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 ...
The M-14, which I carried at Parris Island, was an OK rifle, but my personal favorite for overall reach and hitting power is the M-1 Garand. I have one now, but I carried it first during infantry training at Camp Geiger in ‘67. (We used a LOT of WWII and Korean-vintage stuff, INCLUDING C-rats.)
They were bombing LBJ, who was on the same side as Carter and Obama. It was a message and the intended recipient got the message.
Maybe, but those French built, or at least designed, Mirage jets that the Israelis had in 1967 were not exactly state of the art, even then.
In the fog of war, all sorts of inexplicable things happen.
Absent a true smoking gun, such as tapes of the Israel pilots being ordered to attack an American ship, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
A couple of examples come to mind. The attack on the USS Stark by an Iraqi Mirage (same sort of airplane) using two Exocet missiles, both of which hit the Stark. At that point during the Iran-Iraq war, we were cheering on the Iraqis, and aiding them with some intelligence information on Iranian troop dispositions. We were also escorting ships going up into the Northern Persian Gulf to pick up oil, from Kuwait and Iraq, clearing mines laid by the Iranians. Yet the Stark got hit anyway.
Fast forward a year or so, but not far in distance, and you have the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian airliner with much loss of civilian life. I don't believe the Iraqis were out to attack the Americans who were helping them, if only to a small degree. I also don't believe the crew of the Vincennes set off to, or were under orders to, shoot down any Iranian aircraft, excpect in self defense, let alone a civilian airliner.
Another example would be the "friendly fire" that killed Pat Tilman.
In wars, "stuff" happens.
Verified or verifiable?
One verifiable, at least theoretically so, explanation is that the Israelis did not want the US to know they were about to take the Golan heights from Syria. They were supposedly afraid if the US knew, the Soviets would know and then the Syrians would know.
bump.
True. Nothing like the hitting power of a 30.06 round to drop a bad guy in his tracks.
My uncle was drafted into the Army just as the Korean War broke out. He was in a Recon platoon (13 Jeeps, he was a .50 caliber gunner) and was part of the break-out force from the Pusan Perimeter following Inchon. He ended up going all the way to the Yalu River, literally at the tip of the U.S. Army's spear. When the ChiComs counterattacked, his platoon was surrounded and had to slog it out hand-to-hand with the Chinese hordes.
At one point, a ChiCom soldier zeroed in on my uncle (who subsequently won the Bronze Star for his actions) and charged him with his bayonet (on a Mosin-Nagant rifle). My uncle was only armed at that point with a M-1 paratrooper carbine. He said he pumped about 10 low-power .30 caliber rounds into the ChiCom, but the guy would not drop, and kept coming at him, screaming like a Banshee.
Out of ammo, my uncle looked around and picked up an M-1 Garand dropped by one of his dead buddies. He turned around, and fired it at the ChiCom soldier (who was almost on top of him), and killed him instantly.
Ultimately, my uncle's platoon was wiped out and he was the only survivor. He was shot between the eyes at long range by a ChiCom but the bullet was spent and did not penetrate his skull, just causing a bloody flesh wound to his forehead. He ended up playing dead for several days in his freezing fox hole, surrounded by all his dead buddies and the ChiComs, who he remembered jumping across his fox hole at night, as they continued their attack.
He was rescued several days later when a U.S. Army counterattack took back his position, but the events of that particular week pretty much scarred him for life.
True story.
Thanks for the ping.
Decades later, I still get that fist tightening in my gut when I read about what happened to our mates on the Liberty.
If Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas becomes our president, he will be worse than LBJ and Carter in protecting our intel people and assets.
Mac the Knife, the SOD’s, comments about a few sailors was very typical of this POS and LBJ.
Bump!
Only thing that makes sense, LBJ administration (spit) trying to prevent the total annihilation of Egyptian forces.
It's simple really The Liberty was a Signals intercept ship. It had records of every communication transmitted by both sides in the six day war. That was a wealth of knowledge the Israelis had to destroy before it could be unloaded and transfered to the analysts at the NSA.
I truly must protest - I have seen NO anti-semitic remarks on this thread to this point. This thread has simply been about discussing THIS INCIDENT as a historical fact and nothing more. Seems when one has a predisposition for seeing what he wants to see, he will see it no matter the facts.
As has been pointed out by others, no one has ever come up with a reason for the attack, which if intentional would seem to justify the risk.
Ten official United States investigations and three official Israeli inquiries have all conclusively established the attack was a tragic mistake.
On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the Israeli high command received reports that Israeli troops in El Arish were being fired upon from the sea, presumably by an Egyptian vessel, as they had a day before. The United States had announced that it had no naval forces within hundreds of miles of the battle front on the floor of the United Nations a few days earlier; however, the USS Liberty, an American intelligence ship under the dual control of the Defense Intelligence Agency/Central Intelligence Agency and the Sixth Fleet, was assigned to monitor the fighting.
