You are authorized to use whatever force required to defend USS Liberty from further attacks.
—JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF ORDER
At 2:24 P.M. McGonagle studied the three torpedo boats in the distance. The skipper could see that the boats traveled nearly thirty knots and in a wedge formation separated from one another by as little as one hundred and fifty yards. The center boat led the group in what McGonagle would later tell Navy investigators appeared to be a “torpedo launch attitude.” The skipper recognized that the Liberty, even at top speed of eighteen knots, was defenseless against the high-speed boats, which closed to within five miles. If he turned the ship to starboard, McGonagle would provide the boats a larger target. If he turned toward port, the skipper risked grounding the Liberty on shoals or violating Egypt’s territorial waters. The skipper had no option but to sail on the same northwesterly course farther out into the Mediterranean. He ordered the machine guns manned and a new American flag raised. One of the Liberty’s signalmen grabbed a holiday ensign—the ship’s largest—and hoisted the seven-by-thirteen-foot flag up the mast at 2:26 P.M.
Dale Larkins climbed the ladder to the bridge, where he nearly collided with the skipper. Larkins had manned the machine guns aft of the bridge at the start of the attack before the fires from the deck below chased him and the other gunners away. He had climbed down to help fight the fires before he hustled back up to the bridge. McGonagle now ordered him to man the forward guns. When he reached the forecastle, Larkins stumbled over the bloodied remains of the gunners and phone talkers. One of the bodies, located next to the phone box, had been cut in half. The sailor’s intestines draped over the forecastle and blood ran down the bulkhead to the deck below. Larkins reached the starboard guntub steps later and found one of the gunners slumped over with a basketball-sized hole in his back. The other gunner lay next to him in the tub, barely alive with a massive head wound and chest injuries. Larkins could hear the man’s labored breathing.
Up on the bridge, McGonagle watched the sixty-two-ton torpedo boats slice through the waves toward the Liberty. When the boats closed to within two thousand yards, the skipper spotted a blue and white flag with a Star of David in the center. The attackers had not been Egyptian, but Israeli. The boats appeared to signal the spy ship, but the intermittent smoke from the Liberty’s fires blocked McGonagle’s view. He could not read the signals nor could he respond to them. The fighters had destroyed the Liberty’s twenty-four-inch signal light, leaving only a handheld Aldis lamp approximately six inches in diameter, far too weak to penetrate the smoke. McGonagle and his signalmen—as later testimony would show—did not even try to use the smaller light. A signalman on the bridge instead raised handheld flags to communicate by semaphore. Fearing the attack might have been in error, McGonagle yelled for the gunners to hold fire.
On the forecastle, Larkins found that shrapnel had hit the machine gun and broken the chain of bullets. There were no spent shells in the guntub. The dead gunners, he realized, had never even had a chance to fire. Larkins stepped inside the guntub and removed the broken chain. He fished the single bullet from the chamber and fed a fresh chain of ammunition into the machine gun. Larkins spotted the torpedo boats zooming toward the spy ship in the distance. The boats turned and pulled back in what appeared to Larkins to be a torpedo run. He swiveled his machine gun and sighted the boats approximately a half to three-quarters of a mile off the starboard side. Larkins squeezed the trigger. A single round fired before the machine gun’s top plate blew open. He inspected it and discovered shrapnel had damaged the latch in the air attack. Larkins couldn’t close the plate. He realized the machine gun was worthless at the same time he heard McGonagle’s order to cease fire.
The starboard machine gun just aft of the bridge started to fire. The flames and smoke from the motor whaleboat fire on the deck below blocked McGonagle’s view of the machine gun. The skipper assumed one of the gunners had failed to hear the cease-fire order so he instructed Lucas to stop the gunner. The young officer darted out of the hatch and found the bridge’s port machine gun vacant. The flames from the gasoline fire below on deck had forced the gunners to abandon the post. He ran down the walkway where he had a clear view of the starboard machine gun that McGonagle believed fired on the torpedo boats. Lucas was surprised to find the guntub empty. The gun barrel rested on the edge of the tub and flames from the motor whaleboat fire danced over the lip of the mount. Lucas realized that no one had fired on the torpedo boats. The flames had sparked the ammunition.
The torpedo boats zoomed toward the Liberty in attack formation. Any hope McGonagle had to stop the assault vanished. The torpedo boats—armed with 20-mm and 40-mm cannons along with .50-caliber machine guns—opened fire on the defenseless spy ship. The skipper shouted to take cover as rounds crashed into the bridge and passed through the open starboard hatch. The men dropped to the deck as the clash of metal on metal returned. McGonagle knew that the cannon and machine gun fire was the least of the Liberty’s concerns. Israel’s French-made boats each carried up to two torpedoes that gunners had to manually aim. The cannon fire was designed to provide cover and create distractions so the boats could slip in close and unleash the torpedoes. The skipper ordered an alert passed to his crew. At 2:31 P.M. the ship’s loudspeaker crackled. “Standby for a torpedo attack.”
