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USS Liberty was an American intelligence ship which was attacked in international waters near the Sinai Peninsula, north of El Arish, by Israeli fighter planes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967 during the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab States. In all, 34 American servicemen were killed and 172 wounded in the attack.
Israel maintains, and the US government has formally accepted, that the incident was entirely due to error. Israel contends it was assured by the United States that no US ships were in the area, and that its air and naval forces wrongly identified the Liberty at various stages as a Russian intelligence ship providing information to the Arabs or as the Egyptian vessel "El Quseir," which is a horse carrier one-fourth the size of the Liberty.
The United States and Israel exchanged diplomatic notes after several inquiries, and the US accepted an indemnity of $13 million.
Surviving crew members, as well as a number of Western observers and former US government officials (including then CIA director Richard Helms), assert that the attack was premeditated and deliberate and that Israel knew the ship was American.
This incident stands as the only peacetime attack on a US naval vessel not investigated by Congress [1]. The survivors want a full Congressional hearing; they hold that a proper investigation has never taken place and that all previous reports are incomplete, mention the incident in passing, and are intended to exonerate Israel. Among the theories presented as to why Israel carried out this action is that Israel may have been trying to get the US involved in the conflict on Israel's side, by convincing the US that Egypt was the aggressor.
USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was originally the 7725-ton civilian cargo ship Simmons Victory. She was acquired by the United States Navy, converted to an auxiliary technical research ship, and began her first deployment in 1965, to waters off the west coast of Africa. She carried out several more operations during the next two years. During the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab nations, she was sent to collect electronic intelligence in the eastern Mediterranean.
On the day the Six-Day War began, Israel had asked that the United States move its ships away from the Sinai coast or notify Israel of their locations. The United States had responded that it had no naval vessels in the area. Messages had been sent to Liberty warning it to come no closer than 100 miles to the Sinai coast. These messages were not received.
During the day preceding the attack, the ship was flown over by several aircraft. Their exact number and type is disputed; some of them are said to be Nord Noratlas "boxcars", a photograph presents a C-47 Dakota and yet other reports speak about Mirage III jet fighters. At least some of those fly-bys were from a close range. Many Liberty crewmen have given testimony that one of the aircraft flew so close to Liberty that her propellers rattled the deck plating of the ship and her pilots waved to the crew of the Liberty and her crewmen waved back.
The ship left the coast of Israel in the morning hours of June 8, 1967 and traveled westwards towards the coast of the Sinai Peninsula to monitor the fighting which was taking place. On the afternoon of that day the ship was steaming at about 5 knots (9 km/h) on the boundary of international and coastal waters approximately 13 miles (21 km) off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula near El-Arish.
The Israeli military had standing orders to attack any unidentified vessel near the shore. At about 2 p.m., Liberty was attacked by several aircraft, most probably two or three Mirage IIIs carrying cannon and rockets followed by Dassault Mystere s carrying napalmNapalm is also the name of a card game based on poker. Napalm is a flammable, gasoline-based weapon invented in 1942. The name is short for naphthenic palmitic acids''. Background During World War I both the Allies and Germany used gasoline as a weapon in.
About twenty minutes after the attack of the aircraft, the ship was approached by three torpedo boats bearing Israeli flags and identification signs. Initially, Captain McGonagle, who perceived that the torpedo boats "were approaching the ship in a torpedo launch attitude," ordered a machine gun to engage the boats. After recognizing the Israeli standard and seeing apparent morse code signaling attempts by one of the boats (but being unable to see what was being sent, due to the smoke of the fire started by the earlier aircraft attack), McGonagle gave the order to hold fire. This order was apparently misunderstood in the confusion, and two heavy machine guns opened fire. Subsequently the Israeli boats opened fire and launched two torpedoes at Liberty (five, according to the 1982 IDF History Department report). One hit Liberty on the starboard side, forward of the superstructure, creating a large hole and causing the majority of the casualties for the incident. The torpedo boats may have approached Liberty and shot at crewmen on deck (see below for disputed details).
Eventually the torpedo boats withdrew from the area. The Israelis were afraid at first that they had attacked a Soviet ship, which might bring the Soviet Union into the war. When the ship was confirmed to have been American, the torpedo boats returned to offer help; it was refused by the American ship. About three hours after the attack, Israel informed the US embassy in Tel Aviv about the incident and provided a helicopter to fly a US naval attaché to the ship.
Though severely damaged, Liberty
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