Uss Liberty

[Robert Ryan]

Yesterday 41 years ago on June 8, 1967 the USS LIBERTY was attacked by Isralei Planes and gun boats. A tradgey still unanswered and still covered up.

[82Rigger]

I, for one, would like to know why the U.S. forces responding to LIBERTY's defense were RECALLED before they got there, and she was left on her own.

[covan]

Lots of unanswered questions about this entire incident. Robert, thanks for remembering.

[82Rigger]

Some of the crewmembers claim that after the Liberty had been torpedoed, Israeli boats circled the ship firing machine guns at descended (unmanned) life rafts and sailors on board the ship. Israelis claim they recognized the ship as American immediately after it was hit and ceased fire. Two survivors Lloyd Painter and Glenn Oliphant claim to have seen the life rafts being fired upon, but the ship's captain and others on deck made no mention of this. Oliphant said the life rafts were about 150 yards behind the ship, Painter said the life raft he saw getting shot “had been cut loose and was floating in the water”. Captain Ward Boston, senior counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, supports Painter’s claim that his testimony about the life rafts being shot at was removed from the court’s report.


At least two rescue attempts were launched from U.S. aircraft carriers nearby but were recalled, according to David Lewis, officer of the deck (OOD) during the attack. Lewis wrote and made an audio recording about a meeting 6th Fleet Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis requested in his cabins: "He told me that since I was the senior Liberty survivor on board he wanted to tell me in confidence what had actually transpired. He told me that upon receipt of our SOS, aircraft were launched to come to our assistance and then Washington was notified. He said that the Secretary of Defense (Robert McNamara) had ordered that the aircraft be returned to the carrier which was done. RADM Geis then said that he speculated that Washington may have suspected that the aircraft carried nuclear weapons so he put together another flight of conventional aircraft that had no capability of carrying nuclear weapons. These he launched to assist us and again notified Washington of his actions. Again McNamara ordered the aircraft recalled. He requested confirmation of the order being unable to believe that Washington would let us sink.This time President Johnson ordered the recall with the comment that he did not care if every man drowned and the ship sank, but that he would not embarrass his allies."

[Robert Ryan]

I found out about the attack on this ship by a sailor who was on the LIBERTY. He was in our PTSD group back in October 1987 when I went in for re-hab and working on VIetnam issues I never knew of this attack until then. The cover up continues and the loss of the sailors on the ship goes unaccounted for by the Isralei government to this day. The attackers indeed knew the ship was an American Ship.