Nearly three hundred sailors now prepared for the unthinkable. Not since the waning days of World War II—and before many of the Liberty’s crewmembers were even born—had another nation torpedoed an American ship. For many of the Liberty’s men, the surreal circumstances of the surprise attack only magnified the shock of the skipper’s warning. The Liberty had sailed peacefully that morning along the Egyptian coast. Men had sunbathed on the forward decks, shopped for T-shirts in the ship’s store, and written letters home. That had all changed in just half an hour. Scores of sailors had either been killed or wounded. Fires burned on deck and a torpedo now zipped through the water. Throughout the 455-foot long ship, sailors readied themselves for the blast. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Men could only wait and pray.
Down in the engine room, George Golden ordered all nonessential men to grab life jackets, climb the ladders, and vacate the spaces. The chief engineer knew the ship would not survive a direct hit to the engine room. Golden and a small cadre of boilermen, machinist mates, and firemen would remain behind to operate the engineering plant. Over in the research spaces, Dennis Eikleberry tucked the bottom of his pants into his socks and buttoned up his shirt to protect as much skin as possible from flash burns. Eikleberry lay down on the deck with more than a dozen other sailors in his compartment as the room fell silent. Jeff Carpenter, in a compartment across the hall, chose not to see what was about to happen. He slipped off his glasses, inserted them in his shirt pocket, and pulled his battle helmet low over his head.
Even if he survived the blast, Ensign Scott knew, the ship would lose power. He fished his flashlight out of his desk drawer in Damage Control Central and ordered the phone talkers to brace themselves. He thought again that today was his twenty-fourth birthday. James Halman, who desperately had tried to alert the Sixth Fleet of the attack, dropped his microphone, stepped into the passageway, and lay down along with the other radiomen. If he died, Halman hoped his death would be swift. Over in the Liberty’s sick bay, Dr. Kiepfer realized that many of the injured had no way to protect themselves, so the towering doctor lay across the wounded. An injured sailor on a table in the mess deck below turned to Seaman George Wilson and told him he was scared. The sailor asked Wilson, injured and stretched out on a table beside him, to pray for them. “Praised be God,” Wilson began as sailors on nearby tables joined him. “All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!”
Up on the bridge at 2:34 P.M. McGonagle spotted a torpedo racing through the water. He would later tell Navy investigators that he watched the torpedo miss the Liberty’s stern by only twenty-five yards. Unbeknownst to the skipper, the Israelis had launched five torpedoes. The Liberty had no time to take evasive maneuvers. McGonagle could only hope that a torpedo did not hit the engine room. One minute after the near miss, an explosion rocked the ship. One of the five had hit its target. Many of the sailors later would say the blast lifted the Liberty out of the water before it settled back down. The generators shut down, power went out, and the steering failed as the Liberty became dead in the water. McGonagle peered over the starboard side and saw oil and debris flood out into the sea. Darkness settled over the Liberty as the ship started to roll.
Eikleberry never heard the blast. Stretched out on the deck of the research space he reminded himself that the ladder that led to the deck above was nearby. The compartment where he lay was below the waterline. The torpedo’s explosion bathed Eikleberry in a terrific heat. The blast lifted him off the deck and dropped him on his stomach; his gray-rimmed glasses fell to the floor. The overhead lights shattered and shards of scalding glass rained down. He felt the tiny pieces burn his back as he fumbled for his glasses in the dark. Smoke flooded the room. He slipped on his glasses and took stock of the damage. The torpedo had destroyed the bulkhead that separated the compartment from the passageway. Eikleberry could see straight into the room across the hall. Through the smoke, he saw fire and a red glow that provided the only light in the wrecked spaces. He heard debris crash down around him, but he did not see anyone else nor hear voices. Am I dead? he thought. Why is it so quiet? He then heard someone yell out. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Eikleberry crawled to his feet and took two steps over the remains of the bulkhead. The cold seawater already was up to his waist. He peered through the coordination room that once sat across the hall. The bulkhead that had separated that room from the adjoining communication room had vaporized. He stared at the torpedo hole. Water rushed inside the ship. It flowed fast, he thought, like a river. When Eikleberry reached the emergency hatch a few steps away, the water had risen to his neck. Sailors paddled around the ladder, urging one another to remain calm and patient as one by one the men scurried up. The water continued to rise. Eikleberry’s turn finally came. He locked on to the ladder and climbed. Men reached down from above, grabbed his arms, and pulled him through the hatch. He had made it out alive. A sailor handed him a life preserver out of a box as word passed to prepare to abandon ship.
