The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.[2] The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship.[3] At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.[1][4]
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 identity of the USS Liberty.[5] Many of the survivors, in addition a few U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials involved in the incident, continue to dispute these official findings, saying the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was not a mistake,[6] and it remains "the only maritime incident in U.S. history where [U.S.] military forces were killed that was never investigated by the [U.S.] Congress."[7]
In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 as full payment to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 in compensation to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the U.S. claim of $7,644,146 for material damage to the Liberty itself.[8]
Purportedly, on December 17, 1987, the issue was officially closed by the two governments through an exchange of diplomatic notes.[9]
USS LibertyMain article: USS Liberty (AGTR-5)
USS Liberty was originally the 7,725 long tons (7,849 t) (light) civilian cargo vessel Simmons Victory, a mass-produced, standard-design Victory Ship, the follow-on series to the famous Liberty Ships, which supplied the United Kingdom and Allied troops with cargo. She was acquired by the United States Navy, converted to an Auxiliary Technical Research Ship (AGTR), 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.
[edit] Attack on the Liberty[edit] Events leading to the attackDuring the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status.[10] Shortly before the war began, the USS Liberty was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean to perform an electronic intelligence collection mission.[11] After the war erupted, due to concerns about her safety as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to increase her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 nmi (14.4 mi; 23.2 km) and 6.5 nmi (7.5 mi; 12.0 km), respectively, to 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km) and 15 nmi (17 mi; 28 km), and then later to 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) for both countries.[12] Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, the CPA change messages were not received until after the attack.[12]
According to Israeli sources, at the start of the war on June 5, General Yitzhak Rabin (then IDF Chief of Staff) informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American Naval Attaché in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal, including sinking unidentified ships. Also, he asked the U.S. to keep its ships away from the shore or at least inform Israel of their exact position.[13][14] With the Liberty in international waters and gathering intelligence, the United States did not provide any information about its location.
American sources said that no inquiry about ships in the area was made until after the Liberty attack ended. In a message sent from U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk to U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Rusk asked for "urgent confirmation" of Israel's claim. Barbour responded: "No request for info on U.S. ships operating off Sinai was made until after Liberty incident." Further, Barbour stated: "Had Israelis made such an inquiry it would have been forwarded immediately to the chief of naval operations and other high naval commands and repeated to dept [Department of State]."[15]
With the outbreak of war, Captain William L. McGonagle of the Liberty immediately asked Vice Admiral William I. Martin at the U.S. 6th Fleet headquarters to send a destroyer to accompany the Liberty and serve as its armed escort and as an auxiliary communications center. The following day, June 6, Admiral Martin replied: “Liberty is a clearly marked United States ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied.”[16] He promised, however, that in the unlikely event of an inadvertent attack, jet fighters from the Sixth Fleet could be overhead in ten minutes.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations, and in response to Arab complaints that the U.S. and British were supporting Israel in the conflict, United States Ambassador Goldberg announced that the U.S. forces were hundreds of miles from the conflict.[12] At the time the statement was made, this was the case, since the Liberty was just entering the Mediterranean Sea[17] but would ultimately steam to within a few miles of the Sinai Peninsula.
On the night of June 7 Washington time, early morning on June 8, 01:10Z or 3:10 AM local time, the Pentagon issued an order to 6th Fleet headquarters to tell the Liberty to come no closer than 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) to Israel, Syria, or the Sinai coast (Oren, p. 263).[18](pages 5 and Exhibit N, page 58).
