USS Liberty

roundhead said:
The most telling fact here, and it was barely mentioned, is that the Israeli boats were machine gunning Liberty lifeboats at a range of 50-75 yards.
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It's hardly a "fact." Not even the survivors of the Liberty agree that this happened. And it was forty-one years ago.
 
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men's heroism – not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member's graves were inscribed, 'died in the Eastern Mediterranean..' as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
 
Someone tell me that bringing up anti-Israel baloney 41 years after the fact isn't rooted FIRMLY in anti-semitism and in my opinion isn't far removed from holocaust denial. The OP is on ignore...
 
roundhead said:
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men's heroism – not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member's graves were inscribed, 'died in the Eastern Mediterranean..' as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
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Since Israel never denied that it had attacked the ship, and in fact, paid compensations, this bears no light on the nature of the incident. At best this is a complaint about the way the US navy dealt with its casualties and survivors. Was that the purpose of this post?
 
roundhead said:
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men's heroism – not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member's graves were inscribed, 'died in the Eastern Mediterranean..' as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
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Considering the fact that the it was an intelligence ship on a secret intelligence mission, how strange is it that the crew members' graves don't give more detail? Are the details of intelligence missions usually spelled out on gravestones?

Also, considering the fact that Israel admitted to attacking the Liberty and paid millions of dollars in damages, why are the gravestones evidence of anything? There can't passibly have been a cover-up as to their cause of death because Israel admitted it.
 
Doctor Evil said:
Was that the purpose of this post?
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To convince the naive and weak brained that Israel is evil because they are run by a zionist government so it is justified to hate, persecute and I personally wouldn't be surprised if this Aryan ******* said kill jews.
 
The 10 American reports and the 4 Israeli reports all commissioned by the government all say it was a friendly fire accident.

The only independent investigation(blue-ribbon) by the men I've listed say all of those reports are wrong.
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So why is the one that opposes the others the right one?
 
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This feature article, from 2007 in the Chicago Tribune very ably sums up the event.

Read it carefully and note the corraborating witnesses who state Israel was well aware of what and whom they were attacking.
And contrary to a previous posters assertions, she was 13 miles out at sea when the attack began, in international waters.




New revelations in attack on American spy ship
Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident

By John Crewdson | Tribune senior correspondent
October 2, 2007
Edited by Cuddles: 
Breach of rule 4 removed.
 
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Your 'Blue Ribbon Panel' was self-selected, which invalidates any objectivity they might have had. In addition, Adm. Moorer has always been anti-Isreali, and quite frankly a bit of a rabid anti-communist.

Furthermore, the man is a political nutbar. He 'predicted' a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal would take place immediately after we turned the canal over to the government of Panama, and bitterly criticized Bill Clinton for upholding a treaty! Moorer has also fallen for TWA800 conspiracy theories and a load of other nonsense. His claims about the Liberty are nothing more than opinion, not backed with evidence.

However, under his watch as CNO, Moorer approved one of the US Court Navy findings! Such hypocrisy! He would have had to been part of the coverup he so codemned! Not much a patriot if he won't stick his neck out when his political career was on the line!
 
roundhead said:
How the Israeli attack unfolded Graphic "They tried to lie their way out of it!" Lockwood shouts. "I don't believe that for a minute! You just don't shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!"

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Yeah, right. Tell that to the HMS Shefflield, or Iran Flight 655.
 
roundhead said:
Do you know how large the letters are on the bow of an American ship.

The name can be seen with the naked eye easily several hundred yards away. I have identified many ships entering port at Norfolk in this way. And i err on the side of caution.

Anybody who thinks the boats directly standing by the ship, could not be identified by merely reading the name of the ship , is insane.
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How many of those boats were you engaged in a fire fight with?
 
kookbreaker said:
Yeah, right. Tell that to the HMS Shefflield, or Iran Flight 655.
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Little different situation dont you think regarding the Sheffield. Weather, etc.

These Torpedo boats machine gunned guys at CLOSE range.

People bring up Moorer's background, but that hardly affect the corraborated testimony of a number of military people(who didnt know each other)who heard the exact same reports and came to the exact same conclusions.

Any defender of Israel in this incident is beyond help. As i said, creafully read the article. Do you feel she wasnt flying the flag and all the corraborated reports of pilots asking for confirmation to attack arent ably supported is loony, and anti American .
 
Cpt.Fantastic said:
You're all obviously oblivious as to your ignorance on this matter, I'm glad the bait was seized upon. Don't be offended my friends, alls well.
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I'm not your friend, and if you're going to continue to be this patronising the situation is unlikely to change.

Cpt.Fantastic said:
Logic would tell you that wouldn't it? Sadly a lot of the time logic doesn't stand testament to the real world. The 3 Israeli patrol boats had two torpedoes each all of which they fired. Due to the skill of the Capitan/Israeli error he avoided 5 of these torpedoes though one managed to hit doing severe damage to the hull, the ship took on a lot of water but the damage control teams managed to do some DIY.

Additionally the Air Attack lasted for around 25minutes according to the report I have posted below. It involved 12 planes and an estimated 25 sorties. The entire time of which the American flag was raised, this is not in question. The sky was blue and we have reputable people confirmed by the NSA tapes that the Isrealies acknowledged that it was an American ship.