Jeff Carpenter, who had been in the compartment across the hall from Eikleberry, flew across the room when the torpedo exploded. He landed on his back and wondered, like Eikleberry, if he was dead. The cold rush of seawater assured him he had survived. Daylight briefly filtered through the torpedo hole and illuminated the room before the ship rolled back to starboard and the majority of the hole dropped beneath the water. The water rose and Carpenter tried to stand up to escape but found his leg pinned beneath a desk. The water slipped over his head. He panicked and jerked his leg but still could not free it. Carpenter thought drowning might not be the worst way to die. He took a mouthful of seawater. He calmed down and realized he needed to fight. Carpenter began to twist his leg. Seconds later he freed it and popped to the surface. He heard someone yell for help as he paddled toward the emergency hatch.
When the torpedo exploded, Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Schnell saw a ball of orange flame before a flying desk knocked him unconscious. The seawater woke him up. Darkness settled over the compartment and he could smell smoke and fuel oil. Schnell grabbed hold of the steam pipes that once crisscrossed the compartment and pulled himself along the ceiling toward the ladder. Like Eikleberry, he found a crowd of sailors anxious to escape. Crews had sealed the compartment’s larger hatch when the general quarters alarm sounded, leaving only the scuttle open. To alleviate the jam, sailors needed to open the hatch. Schnell climbed out and learned that sailors had tried to open it, but had found the hatch jammed. The twenty-four-year-old former college halfback, who had played in the 1962 Junior Rose Bowl, grabbed a hammer. He pounded the latches loose and yanked the hatch open. Men flowed out of the flooded compartment. Schnell did the opposite. He turned, climbed back down, and searched for survivors.
The torpedo had reduced the research spaces to a clutter of broken radio receivers, filing cabinets, desks, and chairs that sloshed about in the seawater. The blast had toppled the bulkheads that once divided the cavernous space into rooms and offices. Electrical wires and steam pipes now sagged from the ceiling. Sparks rained down. The Mediterranean rushed through a gash that investigators would later measure at thirty-nine feet wide and twenty-four feet high. Most of the teardrop-shaped hole was below the waterline. The more the Liberty rolled toward starboard, the greater the torrent of seawater. The explosion had killed twenty-five sailors. Bodies and body parts now floated in the water along with classified papers, key cards, and intercept tapes. Voices cried out for help. Disoriented survivors struggled to navigate a safe path through the twisted debris and razor-sharp metal toward the faint light of the open hatch that served as a beacon in the dark.
Bryce Lockwood fumbled for an exit. The explosion blew the Marine’s glasses off, singed his face, and ruptured his right eardrum. Knocked to the deck, Lockwood felt the cold seawater and thought of his wife, Lois, and his three young children, two girls and a boy. He recently had updated his insurance policy and passed power of attorney to his wife. Lockwood felt relief that his family would be all right if he didn’t survive. The seawater covered his legs as he struggled to his feet. The emergency lights had failed, but he could see the hatch thanks to the light that filtered through the torpedo hole. Lockwood stumbled across a sailor trapped under a collapsed bulkhead near the ladder. The water level rose as Lockwood reached down and grabbed the sailor beneath his arms. He pulled on the man to free him. Water rose and the injured sailor choked. Another sailor dove down to free the sailor’s leg and then others hoisted him through the hatch.
Lockwood spotted another injured sailor who floated toward the torpedo hole. He latched on to the man and turned back toward the ladder. Shrapnel had damaged the rail and fuel oil from ruptured tanks in the bowels of the ship made the rungs slippery. Lockwood struggled to climb as he held on to the injured sailor. Halfway up the ladder he grasped the damaged portion of the rail and dropped the sailor. The man floated back toward the torpedo hole as Lockwood dove down and chased after him. He grabbed the sailor and returned to the ladder. This time Lockwood slipped on the rungs and again dropped the injured man. His frustration mounted as he chased after the injured sailor for a third time. Goddammit, he thought. I’ve gotten this far with him. I’m not going to let him get away now.
But when he reached the top of the ladder, Lockwood looked up to find the hatch now sealed. The sailors above had assumed all of the survivors had crawled out and had closed the hatch. Lockwood was trapped as the water rose. He held on to the injured man with one hand and used his other to pound on the bottom of the hatch. No one came. Lockwood pounded again and shouted. The water continued to climb. The experience would prove so traumatic that years later Lockwood would wake at night beneath his bed, banging on the box springs and pleading for someone to let him out. The hatch popped open. The oil-soaked Marine stared up at Petty Officer 3rd Class Phillip Tourney, a damage control crewman who had come down to inspect the hatches. “Goddamn squids!” Lockwood shouted, using the Marine’s derogatory term for sailors. “Run off and shut me in down here.”
The torpedo’s explosion threw Ensign Scott and the phone talkers to the deck in Damage Control Central. The safe door blew open, logbooks crashed to the floor, and the metal filing cabinet that had been bolted to the deck tumbled over. The room went dark and acrid smoke flooded the office. Scott’s ears rang and throat burned, but he was alive. The torpedo had dodged damage control, but Scott judged from the force of the blast that it had not missed by much. He assumed that it had hit the research spaces forward of the bridge. Though he determined that the torpedo had missed the engine room, Scott knew the ship still might sink. The young officer felt the Liberty roll to the port side from the force of the explosion. The rush of seawater into the flooded spaces one deck below prompted the ship seconds later to roll back to starboard.
