of the extra 20mm and 40mm cannons plus ammunition.
Why didn't they do a better job of finishing the Liberty off?
Embarrassingly for the Israelis, they were probably just out of ship killing munitions
Oops
But they tried to make up for it by strafing the decks and the first aid and firefighting parties, at close range, making slow runs to insure their gunners had as stable a platform as possible.
Such heros
God bless CAPT Mcgonagle and the crew of the Liberty. DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP wasn't just a motto to them - they lived it.
It has always bothered me that we have never held Israel to account for this.
No chance, I've seen these threads go on for years and it's always the same.
I have suspected that the U.S. was playing both sides against the middle, and the Is. found them out. Remember, they were democrats in charge at the time.
Unrelated to the content, bur stretching an article over 9 pages for extra page views is a sign of how Internet media is getting more and more annoying and difficult to actually read.
Simple-minded #6961 reporting.
Although I will enjoy the usual suspects making all the facile conclusions to make Israel or the US or both to look like bumbling fools, I believe the facts are quite a bit more complex.
How many billions$ ayear were we giving Egypt then? How many do we give them annually today?
Without declassifying the truly embarrassing facts, no one can ever know if the US was passing on tactical data to the muslims. If that were the case, Israel was totally justified in attacking whomever was aiding the enemy (for whatever reason) during the intense fighting.
It's called survival.
“The aircraft did confirm the identity of the target as American, by the American flag.”
No enemy ship would ever try to discourage attack by pretending to be the ship of an ally or neutral navy.
That is a totally asinine statement, unless you are able to explain why Israel would do so for no reason whatsoever.
"Being able to get away" with it only works in the muslim or banana-republic (Argentinian) mind...
There are some folks that believe, the Soviets were intercepting the satellite links, and turning the info over to the Arabs....This incident occurred just about time that Walker was operational, and passing keys to the Soviets....the other theory, was that the WH was passing info to the Soviet Embassy....
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