Posted on 06/10/2021 3:19:12 AM PDT by mylife
When I saw the date, I wondered and had to go check since I I didn’t find it at the stationhypo link... yup, this occurred right in the middle of the Six-Day War.....
some creepy players here denying support.
lbj, mcnamara..
and then they threaten the spooks!
Israel should have been held responsible. Whether it was intentional or not (and I don’t believe it was) they were still responsible and should have been liable financially for their reckless actions
Is there no wonder that the Norks felt so confident in attacking Pueblo just 6mos later?
My Dad used to party at the O-Club in Yokosuka, Japan with CDR Bucher, and he was the Communications/Security officer for the Navy base at that time. We didn’t see him for a few weeks during the crisis...he was “working”.
Communications was a problem, I doubt my dad enjoyed his work right then.
And CDR Bucher got a raw deal. Shameful.
Back to the top.
5 June 1967, 7:45 (all times cited are local Liberty time). Israel attacks Egypt, simultaneously putting out false reports that Egypt had attacked first.
According to the book, “Spymasters of Israel”, the American ship was identified as an intelligence leak to the enemy and was politely asked at the highest diplomatic levels to leave the area. America refused. Israel removed the intelligence leak.
when the commander of the Liberty was awarded the Medal of Honor, it was cleared with Israel first. The president didn’t award it as is customary.
I met a couple of guys who served on the Liberty at that time, and they were then, and remain to this day, convinced that the Israelis were attempting to sink the Liberty and kill all on board. Why else did the Israelis machine gun the life rafts. Twice when US jets were scrambled to protect the Liberty they were called back each time.
Liberty bump!
......”Pinchas Pinchasy, naval liaison officer at Israeli air force headquarters, reports to Naval Headquarters that the ship cruising slowly off El Arish is “an electromagnetic audio-surveillance ship of the U.S. Navy, named Liberty, whose marking was GTR-5.”
...some years ago an account of this tragedy was published and it was revealed that the US had a spy plane flying overhead (the Israelis apparently did not know this...) and they copied all of the Israelis’ transmissions and the Israelis KNEW this was an American ship and deliberatly and intentionally attacked it...yes, they should have been held accountable but never were and they never apologized, if I recall.....
I was fresh out of radar school and assigned to VQ-2 (Navy reconnaissance squadron) in Rota, Spain just a week or two before this happened. In fact, I was doing squadron gate guard duty when the Six Day war broke out. Since I had only been in the squadron for a few weeks I hardly knew anybody so I was ordered to check EVERYBODY’s ID. That got me the stink eye when the CO and XO arrived.
I was also on gate guard duty when the “spy plane” referenced here returned to Rota. To this day, I have a number of very close shipmates (better than friends) who were on the mission.
Lots of memories. Period.
They were. Israel admitted their mistake, apologized and paid compensation to the victims.
from wiki article on the incident:
Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship.[5] Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity.[6] Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.[7][8]
In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3.32 million (equivalent to US$24.7 million in 2020) to the U.S. government in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3.57 million ($25.2 million in 2020) to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million ($18.8 million in 2020) as the final settlement for material damage to Liberty itself plus 13 years of interest.[9]
“I met a couple of guys who served on the Liberty at that time, and they were then, and remain to this day, convinced that the Israelis were attempting to sink the Liberty and kill all on board. Why else did the Israelis machine gun the life rafts. Twice when US jets were scrambled to protect the Liberty they were called back each time.”
You can’t leave witnesses when your plan is to blame your attack on the Egyptians. With allies who will sink your ship and kill your sailors, and spy on you constantly, who needs enemies?
The US Navy sent a spy ship, and everyone knew it was a spy ship, into a war zone. Obviously, it was to spy. Who or what it was spying on and for whose benefit is immaterial. Maybe we just wanted to see how well it worked. Israel thought it was there to spy against Israel and in support of Egypt. I assume that is because Israel was not in communication with the ship or receiving information from it. They demanded we leave, but we didn’t.
What would anyone do when a spy ship is in a war zone but not cooperating? Assume it is hostile. Israel did that. We just didn’t like the outcome. Stupid move on our part.
It doesn’t matter if we were neutral or helping Egypt, we were not helping Israel and they were under extreme duress in that war, so they assumed we were hostile.
I’ve noticed this anti-Israel, anti-Jews story comes up all over the Internet lately. Why? Is it because the current administration is anti-Israel and the push is on??
This is the fault of the Deep State. Why The USS Liberty was conducting Electronic Warfare interception for the Egyptians against the Israelis can only be attributed to Deep State animus against the nascent Jewish State. They were warned yet kept intercepting and transmitting information to the Egyptians. What would the US do? The same damn thing.
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