Scott fumbled in the dark for his flashlight on the floor beside him. He aimed it at the inclinometer suspended from the ceiling. He knew that the weight of the seawater that now flooded the torpedoed spaces could capsize the ship. If the Liberty capsized, he knew it would sink and likely before many of the men would have a chance to jump overboard. He felt the ship roll. The inclinometer jumped from two degrees to three then five. Stop, Scott thought. Stop now. Stop this shit. He didn’t need the inclinometer to tell him the ship was rolling. He could feel the unsettling rise of the ship in the pit of his stomach. Through the smoke, he read the inclinometer as it climbed to six degrees, then seven, eight, and nine. “Come on, stop!” he now shouted. “Stop. Stop. Stop.” The roll began to slow as the inclinometer ticked up to ten degrees, then eleven. The roll froze at twelve degrees. The Liberty groaned.
The young officer felt the injured ship begin to roll back toward port. The inclinometer dropped to eleven degrees and then ten before it finally stabilized at nine. The bridge called down to the repair party in the engine room and ordered the men there to take over for Damage Control Central. The skipper had assumed that the torpedo had killed Scott and his men. Scott ordered the phone talker to call the bridge. “Tell the captain we’re still here,” he said. “We’re still running.” Scott climbed to his feet and stumbled into the passageway to survey the damage and determine precisely where the torpedo had hit. Sailors must dog down the watertight hatches and seal off the flooded compartments. The ship could remain afloat only if damage control teams isolated the flooded spaces. The emergency lights illuminated the passageway. Through the smoke, Scott could see that the blast had forced the steel deck beneath his feet to crumple. Around his ankles, he felt cold water.
Scott ordered one of his men to race to the forward repair locker and recruit more sailors. He instructed the sailor to tell the others to retrieve mattresses to cover the holes in the deck and slow the flooding. He kneeled down and stuck his hand through a hole. When he pulled it out, Scott found it black with fuel oil. The fuel tanks had ruptured. Moments later the bridge passed a message to standby for the possibility of another torpedo attack. Scott had determined that with its watertight hatches secured the Liberty could remain afloat. But he knew another torpedo hit, regardless of where it struck, would sink the ship. He ordered the phone talkers to relay that message to the bridge. Scott instructed his men that if another torpedo hit to immediately abandon ship. Drop your equipment, he told them, grab your life preserver, and head up the ladder and overboard. That was the only way the men might survive.
When the torpedo exploded, Chief Petty Officer Brooks had plummeted from atop a catwalk in the engine room to the metal grate below. Asbestos insulation and soot rained down. The blast even vibrated one of the lights out of its socket. The Liberty’s generators died, leaving the engine room in darkness along with the rest of the ship. Communication with the bridge also failed. Sailors grabbed battle lanterns to read gauges. George Golden would later tell Navy investigators that 20-mm cannon shells and armor-piercing machine gun rounds fired from Israeli torpedo boats tore through the sides of the engine room. A boilerman would later find one bullet dug into an interior bulkhead. Men shouted that the research space had been torpedoed. Brooks looked up to spot wet sailors who had climbed out of the torpedoed spaces pass through the engine room en route to higher decks. He did not have time to dwell on it, but had to restore power. Brooks shouted to the electricians to hustle.
Scott bypassed the engine room and charged over to the research spaces to inspect the torpedo’s damage. He arrived at the hatch to find Tourney, who had just pulled Lockwood from below. Seawater flooded the research spaces, leaving only about a foot of air near the top. The water continued to rise and the men had to seal the hatch again. The safety of the ship demanded it, but Scott felt reluctant. What if men were still alive below? If he sealed the hatch, Scott knew any survivors would die. The water continued to rise. He had precious minutes to decide. He ordered Tourney to give him his belt. Scott fished the belt through the loop on his waterproof flashlight and dunked it in the water below. Tourney grabbed a wrench and banged on the hatch. The men hoped that any survivors, disoriented in the darkness, would see the light and find the exit. Scott leaned over the hatch. He could hear the pop and fizzle of electrical equipment in the water below.
Robert Schnell had climbed out of the torpedoed spaces only to return to rescue injured sailors. In the minutes after the explosion, Schnell made several trips into the flooded compartment as the water level rose. He plucked Dave Lewis, his eardrums ruptured and eyelids seared shut with Navy paint, from the water, then returned again to help others. With each trip, the water deepened. Schnell shouted for survivors in the dark. Sparks fluttered around him as he picked his way through the tangle of desks, crypto equipment, and wires. He had seen bodies floating in the oily water and found pieces of others. Schnell found himself alone, unsure of how to get out. The water neared the top of the compartment. He heard a bang and saw a light. He pulled himself along the pipes and wires that ran along the ceiling. He emerged seconds later from the hatch, winded and covered in fuel oil. He assured Scott and Tourney that no one else was alive down there. The men sealed the hatch.
