I have mixed emotions about leaving the ship. I would like to come home right now, that’s for sure. But I also want to ride the ship back to Norfolk—after getting this far I want to go all the way.
—ENSIGN DAVE LUCAS, LETTER TO HIS WIFE
Representative Craig Hosmer took the floor of the House of the Representatives on the morning of June 29 to voice his outrage over the assault on the Liberty. The Pentagon’s censored report dominated headlines in most of the nation’s top newspapers that morning. The California Republican viewed the attack through his own military experience. Hosmer had enlisted in the Navy in July 1940 and served throughout World War II. He remained in the Naval Reserves when the war ended, eventually earning the rank of rear admiral. Hosmer understood seamanship, ship identification, and naval warfare.
After the House convened at 11:00 on this Thursday morning—exactly three weeks after the attack—Hosmer told his colleagues that he had concluded that the coordinated strike by fighters and torpedo boats meant Israel must have deliberately targeted the Liberty. “I do not believe the attack was ordered at the highest command level of the Israeli military, but that it was ordered at a sufficiently high level to permit coordination of the Israel air and naval forces involved,” he declared. “This means that some officer or officers of relatively high rank must have acted on their own initiative.”
Hosmer said he doubted Israel’s claim that its forces had confused the Liberty for an Egyptian cargo ship. “The fact that the U.S.S. Liberty was a Victory hull vessel, hundreds of which were produced and used by the U.S. Navy during World War II and since, rules out the possibility of mistaken identity. Every ship recognition book in the world has, for years, identified the characteristic Victory hull and superstructure of the U.S.S. Liberty as U.S. Navy property,” he argued. “What those responsible for this outrage sought to gain can, at this point, be only a matter of speculation.”
The conservative lawmaker suggested that Israel might have hoped that the attack would trigger intervention by the United States and the Soviets or might have served as a signal to keep the superpowers out. He also speculated that Israel, euphoric with victory on land, thought the sea attack might “further demonstrate Israeli military might.” Regardless of motive, Hosmer concluded that the Jewish state now had an obligation to pay retribution to the families of the men killed and punish those involved. “Whatever is the reason for the attack, it was an act of high piracy,” he declared. “Those responsible should be court-martialed on charges of murder, amongst other counts.”
Mississippi representative Thomas Abernethy rose moments later. Like his colleague, the southern Democrat doubted Israel’s explanations, but he also believed the American government was covering up the truth. He watched in disbelief the day after the attack as State Department officials fanned out across Capitol Hill, assuring lawmakers that it was an accident. Abernethy’s efforts to ferret out information drew elusive answers. He could tolerate it no longer. “This useless, unnecessary and inexcusable attack took the lives of 34 American boys, wounded 75 others, and left many others in a state of horrified shock, to say nothing of what it did to a flag-flying vessel of the U.S. Navy,” he roared. “How could this be treated so lightly in this the greatest Capitol in all the world?”
The lawmaker noted that the spy ship sailed more than fifteen miles from shore, far beyond the territorial waters recognized by Israel and Egypt. He pointed out that reconnaissance flights had buzzed the Liberty that morning and that the “attack was incessant, heavy and hard.” “The ship was well marked, so said the Pentagon. Its name was painted on its stern. U.S. letters and numbers were on its bow. The day was clear. And it was distinctly flying the flag that you and I stood here and so praised and respected just a few days ago on Flag Day,” Abernethy said. “But what respect have we shown for it since it was so recklessly shot down by the Israel attackers? What complaint have we registered? What has Washington said? To tell you the truth, this great Capital as well as this great Government—if it can still be called great—was and is as quiet as the tomb regarding this horrible event.”
Abernethy criticized the government for settling for an apology. If any other nation had attacked the Liberty, the government would have roared back and possibly even retaliated. “It is not enough to let it drop with a simple statement that the attackers just happened to make a mistake,” he argued. “This is too serious a matter to accept a simple ‘Excuse us, please’ sort of statement. There must be more than this to assure our men, our people, and our Nation that another nation must not make such unprovoked and vicious attacks upon us.” Abernethy reminded his colleagues in closing that the families of the Liberty’s sailors and the rest of the nation awaited Congress’s response. “The world has been standing by looking at us now for days since the Liberty was pounced upon,” he concluded. “What do we do? What do we say?”