As a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty, the ship sailed to within 14 miles off the Sinai coast. The Israelis mistakenly thought this was the ship shelling its soldiers and war planes and torpedo boats attacked, killing 34 members of the Liberty's crew and wounding 171. Ships from the Sixth Fleet were directed to launch four attack aircraft with fighter cover to defend the Liberty, but the planes were recalled after a message was received at the White House that the Israelis had admitted they had attacked the ship.
Numerous mistakes were made by both the United States and Israel. For example, the Liberty was first reported — incorrectly, as it turned out — to be cruising at 30 knots (it was later recalculated to be 28 knots). Under Israeli (and U.S.) naval doctrine at the time, a ship proceeding at that speed was presumed to be a warship. The sea was calm and the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry found that the Liberty's flag was very likely drooped and not discernible; moreover, members of the crew, including the Captain, Commander William McGonagle, testified that the flag was knocked down after the first or second assault.
According to Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin's memoirs, there were standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore.1 The day fighting began, Israel had asked that American ships be removed from its coast or that it be notified of the precise location of U.S. vessels.2 The Sixth Fleet was moved because President Johnson feared being drawn into a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He also ordered that no aircraft be sent near Sinai.
A CIA report on the incident issued June 13, 1967, also found that an overzealous pilot could mistake the Liberty for an Egyptian ship, the El Quseir. After the air raid, Israeli torpedo boats identified the Liberty as an Egyptian naval vessel. When the Liberty began shooting at the Israelis, they responded with the torpedo attack, which killed 28 of the sailors. In 1981, the National Security Agency noted that accounts by members of the Liberty crew and others did not have access to the relevant signal intelligence reports or the confidential explanation provided by Israel to the United States, which were used in the CIA investigation. The NSA concluded: “While these [signal intelligence of Israeli communications] reports revealed some confusion on the part of the pilots concerning the nationality of the ship, they tended to rule out any thesis that the Israeli Navy and Air Force deliberately attacked a ship they knew to be American.”2a
The Joint Chiefs of Staff investigated the communications failure and noted that the Chief of Naval Operations expressed concern about the prudence of sending the Liberty so close to the area of hostilities and four messages were subsequently sent instructing the ship to move farther away from the area of hostilities. The JCS report said the messages were never received because of “a combination of (1) human error, (2) high volume of communications traffic, and (3) lack of appreciation of sense of urgency regarding the movement of the Liberty.” The report also included a copy of a flash cable sent immediately after the attack, which reported that Israel had “erroneously” attacked the Liberty, that IDF helicopters were in rescue operations, and that Israel had sent “abject apologies” and requested information on any other U.S. ships near the war zone.
Initially, the Israelis were terrified that they had attacked a Soviet ship and might have provoked the Soviets to join the fighting.3 Once the Israelis were sure what had happened, they reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to provide a helicopter for the Americans to fly out to the ship and any help they required to evacuate the injured and salvage the ship. The offer was accepted and a U.S. naval attaché was flown to the Liberty.
The Israelis were “obviously shocked” by the error they made in attacking the ship, according to the U.S. Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In fact, according to a secret report on the 1967 war, the immediate concern was that the Arabs might see the proximity of the Liberty to the conflict as evidence of U.S.-Israel collusion.3a A second secret report concluded, “While the attack showed a degree of impetuosity and recklessness, it was also clear that the presence of a U.S. naval vessel, unannounced, that close to belligerent shores at a time when we had made much of the fact that no U.S. military forces were moving near the area of hostilities was inviting disaster.”3b
Many of the survivors of the Liberty remain bitter, and are convinced the attack was deliberate as they make clear on their web site. In 1991, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak trumpeted their discovery of an American who said he had been in the Israeli war room when the decision was made to knowingly attack the American ship.4 In fact, that individual, Seth Mintz, wrote a letter to the Washington Post on November 9, 1991, in which he said he was misquoted by Evans and Novak and that the attack, was, in fact, a “case of mistaken identity.” Moreover, the man who Mintz originally said had been with him, a Gen. Benni Matti, does not exist.
Tapes of the radio transmissions made prior, during and after the attack do not contain any statement suggesting the pilots saw a U.S. flag before the attack. During the attack, a pilot specifically says, “there is no flag on her!” The recordings also indicate that once the pilots became concerned about the identity of the ship, by virtue of reading its hull number, they terminated the attack and they were given an order to leave the area. A transcript of the radio transmissions indicates the entire incident, beginning with the spotting of a mysterious vessel off El Arish and ending with the chief air controller at general headquarters in Tel Aviv telling another controller the ship was “apparently American” took 24 minutes.5 Critics claimed the Israeli tape was doctored, but the National Security Agency of the United States released formerly top secret transcripts in July 2003 that confirmed the Israeli version.