According to the Naval Court of Inquiry[19] (p. 23 ff, p. 111 ff) and National Security Agency official history,[20] the order to withdraw was not broadcast on the frequencies that the Liberty crew was monitoring for orders until 15:25 Zulu, hours after the attack, due to a long series of administrative and communications problems. The Navy said a large volume of unrelated high-precedence traffic, including intelligence intercepts related to the conflict, was being handled at the time and it also faulted a shortage of qualified radio men as a contributing factor to the failure to send the withdrawal message to Liberty in time.[19](p. 111 ff)
[edit] Visual contactDuring the morning of the attack, early June 8, the ship was overflown by Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft including a Nord Noratlas "flying boxcar" and Mirage III jet fighters eight times.[21][22] At least some of those flybys were from a close range.[23] At about 5:45 a.m. Sinai time (GMT +2), reports were first received at Israeli Central Coastal Command (CCC) about the Liberty, identified by pilots as a destroyer and the vessel was placed on the plot board using a red marker, indicating an unknown vessel. At 6:03 a.m. that morning, the Nord identified the ship as a U.S. supply ship, though the marker was only changed from the red 'unknown ship' to a green 'neutral ship' at 9 a.m., when CCC was ordered to do so after naval command inquired as to the marker's status. Also around 9 a.m. an Israeli jet reported that a ship north of Arish had opened fire on him after he tried to identify the vessel, resulting in naval command dispatching two destroyers to investigate. These destroyers returned to previous positions at 9:40 a.m. after doubts emerged during debriefing over the pilot's claim of receiving fire. When the Nord landed and its naval observer was debriefed, the ship was further identified as the USS Liberty based on its "GTR-5" markings.[24] Many Liberty crewmen gave testimony that one of the aircraft flew so close to Liberty that its propellers rattled the deck plating of the ship, and the pilots waved to the crew of Liberty, and the crewmen waved back.[25] The ship was removed from CCC's plot board at 11 am, due to its positional information being stale.[26]
At 11:24 a.m., the Central Coastal Command received the first of several reports that Arish on the Sinai coast was being shelled from the sea, and half an hour later sent three torpedo boats to investigate. This was near the Liberty's position. Investigative journalist James Bamford points out that Liberty had only four .50 caliber machine guns mounted on her decks and, thus, could not have shelled the land.[27]
At 1:41 p.m., the torpedo boats detected a target "20 miles northwest of El Arish and 14 miles off the coast of Bardawil"[1] on their radar.[28] The Combat Information Center officer on the torpedo boat Division flagship, "Ensign Yifrach Aharon, reported that the target had been detected at a range of 22 miles, that her speed had been tracked for a few minutes, after which he had determined that the target was moving westward at a speed of 30 knots. These data were forwarded to the Fleet Operations Control Center."[28]
The speed of the target was significant because it indicated that the target was a combat vessel.[28] "The Chief of Naval Operations asked the torpedo boat Division to double-check their calculations."[28] "A few minutes later, the Division Commander reported that the target, now 17 miles from him, was moving at a speed of 28 knots" on a different heading.[29] "Since the Division was cruising at the same speed as the target, and therefore could not intercept it the Division commander requested that IAF planes be dispatched."[28] Bamford, however, points out that the Liberty's top speed was far, far below 28 knots. His sources say that at the time of the attack the Liberty was following its signal-intercept mission course along the northern Sinai coast, at about 5 knots speed.[27]
At 1:48 p.m., the Chief of Naval Operations requested dispatch of IAF fighter aircraft to the ship's location.[30] Two Mirage III type aircraft arrived at the ship at about 2:00 p.m.[28] The formation leader, Captain Iftach Spector, reported the vessel appeared like some type of non-Israeli warship.[28] Authorization to attack was issued by the chief air controller, Lieutenant Colonel Shmuel Kislev, immediately after a recorded exchange between a command headquarters weapons systems officer, one of the air controllers, and the chief air controller questioning a possible American presence.[31]
[edit] Air and sea attacksBeginning about 2 p.m., the Liberty was attacked by several IAF aircraft, initially by two Mirage IIIs, employing cannon, rockets and bombs,[32] followed by two Dassault Mysteres carrying napalm. One napalm bomb hit the ship.[33] The leader of the Mirage formation identified the ship as a destroyer, mistaking the off-center fed parabolic antenna on its forecastle for a gun. The fact that the ship had Latin markings led IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin to fear that the ship was Soviet; he ordered the planes and a three torpedo boat squadron that had been ordered into the area to withhold fire pending positive identification of the ship, and sent in two helicopters to search for survivors. These radio communications were recorded by Israel. The order also was recorded in the ship's log, although the commander of the torpedo boat squadron stated that he had not received it.[34]