Few other elected leaders said or did anything. Of the 435 House members, only Hosmer and Abernethy spoke out during the three and a half hours that legislative body met. No one in the Senate, which met for less than two hours, mentioned the attack. Some lawmakers quietly appealed for information through committees. More than sixty wrote letters to the State Department and Navy—roughly five per day—asking the status of reparations for the dead and injured. Many of the letters were pro forma, written in response to constituent requests, including family members of men killed. A memo to Secretary of State Dean Rusk two weeks after the attack, analyzing the State Department’s voluminous mail, summarized the outrage felt by many Americans: “The attack on the Liberty was almost unanimously condemned.”
Diplomats at the Israeli Embassy in Washington learned the outcome of the court of inquiry days in advance of the Pentagon’s planned publication. A journalist who managed to read a draft of the release tipped off embassy spokesman Dan Patir. Five days before the Defense Department released its summary to the press, Patir cabled a detailed description of the report’s contents to Jerusalem. He noted the hefty size of the full report and that it contained the testimonies of roughly twenty officers, crewmembers, and other Navy officials. Patir reported that a special team at the Pentagon had spent three days editing the voluminous report into a declassified summary. Senior leaders with the Navy, Defense, and State departments reviewed the draft prior to publication.
Patir wrote that the Pentagon summary chronicled the attack in detail and exonerated McGonagle of wrongdoing. The Navy also had nominated the skipper for the Medal of Honor. More importantly, Patir wrote that the report might prove politically damaging for Israel. “This announcement includes denunciation of the Israeli attack, that is defined as a ‘rash act.’ It insists that the incident took place in international waters, and that the Liberty had the right to be in them,” Patir wrote. “It notes that Israeli airplanes were seen circling above the ship about 6 hours before the attack itself. It assumes with certainty that these aircraft had identified the Liberty immediately and had communicated this observation to the headquarters in Tel Aviv.”
The embassy’s problems soon compounded. Ambassador Avraham Harman learned that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, particularly Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, had shown increased interest in the attack. Another member of the committee even had suggested the United States launch a congressional investigation. Such a probe would only jeopardize U.S.-Israeli relations. Harman wrote a desperate message to Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s chief of staff. He reiterated the need to indict the attackers. “Our main goal is to emphasize the truth, that the attack was not conducted maliciously by the Israeli government and IDF,” he wrote. “I am convinced that the only way is for the legal inquiry to end in negligence and recklessness charges.”
Harman’s suggestion drew a heated response from Rabin. Israel had followed the ambassador’s earlier advice and expanded its probe of the attack after Harman noted myriad flaws in Colonel Ram Ron’s report. But Rabin now denounced Harman for what he believed was the ambassador’s effort to sway the outcome of that investigation. Harman needed to back down. “Do you or your American colleagues even consider that the US Administration would try to influence the work of a Supreme Court judge?” Rabin wrote in a highly confidential and restricted telegram. “Please understand once and for all that no interference or pressure are possible in the direction you’re suggesting.”
Israeli officials failed to recognize how far the U.S. government had gone to help the Jewish state’s public position, including slanting the court of inquiry’s public summary. When the Pentagon released that summary, Israel again resorted to a spin campaign. News reports appeared in American papers, often with vague attributions, that challenged many of the Navy’s findings. Israel disputed the fact that the Liberty flew a flag. Other press reports claimed that the Israeli boats had approached the Liberty prior to the torpedo attack and demanded the ship identify itself. The Liberty instead had signaled back “A-A,” a maritime code that means “identify yourself first.” Israel said an Egyptian destroyer used the same signal in the 1956 war. The alleged use of the identical message led Israeli sailors to conclude the Liberty must be Egyptian.