Also to the people claiming that it was mis-identified, have you actually read the sworn testament of the sailors of that ship? One of the most highly decorated crews of one of the most highly decorated ships of the United States Navy. It does not account for the theories put forth by the governments of the United States and of Israel. Nor has there ever been a congressional investigation into the incident despite much objection.
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Taking these in reverse order:

Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to dispute the identification of the ship based on the testimony of the crew? They are the last people in a position to understand what the pilots did and did not see. And what possible relevance do their decorations have to the argument? Should the pilots have been dazzled by the medal ribbons? Misidentification is common in warfare, even in apparently ideal conditions. When your life depends on being certain that the target isn't hostile if you don't attack, it's easy to err on the side of survival.

Your suggestion that the air attack involved 12 planes and 25 sorties indicates either a lack of understanding of military jargon or a willingness to believe the impossible. By "sorties", do you really mean complete missions from takeoff to landing, or do you mean strafing runs? If the former, your position is absurd. If the latter, then it's completely inconsistent with the idea of a sneak attack to sink the ship without anyone knowing; 25 strafing runs without a kill makes is quite clear that the planes weren't equipped for anti-shipping operations. A squadron of Beaufighters in 1944 would have been ashamed of a result like that; they wouldn't have needed more than a single pass each with cannon and rockets to sink a ship the size and construction of the Liberty.

As for the torpedo boats, if the idea was to sink the Liberty, why did they wait till after the air attack when there was no possibility of surprise? The only chance the Liberty could have had was to avoid the torpedoes, and surprise would have made that very much harder. And why do you persist in refusing to admit that the PT boats only attacked after the Liberty had fired on them, as the crew of the Liberty admit?

Finally, you've carefully sidestepped the point that two separate, unco-ordinated attacks are far less likely to succeed than a single simultaneous attack from sea and air. As usual with conspiracy theorists, you require your conspirators to be simultaneously fiendishly clever and laughably incompetent.

Dave
 
roundhead said:
Little different situation dont you think regarding the Sheffield. Weather, etc.

These Torpedo boats machine gunned guys at CLOSE range.
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The PT boats believed the Liberty was American when they closed to offer assistance. When the Liberty started shooting at them, who knows what they thought? They fired back.

Dave
 
roundhead said:
Little different situation dont you think regarding the Sheffield. Weather, etc.
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Different situation? Sure! The pliots were flying much slower Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers, rather than high speed jet planes, and they were much, much, much more familiar with the Sheffield than the Isreali pilots were with the Liberty.

Weather? It was good enough to fly biplanes in. Good enough to find targets.

As for Iran Air 665, how much better weather do you want?

These Torpedo boats machine gunned guys at CLOSE range.
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No. They did not. The torpedo boats didn't get closer than 2000 yards. They launched torpedoes when fired upon (probably by accident).

Read the Liberty's logs:

http://www.libertyincident.com/docs/Logs1-24.pdf


People bring up Moorer's background, but that hardly affect the corraborated testimony of a number of military people(who didnt know each other)who heard the exact same reports and came to the exact same conclusions.
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And even more realise that this was a tragic accident. It is funny how the nutjobs seem to rise to the top of the cream in the 'they dun it on purpose' crowd, eh?

Any defender of Israel in this incident is beyond help. As i said, creafully read the article. Do you feel she wasnt flying the flag and all the corraborated reports of pilots asking for confirmation to attack arent ably supported is loony, and anti American .
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She was flying the flag. Just as the HMS Shefflield was flying the Union Jack.

I don't bother with biased, assumptive articles, I work with source material when possible. Liberty has tons of source material:

http://www.libertyincident.com/documents.html
 
Dave Rogers said:
The PT boats believed the Liberty was American when they closed to offer assistance. When the Liberty started shooting at them, who knows what they thought? They fired back.

Dave
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The Torpedo boats, by all the logs and evidence, never got closer than 2000 yards. They attempted to signal, but smoke obscured the Liberty signal. The Liberty fired at the Torpedo boats and they in turn launched torpedoes.

I don't consider 2000 yards to be close range in small boat tactics.
 
Dave Rogers said:
The PT boats believed the Liberty was American when they closed to offer assistance. When the Liberty started shooting at them, who knows what they thought? They fired back.

Dave
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The fired a friggin torpedo, in fact a few of them. Remember the ship had alreday been attacked an napalmed when the PT boats showed up. The hull number on the bow would be visible from quite a ways off, certainly from machine gun range. The "5" on the bow is clearly as big as the anchor.

Its an ancillary point. There is irrefutable proof that the planes knew exactly who she was, and in fact asked for direction after verifing that fcat
 
roundhead said:
The fired a friggin torpedo, in fact a few of them. Remember the ship had alreday been attacked an napalmed when the PT boats showed up. The hull number on the bow would be visible from quite a ways off, certainly from machine gun range. The "5" on the bow is clearly as big as the anchor.
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And the Egyptians would never think to paint a number 5 on the bow of one of their ships, because they don't use Arabic numbers. Hang on...

But who cares? The PT boats were fighting a war. When someone shoots at you, and you're not certain they're on your side, you fire back until they stop, with whatever you've got.

roundhead said:
Its an ancillary point. There is irrefutable proof that the planes knew exactly who she was, and in fact asked for direction after verifing that fcat
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So the guys back at control screwed up. That's pretty much the story Israel admitted to and paid compensation for, isn't it?

Dave
 
roundhead said:
Its an ancillary point. There is irrefutable proof that the planes knew exactly who she was, and in fact asked for direction after verifing that fcat
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Wrong. The helicoptor pilots may have done that, but not the pilots of the planes.

Present this 'irrefutable proof', if you don't mind.
 
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