Up on the bridge, McGonagle focused on the attackers. Before the torpedo hit, the injured skipper had spotted an Israeli flag on one of the boats, but he wanted more evidence. He clutched the camera that he had used to take pictures of fighters and now trained it on the torpedo boats that zipped past the spy ship. The boats continued to fire 20-and 40-mm cannons and armor-piercing machine gun rounds at the Liberty, but no torpedoes. Bullets sliced through the bulkheads of the engine room, mess deck, and the bridge. Spent shells rolled around on deck. The skipper summoned Lucas onto the starboard wing. One of the torpedo boats passed five hundred yards off the starboard side, traveling in the opposite direction from the Liberty. At 2:40 P.M.—five minutes after the torpedo hit—the young officer spotted one of the torpedo boat’s hull numbers painted in white on the dark bow: 206–17, though what he read as 17 actually was the letter Tet, the ninth letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Lucas relayed the information to McGonagle. “Log it,” the skipper ordered. Lucas obeyed, jotting down the first entry in the ship’s log since moments before the attack began.
McGonagle shouted to the men to take cover. Rounds and shrapnel tore through the walls and the open hatch on the starboard side. Francis Brown remained at the helm to guide the ship. Brown stepped back for protection but left one hand on the wheel. He gasped and dropped to the deck. Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Cocnavitch, one of the Liberty’s radarmen, darted onto the bridge to pull Brown out of the way. Cocnavitch slipped on the blood that soaked the deck. Brown’s eyes were open in an empty stare. He had been hit in the back of the head. Cocnavitch realized that Brown had died before he hit the deck. Ensign Lucas, who had been two steps behind Brown, took the helm. Lucas found that neither the gyrocompass nor the rudder angle indicator worked. Most of the other navigational equipment also had failed and the ship now aimed north. The bridge switched control to the after-steering department, where crews could manually move the rudder.
If the Liberty were to sink, McGonagle recognized, it was not in deep enough water to guarantee that another nation might not be able to salvage the classified equipment and material. The skipper instead planned to ground the injured Liberty on nearby shoals. Despite his intention, word passed to prepare to abandon ship. Throughout the Liberty, sailors responded. Cocnavitch heard the order passed over the sound-powered phones in the radar room and filled weighted bags. In Damage Control Central, Scott torched confidential manuals and papers in his wastebasket. Petty Officer Halman burned the radio authentication codes. Dr. Kiepfer prepared to move the wounded. Lieutenant Painter climbed up a ladder toward deck to prepare the life rafts. Painter discovered someone had already dropped several overboard. Through the hatch, he watched in horror as one of the torpedo boats zoomed past and machine-gunned the rubber rafts. There was no way now to abandon ship.
The torpedo boats soon halted fire and loitered as much as eight hundred yards off the stern of the Liberty. McGonagle trained his binoculars on them. The men on the Liberty did not know whether the boats might attack again. At 3:03 P.M.—one hour and five minutes after the attack began—one of the torpedo boats zoomed toward the Liberty. A signalman grabbed the handheld Aldis lamp and repeatedly flashed “US Naval Ship.” When the torpedo boat closed to a distance of five hundred yards, it turned astern and slowed. The boat signaled in English: “Do you need help?” McGonagle ordered a signalman to flash a negative reply. The torpedo boat signaled: ”Do you want us to stand by?” The skipper again ordered the signalman to flash “No, thank you.” The torpedo boat closed to within one hundred yards of the port side and flashed “good luck” before it zoomed two minutes later toward shore.
The torpedo boats had not yet disappeared over the horizon when a helicopter approached the Liberty’s portside, hovering at five hundred yards. A second helicopter followed a minute later. The helicopters circled the battered ship as close as a hundred yards. McGonagle noted the Star of David markings and read the hull numbers as either 04 or D4 and 08 or D8. The helicopters departed and the torpedo boats returned at 3:37 P.M., approaching the Liberty’s starboard side at high speed at a range of five miles. McGonagle also spotted two fighters. The bridge alerted the crew again to stand by for a possible attack. McGonagle ordered a signalman at 3:40 P.M. to hoist the international flag symbol for “Not Under Command,” meaning the Liberty maneuvered with difficulty and advising the torpedo boats to remain clear. The fighters did not attack and the boats reversed course two minutes later, but periodically returned over the next hour and a quarter.
The threat of another attack loomed as Liberty crewmembers rescued the injured, fought the last of the fires, and treated the wounded. The torpedo had knocked out power along with much of the Liberty’s navigational systems and communications. Engineers hustled to restore power. Damage control crews, who had sealed the watertight hatches, systematically searched compartments for leaks and hammered wooden cones into shell holes to prevent flooding. At 3:19 P.M. the engine room restored power to the bridge, but the rudder still did not function. The log shows that crews steered manually from the rear of the ship as the Liberty steamed northward to clear the area at speeds varying from zero to eight knots. Four minutes after power returned to the bridge, the Liberty lost lube oil suction and again came dead in the water until engineers could restore oil pressure.