The press reports frustrated senior Navy officers. Kidd re-interviewed McGonagle and his signalmen. Kidd reported that Israel’s claim that the Liberty had signaled the torpedo boats was bogus. McGonagle was unable to read Israel’s signals. Even if the skipper had wanted to reply, he couldn’t because the attackers had shot out the signal lights. “Nothing intelligible was received by light from any of the Israeli torpedo boats prior to the offer of help which was received from the torpedo boats after the torpedo hit,” stated a Navy memorandum for the record. “The only available installed signaling apparatus on Liberty was destroyed early in the attack and the hand-held Aldis lamp was not ‘unlimbered’ until after the torpedo hit.” Kidd elaborated in a telegram: “I am convinced these men know what they are talking about.”
The Associated Press soon published an article written by an Israeli Naval Reserve officer who served on one of the torpedo boats. The first-person account by Micha Limor appeared in newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Limor wrote that crews tried to identify the Liberty with binoculars as two fighters circled the spy ship. The jets fired two rockets then retreated to base. “About 2,000 yards from the ship, a strange spectacle met our eyes. The high masts and the many weird antenna showed that this was a warship. The side of the vessel was blotted out by smoke, and apart from three numbers along her side, which meant nothing to us, we could not discern a thing. We could see no flag on the mast, nor was anyone to be seen on the decks and bridge,” he wrote. “We spent several minutes trying to contact the ship and demanding identification. We tried by radio and by heliograph, in accordance with internationally accepted means. But she gave no answer.”
Torpedo boats zoomed past the Liberty in battle formation and fired across the bridge and bow to demand identification. “Suddenly, a sailor appeared in view and started firing at us with a heavy machine gun from the bridge. We took the challenge and directed cannon fire against him,” he wrote. “A moment later he fell, together with the machine gun. Thus there was no doubt that we were faced by the enemy. The prolonged refusal to identify herself, the absence of any flag, the shooting at us, and above all, the weird contraptions on the ship left us without doubt.” Limor wrote that Israel hoped to capture the Liberty rather than sink it. The torpedo boats circled the ship and repeatedly fired to try to stop it. “This had no effect. No one appeared. No one reacted. The shells caused little damage to the hull and the ship proceeded on her way,” he wrote. “You could almost hear the men’s teeth grinding aboard our boat. Nothing can annoy a torpedo boat crew more than being completely ignored.”
Unable to stop the ship, commanders ordered it torpedoed. “We drew up along the left side of the ship and advanced at full battle speed. Just as in dozens of training exercises we reached the right angle and range—and let go. We thought only a miracle would save the ship,” he wrote. “One of the torpedoes hit amidships. There followed an enormous explosion and a huge water spout. And then fires broke out and the ship leaned sideways as if about to sink.” Only when Israeli crewmembers plucked a rubber life raft from the water—marked “U.S. Navy”—did the sailors realize their mistake. Limor wrote that after the attack ended, Israeli sailors watched the American flag rise up the mast. “Dozens of shells, rockets and torpedoes were needed to drag a sign of identity from them, said one of my seamen who, like the rest of his mates, was bitterly upset at this surprising turn of events,” Limor wrote. “He was right. The showing of the Stars and Stripes at the first stage would have prevented all that happened subsequently.”
Limor’s story, described by a Liberty officer in a letter as the product of a “wild imagination,” infuriated the Liberty’s men. Fighters did not circle the ship prior to the attack and the torpedo boats were too far away to have witnessed the air assault. The American flag was shot down, but replaced by a larger flag long before the Israeli Navy arrived. None of the torpedo boats fired across the bow, circled the ship, or radioed the Liberty. The only markings Limor reportedly saw were the Liberty’s hull numbers, which he claimed meant nothing to him. That alone was a shocking statement. How could a naval officer not understand the significance of a ship’s hull number? Even Israeli torpedo boats carried similar markings. The Israeli officers should have at a minimum noted the Liberty’s markings were not in Arabic, as Egyptian ships are identified. But these gripes were trivial compared to Limor’s largest blunder: he attributed the torpedo strike to the wrong side of the ship.
