On June 8, 1967 while patrolling in international waters 2 in the Eastern Mediter-
ranean Sea, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was savagely attacked without warning or justifica-
tion by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. 3
Of a crew of 294 officers and men 4 (including three civilians) 5 , the ship suffered
thirty four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy three (173) wounded in action. 6
The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar state of the art signals i ntelligence
(SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged that it never sailed on an operational mission
again and was sold in 1970 for $101,666.66 as scrap 7 .
Israel acknowledged the following facts without qualification:
a. USS Liberty was an American ship, hence a neutral vis-à-vis the June
1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. 8
b. USS Liberty remained in international waters at all times on June 8, 1967 9 .
c. The attacking Israeli forces never made a positive identification of the na-
tionality of USS Liberty before unleashing deadly force in their attack on
the ship. 10
At approximately 0600 hours (all times local) on the morning of June 8, 1967 an Is-
raeli maritime reconnaissance aircraft observer reported seeing “a US Navy cargo type
ship,” just outside the coverage of the Israeli coastal radar defense net, bearing the hull
markings “GTR-5”. 11 This report, made to Israeli naval HQ, was also forwarded immedi-
ately to the Israeli navy intelligence directorate. 12
Throughout the remainder of the day prior to the attack, Israeli reconnaissance air-
craft regularly flew out to USS Liberty’s position and orbited the ship before returning to
their bases in Israel. A total of no fewer than eight (8) such flights were made. 13
At approximately 1050 hours, the naval observer from the early morning reconnais-
sance flight arrived at Israeli air force HQ and sat down with the air-naval liaison officer
there. The two officers consulted Janes’ Fighting Ships and learned that the ship re-
ported earlier in the day was USS Liberty, a United States Navy technical research
ship. 14
From 0900 ho urs on June 8, 1967, until the time of the attack five hours later, USS
Liberty maintained a speed of approximately five knots and a generally westerly-
northwesterly course. 15
At 1400 hours, while approximately 17 miles off the Gaza coast, USS Liberty’s crew
observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high speed. A few
moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high speed aircraft passing over the sur-
face returns on the same heading. 16
Within a few short moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft
launched a rocket attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, at-
tacking USS Liberty with rockets and their internal cannons. After the first flight of fighter
aircraft had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft con-
tinued to prosecute the attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm. 17
During the air attack, USS Liberty’s crew had difficulty contacting Sixth Fleet to re-
quest assistance due to intense communications jamming 18
The initial targets on the ship were the command bridge, communications antennas,
and the four .50 caliber machine guns, placed on the ship to repel boarders. 19
After the Israeli fighter aircraft completed their attacks, three Israeli torpedo boats
arrived and began a surface attack about 35 minutes after the start of the air attack. The
torpedo boats launched a total of five torpedoes, one of which struck the side of USS
Liberty, opposite the ship’s research spaces. 20 Twenty-six Americans, in addition to the
eight who had been killed in the earlier air attacks, were killed as a result of this e xplo-
sion.
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 crewmem-
bers who ventured above decks.
https://usslibertyveterans.org