U.S. spy plane was sent to the area as soon as the NSA learned of the attack on the Liberty and recorded the conversations of two Israeli Air Force helicopter pilots, which took place between 2:30 and 3:37 p.m. on June 8. The orders radioed to the pilots by their supervisor at the Hatzor base instructing them to search for Egyptian survivors from the “Egyptian warship” that had just been bombed were also recorded by the NSA. “Pay attention. The ship is now identified as Egyptian,” the pilots were informed. Nine minutes later, Hatzor told the pilots the ship was believed to be an Egyptian cargo ship. At 3:07, the pilots were first told the ship might not be Egyptian and were instructed to search for survivors and inform the base immediately the nationality of the first person they rescued. It was not until 3:12 that one of the pilots reported that he saw an American flag flying over the ship at which point he was instructed to verify if it was indeed a U.S. vessel.6
In October 2003, the first Israeli pilot to reach the ship broke his 36-year silence on the attack. Brig.-Gen. Yiftah Spector, a triple ace, who shot down 15 enemy aircraft and took part in the 1981 raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, said he had been told an Egyptian ship was off the Gaza coast. “This ship positively did not have any symbol or flag that I could see. What I was concerned with was that it was not one of ours. I looked for the symbol of our navy, which was a large white cross on its deck. This was not there, so it wasn't one of ours.” The Jerusalem Post obtained a recording of Spector's radio transmission in which he said, “I can't identify it, but in any case it's a military ship.”7
None of Israel's accusers can explain why Israel would deliberately attack an American ship at a time when the United States was Israel's only friend and supporter in the world. Confusion in a long line of communications, which occurred in a tense atmosphere on both the American and Israeli sides (five messages from the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the ship to remain at least 25 miles — the last four said 100 miles — off the Egyptian coast arrived after the attack was over) is a more probable explanation.
n January 2004, the State Department held a conference on the Liberty incident and also released new documents, including CIA memos dated June 13 and June 21, 1967, that say that Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel. The historian for the National Security Agency, David Hatch, said the available evidence “strongly suggested” Israel did not know it was attacking a U.S. ship. Two former U.S. officials, Ernest Castle, the United States Naval Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in June 1967, who received the first report of the attack from Israel, and John Hadden, then CIA Chief of Station in Tel Aviv, also agreed with the assessment that the attack on the Liberty was a mistake.10
The new documents do not shed any light on the mystery of what the ship was doing in the area or why Israel was not informed about its presence. The evidence suggests the ship was not spying on Israel.
Israel apologized for the tragedy immediately and offered on June 9 to compensate the victims. Israel ultimately paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.
As I have posted before, I was convinced the attack was deliberate until the last few years. What changed my mind was reading detailed accounts of WWII in the South Pacific in particular the number of colossal blunders, friendly fire incidents and inexplicable negligence on both sides during that conflict, i.e. the reality of ‘the fog of war’.
Two other factors caused me to change my view. A greater understanding of the psychology namely tunnel vision under stress and the fact that non of the conspiracy theorists have ever come up with a ‘plausible’ motivation. Every theory I have seen put forward seems to involve Israel gaining something minor at the risk of something major (US withdrawing support)
As a result of a series of United States communication failures, whereby messages directing the ship not to approach within 100 miles were not received by the Liberty, the ship sailed to within 14 miles off the Sinai coast.
In 1988, the U.S. Navy mistakenly downed an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians. During the Gulf War, 35 of the 148 Americans who died in battle were killed by “friendly fire.” In April 1994, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters with large U.S. flags painted on each side were shot down by U.S. Air Force F-15s on a clear day in the “no fly” zone of Iraq, killing 26 people. In April 2002, an American F-16 dropped a bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. In fact, the day before the Liberty was attacked, Israeli pilots accidentally bombed one of their own armored columns.
In January 2004, the State Department held a conference on the Liberty incident and also released new documents, including CIA memos dated June 13 and June 21, 1967, that say that Israel did not know it was striking an American vessel. The historian for the National Security Agency, David Hatch, said the available evidence “strongly suggested” Israel did not know it was attacking a U.S. ship. Two former U.S. officials, Ernest Castle, the United States Naval Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in June 1967, who received the first report of the attack from Israel, and John Hadden, then CIA Chief of Station in Tel Aviv, also agreed with the assessment that the attack on the Liberty was a mistake.
The new documents do not shed any light on the mystery of what the ship was doing in the area or why Israel was not informed about its presence. The evidence suggests the ship was not spying on Israel.
Israel apologized for the tragedy immediately and offered on June 9 to compensate the victims. Israel ultimately paid nearly $13 million in humanitarian reparations to the United States and to the families of the victims in amounts established by the U.S. State Department. The matter was officially closed between the two governments by an exchange of diplomatic notes on December 17, 1987.
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