Radiomen reestablished communications at 3:55 P.M. The only functioning transmitter—one that previously had been designated for repairs—was down in the transmitter room on the main deck near the rear of the ship. The radiomen grabbed all the necessary gear and relocated below. McGonagle, now weak from blood loss, stretched out on the deck of the bridge to prevent blacking out. A sailor tied a tourniquet around his right thigh as the skipper dictated a message to the Sixth Fleet. An officer jotted it down on the back of a teletype printout of news headlines. “Request immediate assistance. Torpedo hit starboard midship. Flooding. List was stopped at nine degrees,” the message shows McGonagle dictated. “Approximate casualties four dead, three seriously wounded, 50 wounded. Radar, fathometer and gyroscope inoperable. Will require navigational aid consisting of sea and air escort.”
Two aircraft reconned the ship at 4:15 P.M. Torpedo boats returned at 4:33 P.M. The men on the bridge identified one of the hull numbers as 204. The log shows McGonagle confirmed his previous identification when he stated: “Boats are believed to be Israeli.” The Liberty slowed from eight knots to five after the crew struggled to control the ship. The skipper determined that his course could be off by as much as thirty degrees in either direction. The ship’s fathometer, which for a while only functioned on the hundred-fathom scale, revealed the Liberty entering shallow waters. The skipper feared the ship was off course and might ground. He ordered Lucas to recruit volunteers to prepare to drop the anchor. McGonagle decided to wait until nightfall when he could sight the North Star and determine the ship’s position. He then changed his mind and at 5:04 P.M. reversed the Liberty for approximately twenty minutes into deeper water.
In the mess deck below, Armstrong struggled. The executive officer, who had been hit on deck as he tried to knock gasoline drums overboard, stretched out on a table, both legs broken by shrapnel. He clutched a bottle of Terry brandy, a Spanish label picked up in a Rota liquor store. The ship’s second in command remained pale and weak though he joked with the sailors on neighboring tables to elevate morale. Officers and enlisted men alike stopped by to visit. Despite his injuries, Armstrong comforted his men. He assured them the worst was over. The Liberty and its crew would survive. The sailors who visited Armstrong felt confident that he too would survive, but the executive officer sensed otherwise. He slipped off his Naval Academy ring and handed it to his favorite steward. “Here,” he said. “Give this to my wife.” Moments later, Armstrong died.
Another helicopter approached the Liberty at 6:40 P.M. McGonagle identified it as Israeli and the quartermaster recorded the tail markings in the ship’s log as SA 321-K and the fuselage number 06. The helicopter signaled that it wanted to land. McGonagle considered the request, but realized that the various antennae and other obstructions on deck made it impossible. He only risked an accident and more injuries. He waved the helicopter off. A package dropped to the Liberty’s deck. Sailors delivered it to the skipper on the bridge at 6:52 P.M. From a bag weighted with oranges, McGonagle fished out a business card belonging to Commander Ernest Castle, the American naval attaché in Tel Aviv. McGonagle flipped over the card. On the back, Castle had scrawled a three-word message that made many of the men question how the attaché had failed to spot the dead bodies, the blood streams, and carnage littered below: “HAVE YOU CASUALTIES?”
Miles above the Liberty in the back of a Navy spy plane, Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Prostinak tuned the dials on his receiver in search of Israeli communications. The Hebrew linguist had lifted off from the Athens Air Base in an EC-121 that morning for an eight-hour mission over the Middle East to eavesdrop on the fourth day of the war. The U.S. Air Force Security Service, working in conjunction with the NSA, had established an intelligence-processing hub a year earlier at the international airport in the Athens suburbs. The main runway was all that separated the Olympic Airlines terminal from the Greek military base that housed the NSA’s secret operation. In a compound protected by a double hurricane fence and guard patrols, American analysts reviewed intercepted communications of the war and tipped off Prostinak and other airborne spies about certain call signs, unit identities, and frequencies to monitor.
Before the war, the Navy and Air Force each flew about eight spy missions a month over the Middle East, soaking up radio communications and zeroing in on radar installations. That all changed on May 23, the same day the NSA decided to reassign the Liberty from West Africa to its patrol off Egypt. Since then the Navy and Air Force had flown missions daily. The Navy’s missions even jumped to twice daily when the war began. Unlike the Liberty, which could troll for days or even weeks offshore, planes wasted time and fuel traveling to and from targets. To maximize intercept time, the NSA staggered missions. Air Force planes took off at approximately 5 A.M. and the Navy followed five hours later. The propeller-plane—dubbed the Willy Victor—served as the airborne equivalent of the Liberty, a plodding cargo plane that could fly approximately three hundred miles per hour with a range of more than four thousand miles when stripped down. Crews had installed so many antennae that its navigator remarked that it was a miracle it flew at all.
