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] Events leading to the attack

During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of
America maintained a neutral country status. Shortly before the war began, the USS
Liberty was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean to perform an electronic
intelligence collection mission. 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. Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, the CPA
change messages were not received until after the attack.
At the start of the war on June 5, Israeli sources said that General Yitzhak Rabin (then
IDF Chief of Staff) informed Commander Ernest Carl Castle, the American Naval
Attach in Tel Aviv, that Israel would defend its coast with every means at its disposal,
including sinking unidentified ships. He asked the U.S. to keep its ships away from the
shore or at least inform Israel of their exact position.[4][5] 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]."[6]
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.[citation needed]
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.[7] At the time
the statement was made, this was the case, since the Liberty was just entering the

Mediterranean Sea[8] 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). [1](pages 5 and Exhibit N, page 58).
According to the Naval Court of Inquiry[9](p. 23 ff, p. 111 ff) and National Security
Agency official history[10], 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.[9](p. 111 ff)
During 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.[11][12] At least some of those flybys were from a close range.[13]. 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 El-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.[14] 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.[15]. The ship
was removed from CCC's plot board at 11 am, due to its positional information being
stale.[16]
At 11:24 a.m., the Central Coastal Command received the first of several reports that El
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.
The ship, at this time, was slowly heading westward, in international waters, along the
northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. By 2 p.m, this course took the Liberty
approximately 45 km (28 mi) from its last sighting by IAF pilots.[citation needed]
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" on their radar.[17] 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."[17]
The speed of the target was significant because it indicated that the target was a combat
vessel.[17] "The Chief of Naval Operations asked the [torpedo boat] Division to doublecheck their calculations."[17] "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.[18] "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."[17]
At 1:48 p.m., the Chief of Naval Operations requested dispatch of IAF fighter aircraft to
the ship's location.[19] Two Mirage III type aircraft arrived at the ship at about 2:00 p.m.
[17] The formation leader, Captain Spector, reported the vessel appeared like some type
of non-Israeli warship.[17] 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.[20]

[edit] The air and sea attacks

Beginning about 2 p.m., the Liberty was attacked by several IAF aircraft, initially by two
Mirage IIIs, employing cannon, rockets and bombs,[21] followed by two Dassault
Mysteres carrying napalm. One napalm bomb hit the ship.[22] 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.[dubious discuss] The fact that the ship had Western
markings led IDF Chief of Staff Rabin to fear that the ship was Soviet, he ordered the
planes and a three torpedo boat squadron which 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.[23]
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 which 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.[24] Based on that identification, the gun fire and what he considered an
evasive response to his signal, the commander ordered the attack to proceed.