When the commander of torpedo boats could see the Liberty, he immediately realized the ship was not a destroyer or any type of warship capable of 30 knots (56 km/h) speed. He immediately ordered the attack stopped pending better identification "although this was difficult due to the billowing clouds of smoke that enveloped the vessel; only her bow, part of her bridge and the tip of her mast could be discerned." The commander attempted to signal the ship but got a reply asking him to identify himself. He also observed gun fire from the ship. He consulted an Israeli identification guide to Arab fleets and concluded the ship was the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir. Another of his boat captains reached the same conclusion.[35] Based on that identification, the gun fire and what he considered an evasive response to his signal, the commander ordered the attack to proceed.(ibid. p. 17)
Liberty turns to evade Israeli torpedo boats.The Liberty's captain, Commander McGonagle, was wounded during the air attack, but he remained in command on the ship's bridge. He testified, at the Naval Court of Inquiry (NCOI), that "about midway during the [air] attack Ensign Lucas was noted on the bridge and at that time he became my assistant and assisted me in every way possible." Ensign Lucas testified at the NCOI that he left Liberty's bridge during the air attack and returned during the torpedo boat attack, before the torpedo hit. After returning to the bridge, he assisted Captain McGonagle and wrote entries in the Quartermaster's notebook.[19]
Captain McGonagle said that Liberty maintained her westward heading throughout the air and sea attack. His NCOI testimony was that during "the latter moments of the air attack, it was noted that three high speed boats were approaching the ship from the northeast on a relative bearing of approximately 135 [degrees] at a distance of about 15 [nautical] miles. The ship at the time was still on [westward] course 283 [degrees] true, speed unknown, but believed to be in excess of five knots." Ensign Lucas testified that Liberty was "attempting to get away from the area as fast as possible, on an approximate course of 000" (north) during the air and sea attack.[19]
McGonagle further testified that he "believed that the time of initial sighting of the torpedo boats ... was about 1420" (2:20 PM local time), and that the "boats appeared to be in a wedge type formation with the center boat the lead point of the wedge. Estimated speed of the boats was about 27 to 30 knots (56 km/h)," and that it "appeared that they were approaching the ship in a torpedo launch attitude."[19]
McGonagle said that he then ordered a sailor to proceed to machine gun Mount 51 and open fire. He testified: "When the boats reached an approximate range of 2,000 yards, the center boat of the formation was signaling to us. Also, at this range, it appeared that they were flying an Israeli flag." It was not possible to "read the signals from the center torpedo boat because of the intermittent blocking of view by smoke and flames." McGonagle said that he "realized that there was a possibility of the aircraft having been Israeli and the attack had been conducted in error." At this point, he ordered the man in Mount 51 to cease fire, but the sailor fired a short burst before he was able to understand. At this same time, machine gun Mount 53 began firing at the center boat, and Captain McGonagle observed that its fire was "extremely effective and blanketed the area and the center torpedo boat." Machine gun mount 53 was located on the starboard amidships side, behind the pilot house. McGonagle could not see or "get to mount 53 from the starboard wing of the bridge." So, he "sent Mr. Lucas around the port side of the bridge, around to the skylights, to see if he could tell [Seaman] Quintero, whom [he] believed to be the gunner on Machine gun 53, to hold fire." Lucas "reported back in a few minutes in effect that he saw no one at mount 53." McGonagle expressed that he felt "sure that [the torpedo boat captains] felt that they were under fire from USS Liberty".[19]
