Loss of Liberty: The Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty

THE USS Liberty was a United States Navy Technical Research and Intelligence ship that was attacked by numerous Israeli Air Force jet aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats on June 8, 1967, which was during the Israeli “Six-Day War.” The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (officers, seamen, Marines, and one civilian) and wounded 170 crew members as the Israeli forces did their best to sink the ship.

At the time, the ship was in protected international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, which was about 26 miles northwest of the Egyptian city, El Arish.

Both the Israeli and the U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded that the attack was a “mistake” due to Israeli “confusion about the identity” of the ship, despite the fact that the Liberty was the one and only ship of its kind in the world at the time.

U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials continue to dispute the “official findings,” saying the Israeli attack on the Liberty was not a mistake. It remains the only maritime incident in U.S. history in which U.S. military forces were killed and which was never investigated by the U.S. Congress.

Over the years, there have been numerous documentaries produced on this incident, but Loss of Liberty was one of the very first to be made, and because of that has interviews with more of the actual survivors of the Israeli attack than any other documentary to date.

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Source: West Virginia radio man