Here is a link to the excellent documentary series on the attack on the USS Liberty and the subsequent cover up.
https://www.sacrificingliberty.com
You can get a free 7-day trial and watch the movie.
Here are my notes from Sunday’s Cultural Update.
This is the cliff notes of cliff notes. There is a lot more to the story than I’m presenting here. Go watch the documentary.
Everyone knows we recently celebrated the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6. Yesterday was another significant event, but I wonder if anyone knows what it is? Ever hear of the attack on the USS Liberty?
On June 8, 1967, the Liberty was sailing in the Mediterranean sea about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast. At 2 PM, without warning, she is buzzed by three unmarked jets at high speed and low altitude. The Liberty is a signals intelligence ship with only four 50 cal machine guns with no shrapnel shields. She is flying an 8’ x 5’ American flag and has 10’ high letters identifying the ship. There is a crew of 297 souls on board.
After the first pass, the jets come back around and begin launching rockets, firing onboard cannons and dropping napalm. Once they expend their ordinance, additional squadrons of planes came in and did the same.
Due to broadband signals jamming, including the maritime distress channel, the ship was unable to call for help to the nearby US sixth fleet. At one point, a distress call did get out and US fighter jets were launched to come to her aid. Those jets never made it, however, being turned around at the order of the white house, specifically LBJ and Robert McNamara.
Thirty five minutes into the attack from the air, torpedo boats began their assault. Five torpedoes were launched, one of which struck the side of the ship in the intel hold, instantly killing 25 of the men who worked there. The ship began to take on water, its engines were dead and it had no rudder. The men started launching life boats. However, the attacking surface vessels machine gunned the life boats rendering them useless and injuring many.
As helicopters approached for the final assault, Captain William L. McGonagle called out, “Stand by to repel boarders! They’ve come to finish us off.”
The attack lasted 67 minutes and was the bloodiest attack on a US ship since WWII. 34 sailors were killed and 173 were wounded.
Transcripts later showed that the attacking forces knew they were attacking a US ship and one of the pilots shouted, “Great! Wonderful! She’s burning! She’s burning!”
The ship was supposed to sink with all souls lost. However, in what must be a divine miracle, she didn’t. The crew rallied to get the engines up and running, and even though badly damaged could sail.
Incredibly, instead of being sent to the nearest port of Crete—a day’s sail–to care for the dead and wounded, they were instead directed to steam to Malta, a 7 day journey through the deepest waters of the Mediterranean sea, while listing at 15 degrees. Clearly, our government wanted her to sink as well.
Through yet another miracle, the ship made it to Malta. The survivors were immediately ushered off the ship and debriefed. When asked if they knew who attacked them, the sailors named the country. They were each threatened with court marshal and certain jail time if they ever told anyone about the attack, even their family.
After they returned home, a concerted effort was made to scuttle any story in the media about the attack and who was behind it.
Then president Johnson didn’t want to raise a fuss with the attacking nation’s domestic supporters, so he arranged for a deal to be struck. The survivors were paid off and instructed to never speak of the attack again. The attacking country said it was an accident and never spoke of it again.
A congressional committee looked into the attack, but the investigation lasted only 8 days, included but 14 crewmen and produced a report of 158 pages. Years later, the crew’s lawyer broke his silence and said the court barred them from traveling to the attacking nation to interview the pilots, obtain official transcripts or review logs.
To this day, no president has ever even acknowledged the attack or the surviving crew. Only two congressmen have ever even talked about it; Cynthia McKinney from Georgia and James Traficant from Ohio. It’s instructive to look into what happened to them.
There is an excellent documentary out called Sacrificing Liberty if you’d like to learn more. Unfortunately, it’s behind a partial paywall; you can sign up for a trial and watch it from what I can tell. I caught it when it was released on YouTube and it will break your heart. It’s worth the watch.
Oh, any guesses on which nation deliberately and without provocation attacked one of our unarmed signals intelligence ships with the intention to sink it and kill everyone on board?
Our “greatest ally in the middle east,” the geopolitical nation-state known as Israel.
Why would they do this? Israel had just started a war with Egypt and wanted desperately to get the US involved to fight it for them. The only thing that saved us from getting embroiled into a larger war in the Middle East was that LBJ was preoccupied with Vietnam and didn’t want a second war right then.
So now you know a little bit about this story; go dig some more.