Strapped in the back with Prostinak sat an intelligence evaluator, intercept operators, and other Arabic and Hebrew linguists. A twenty-four-year-old West Virginia native, Prostinak had enlisted in the Navy right out of high school to earn money for college. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the Navy realized it lacked Spanish linguists. Prostinak, who had studied Spanish in high school, landed in language school and discovered that he picked up Spanish easily. A two-year posting in Puerto Rico helped him master it. When he reenlisted, Prostinak opted to study a third language. He thought Hebrew might prove a challenge. For more than six months, he studied under a Lebanese teacher at the NSA’s secret language school in Maryland. He learned to read and write the distinctive Hebrew alphabet, memorized vocabulary, and translated Israeli newspaper articles.
Prostinak had had ample opportunity to exercise his Hebrew skills in recent days. Normally based in the Spanish city of Rota—the same spot the Liberty had docked to take on supplies—Prostinak and other members of his squadron had received emergency departure orders within hours of the start of the war. The men each packed a bag and climbed aboard the Willy Victor for the eight-hour flight to Greece, the temporary staging area for the Middle East missions. Soon after landing late that afternoon, the men hopped a shuttle to the Hotel Seville in the Athenian suburb of Iraklion. With a kitchen and bar open twenty-four hours, the hotel proved a natural fit for the spooks and aircrews, who routinely flew odd hours. Before the men had a chance to unpack, commanders summoned them back to the base to fly the first mission. When the sun rose the second day of the war, Prostinak listened over his headphones as Israeli pilots climbed into the skies for more combat.
The mission this afternoon marked the third in as many days. Like the Liberty, the spy planes remained over the Mediterranean and outside the territorial reach of Israel and Egypt. When the plane arrived at a point off the coast of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, the pilot banked to the northeast, paralleling the Egyptian and Israeli coasts at altitudes as low as ten thousand feet. After passing Tel Aviv, the pilot hooked north, flying as far as the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The pilots turned south and repeated the track until fuel ran low. The workstations Prostinak and other linguists used—shielded by security curtains—included radio receivers designed to intercept air and ground communications. A four-track tape recorder that logged the time and frequency of intercepts allowed the spooks to capture communications that might have an intelligence value.
Though his Hebrew lagged behind his Spanish skills, Prostinak had learned to pick up on key words, such as “tanks,” “artillery,” and “mortar fire.” He eavesdropped on a frequency long enough to get a basic understanding. If it had potential intelligence value, he recorded it. If not, he tuned the dials. More than the language, Prostinak listened for the excitement in a voice that almost always indicated action. That’s what grabbed his attention this afternoon as the Willy Victor roared along the Egyptian coast. The flurry of Hebrew made it impossible for Prostinak to discern whether he heard aircraft or ground forces. He could sense from the excitement that something was going on far below. He strained to listen and translate. He then heard something that shocked him. He flipped on the secure intercom to his supervisor. “Hey, Chief. I’ve got really odd activity,” Prostinak called out as he hit the record button. “They mentioned an American flag.”
Radiomen on the aircraft carrier Saratoga approximately five hundred miles west of the Liberty forwarded the spy ship’s distress calls to the commander of the Sixth Fleet and the London headquarters of the Navy’s European and Middle East command. With each call, the desperation intensified. At 2:35 P.M.—the exact moment the torpedo split open the side of the Liberty—the Saratoga broadcast the first details of the attack. “Following received from Rockstar. I am under attack. My posit 31.23N 33.25E,” the carrier’s message read. “I have been hit. Request immed assistance.” Saratoga radiomen relayed another message two minutes later that foreshadowed the horror the Liberty now faced. “3 unidentified gunboats approaching vessel now.” The carrier followed that message at 2:45 P.M. with the relay of a five-word distress call. “Under attack and hit badly.” Nine minutes later, the carrier forwarded the first confirmation that the Liberty had been torpedoed. “Hit by torpedo starboard side. Listing badly. Need assistance immediately.”
Vice Admiral William Martin, the commander of the Sixth Fleet, sailed on the cruiser Little Rock as the attack unfolded. The three-star admiral’s flagship had joined the carriers Saratoga and America for maneuvers off of Crete. Soviet warships had harassed the fleet, prompting Martin the day before to warn a Russian destroyer to remain clear. Over the open airwaves, Martin heard the desperation in the voice of Liberty’s radioman. At 2:50 P.M.—fifteen minutes after the torpedo killed twenty-five sailors—the admiral ordered his carriers to turn into the wind. “America launch four armed A4’s to proceed to 31–23N 33–25E to defend USS Liberty who is now under attack by gunboats,” Martin instructed. “Provide fighter cover and tankers. Relieve on station. Saratoga launch four armed A1’s ASAP same mission.” The Sixth Fleet sent a message to the Liberty at 3:05 P.M. to assure the defenseless ship help would arrive soon. “Your flash traffic received. Sending aircraft to cover you. Surface units on the way.”