Ensign Lucas testified that after he returned to the bridge a torpedo hit Liberty. He said that after the torpedo hit, there was "some firing from the patrol boats", and that the "man in charge of mount 53 [the starboard amidships machine gun], Seaman Quintero, hollered to me, 'should I fire back?', and I gave him an affirmative on that. This was before he [Quintero] and the other men in mount 53 had been chased away by the fire and flames from the motor whaleboat." During a lull in firing from the torpedo boats, Lucas stated that "it sounded as if [mount 53] was firing at the patrol craft." Captain McGonagle sent him to tell the men to stop firing, but he found nobody manning the gun. Lucas speculated that the firing may have been ammunition "cooking off and firing", due to the nearby whaleboat fire. Additionally, at some point during the torpedo boat attack, Lucas recalled that a Seaman either volunteered or was ordered to go to the forward starboard machine gun mount and fired one shot before Captain McGonagle ordered him to cease fire. At about this same time, "the patrol craft were bearing approximately 160 relative", and one of them was trying to signal via blinking light. Lucas stated that "smoke from the motor whaleboat almost completely obscured the patrol craft", making it impossible to read the signal.[19]
The Israeli torpedo boats attacked with cannon fire and launched five torpedoes at Liberty.[36] One hit Liberty on the starboard side forward of the superstructure, creating a 40 ft (12 m) wide hole in what had been a former cargo hold converted to the ship's research spaces and killing 25 servicemen.[37] It has been said that the torpedo hit a major hull frame that absorbed much of the energy; crew members reported that if the torpedo had missed the frame the Liberty would have split in two. Russian linguist and Marine Staff Sergeant Bryce Lockwood later commented: "I would never deny that it was God that kept the Liberty afloat!".[6]
Most of the U.S. deaths and injuries in the incident were caused by the torpedo blast. According to some witnesses, the torpedo boats then approached Liberty and strafed crewmen (including damage control parties and sailors preparing life rafts for launch) on deck. (See disputed details below.)
[edit] Aftermath of the attack
The 6th Fleet flagship, USS Little Rock standing by the Liberty.At about 4 pm, two hours after the attack began, Israel informed the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv about the incident and later provided a helicopter to fly a U.S. naval attaché to the ship.[17](pp. 32,34) When the ship was confirmed to be American, the torpedo boats returned at about 4:40 pm to offer help;[38] it was refused by the American ship.
Though Liberty was severely damaged, with a 39 ft (12 m) wide by 24 ft (7.3 m) high hole and a twisted keel, her crew kept her afloat, and she was able to leave the area under her own power. She was escorted to Malta by units of the U.S. 6th Fleet and was there given interim repairs. After these were completed in July 1967, Liberty returned to the U.S.. She was decommissioned in June 1968 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register. Liberty was transferred to United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in December 1970 and sold for scrap in 1973.
From the start, the response to Israeli claims of mistaken identity ranged between frank disbelief and unquestioning acceptance within the administration in Washington. A communication to the Israeli Ambassador on June 10, by Secretary Rusk stated, among other things: “At the time of the attack, the USS Liberty was flying the American flag and its identification was clearly indicated in large white letters and numerals on its hull. … Experience demonstrates that both the flag and the identification number of the vessel were readily visible from the air…. Accordingly, there is every reason to believe that the USS Liberty was identified, or at least her nationality determined, by Israeli aircraft approximately one hour before the attack. … The subsequent attack by the torpedo boats, substantially after the vessel was or should have been identified by Israeli military forces, manifests the same reckless disregard for human life.”[39]
National Cryptologic Memorial. Many names are from 8 Jun 1967George Lenczowski notes: “It was significant that, in contrast to his secretary of state, President Johnson fully accepted the Israeli version of the tragic incident.” He notes that Johnson himself only included one small paragraph about the Liberty in his autobiography,[40] in which he accepted the Israeli explanation of “error”, but also minimized the whole affair and distorted the actual number of dead and wounded, by lowering them from 34 to 10 and 171 to 100, respectively. Lenczowski further states: “It seems Johnson was more interested in avoiding a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union, …than in restraining Israel.”[41]
McGonagle received the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. medal, for his actions.[42][43] The Medal of Honor is generally presented by the President of the United States in the White House,[43][44] but this time it was awarded at the Washington Navy Yard by the Secretary of the Navy in an unpublicized ceremony, breaking with established tradition.[43]
Other Liberty sailors received decorations for their actions during and after the attack, but most of the award citations omitted mention of Israel as the perpetrator. In 2009, however, a Silver Star awarded to crewmember Terry Halbardier, who braved machine-gun and cannon fire to repair a damaged antenna that restored the ship's communications, in the award citation named Israel as the attacker.[45]
USS Liberty incident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