On the bridge of the America, Captain Donald Engen chatted with NBC News reporter Robert Goralski. Engen’s 77,000-ton carrier—completed less than three years earlier at a cost of $293 million—had become the temporary home for as many as thirty reporters from major television networks, wire services, and newspapers, all eager to cover the events of the Middle East war. When the Combat Information Center alerted Engen of the attack over the squawk box, the skipper ordered the reporter off the bridge. News of the attack had arrived at an inopportune time. Not only did reporters swarm the carrier, but the America also was in the middle of a nuclear weapons drill. The drill required sailors to bring nuclear weapons up the bomb elevators and simulate arming the planes. Not until the weapons could be safely stored belowdecks and planes rearmed with conventional munitions could the America launch, a process Engen estimated would take approximately one hour.
The Saratoga’s communications officer personally delivered the news of the attack to Captain Joseph Tully, Jr., on the bridge of that carrier soon after radiomen picked up the Liberty’s distress calls. Unlike the America, the Saratoga had a strike group ready within minutes. Tully would later write that he immediately turned into the wind and launched fighters only to have his superiors order him moments later to recall the fighters and wait for the America. Tully wrote that he instantly readied a second strike group. Commander Max Morris, the Saratoga’s navigator, who later would rise to the rank of rear admiral, confirmed Tully’s account of the launch and recall in a letter to his former commanding officer. The Saratoga’s deck log does not reflect the launch, but does show that at 2:41 P.M. the carrier began a series of course and speed changes that could indicate flight activity.
Deck crews raced to prepare the fighters. The Saratoga had been ordered to launch A-1 Skyraiders, a propeller plane with a slow speed of only about 350 miles per hour but a range of three thousand miles. The America in contrast had been ordered to launch A-4 Skyhawks, a jet that flew nearly twice the speed of the A-1 and at an altitude of almost fifty thousand feet, but had a range of less than one thousand miles. Ordnance crews retrieved rockets and missiles from the magazines below. Intelligence officers briefed pilots on weather conditions and used maps of Egypt to highlight port facilities, antiaircraft batteries, and surface-to-air missile sites. The Saratoga messaged Martin at 3:22 P.M. that it planned to launch its four A-1s at 4 P.M. The Saratoga’s deck log shows that the carrier increased speed to twenty-five knots at 4:01 P.M. and started the launch sequence one minute later as fighters zoomed down the flight deck. The America’s deck log failed to record the launch, but Engen wrote in his memoir that planes lifted off soon after the Saratoga.
“We are on the way,” the America’s flight leader announced over the departure frequency. “Who is the enemy?”
No one knew. The Liberty had not identified the nationality of the attackers in its distress calls. Many of the senior commanders, who had monitored the Soviet fleet for days off Crete, doubted the U.S.S.R. had done it but could not rule out Egypt. Because Egypt was allied with the Soviets, Navy commanders had to be careful. The officers wanted to protect the Liberty without provoking a larger confrontation with another country. Even the small number of planes launched was designed to signal that purpose. “Not too large and warlike,” Engen later wrote in his memoir, “but still large enough to protect Liberty.” Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, commander of the Mediterranean’s carrier strike force, repeated Martin’s launch order at 3:16 P.M. and instructed pilots only to protect the ship. “Defense of USS Liberty means exactly that,” Geis ordered. “Destroy or drive off any attackers who are clearly making attacks on Liberty. Remain over international waters. Defend yourself if attacked.”
At 3:36 P.M., Martin issued combat orders for the pilots that again reflected his intention not to provoke a larger conflict: “Ensure pilots do not repeat do not fly overland.” The admiral also ordered the Saratoga to relay a message to the Liberty, asking if the spy ship could identify the nationality of the attackers. Martin outlined more detailed rules of engagement in a message at 3:39 P.M. “You are authorized to use force including destruction as necessary to control the situation. Do not use more force than required. Do not pursue any unit towards land for reprisal purposes. Purpose of counterattack is to protect Liberty only,” Martin’s message stated. “Brief pilots that Egyptian territorial limit only 12 miles and Liberty right on edge. Do not fly between Liberty and shoreline except as required to carry out provisions.”
Martin waited for his fighters to reach the Liberty. The Saratoga had estimated its propeller-driven Skyraiders would take approximately three hours to cover the distance to the battered spy ship. Martin had told his superiors that he expected the faster jets to arrive in half that time. Soon after the fighters left the carriers, a flash message from the American naval attaché in Tel Aviv rolled off the ship’s teletype. “Israeli aircraft and MTB’s [Motor Torpedo Boats] erroneously attacked U.S. ship,” Commander Ernest Castle wrote in the 4:14 P.M. message. “IDF [Israel Defense Forces] helicopters in rescue operations. No other info. Israelis send abject apologies and request info of other US ships near war zone coasts.” The admission that Israel had attacked the Liberty by mistake changed everything. The assault was over. Fighters were no longer needed. Martin ordered the mission aborted before the planes ever reached the Liberty: “Recall all strikes repeat recall all strikes.”