Liberty sailors anxious to challenge Limor’s story were barred from talking to reporters. That left many Americans to assume his story was accurate. The Pentagon ended the news blackout after the release of the summary of the court of inquiry, but limited the Liberty’s crew—still in Malta awaiting the completion of repairs—from discussing anything outside the summary’s contents. Restrictions on crewmember interviews, published in the Liberty’s Plan of the Day, soon evolved into a ban on all press contacts. The one-page memo was read aloud at morning quarters and posted throughout the ship for the crew to read. “Interviews and statements to news media concerning the attack on Liberty 08 June are not to be given by individuals. If you are approached by someone wanting an interview or statement inform them that they must contact the Public Affairs Officer,” the memo read. “The only information that ships company is allowed to discuss is that already made available to the press. Therefore, there is nothing new that we would be able to tell them in an interview.”
Maltese workers flooded the Liberty’s drydock on the afternoon of July 14 in preparation for the return home. The Liberty had arrived in Valletta at dawn exactly one month earlier, greeted by reporters on a hillside who marveled at the scorched spy ship. Shipfitters had worked daily to patch the hundreds of shell blasts and the torpedo hole that warped interior decks. Fresh paint masked the smell of the dead. The repairs served as a temporary remedy so the Liberty could cross the Atlantic. The Navy would decide later whether to overhaul the ship’s mechanical and electrical systems and fix its battered hull. “After getting to Norfolk, what happens to the ship and the crew is still anybody’s guess,” one officer wrote in a letter. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Sailors fanned out across the ship’s lower compartments to monitor the outward bulkheads as the water rose. McGonagle ordered crews to report problems immediately to Damage Control Central. The skipper refused to allow the ship to leave drydock until each team confirmed the absence of leaks. Four hours after workers began to flood the drydock—and with the ship now afloat—the Liberty eased out of its dock and tied up alongside a Valletta pier. After a month of depending on shore power, the ship’s engineering plant now hummed. The crew could finally use the Liberty’s toilets rather than the foul outhouse perched on the end of the pier.
The Liberty completed its dock trials at 9:45 A.M. the next morning. Engineers ran the propeller up to five knots forward and five knots in reverse to test the ship’s main propulsion plant. Men also checked the ship’s generators, evaporators, and the main feed water pump to guarantee the Liberty’s steam-powered system still functioned after a month of no use. Crews swabbed the decks with fresh water and removed the extra mooring lines. Many of the sailors dashed off letters, alerting loved ones of the Liberty’s expected homecoming in two weeks. “Everybody on board is eagerly awaiting our arrival in Norfolk,” Ensign Scott wrote to his parents in North Carolina. “Malta has been very good to us but it will be good to be back in the States.”
The Liberty sailed for home at 7 A.M. on July 16, once again passing the Ricasoli lighthouse at the entrance of Valletta’s Grand Harbor. The tugboat Papago, which had trailed the Liberty on its voyage to Malta, again fell in line. Sailors lined the decks and watched as the ancient maritime crossroad that had served as the Liberty’s home port for the past month faded on the horizon. Vice Admiral Martin congratulated the crew on the eve of the ship’s departure. “USS Liberty has become a legend in her own time,” he wrote. “We have shared your grief for those who lost their lives, we remind ourselves that you were classic examples of unswerving devotion to duty.”
Malta had provided the officers and crew a relaxing place to decompress, reflect, and grieve. An early morning fire in a storeroom that produced a lot of smoke but few flames had served as the month’s most exciting event. The ship’s new executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Donald Burson, who reported aboard shortly before departure, brought with him a familiar rigidity that had once been routine on the Liberty. He ordered one officer to get a haircut and barked at the enlisted men over minor infractions. “The new XO is beginning to get rather picky on some things,” an officer griped in a letter. “I realize that we have been rather lax in some areas, but then again, everything has been so jumbled up since the 8th of June, I don’t know what he expects.”
The task of sorting the jumbled recollections fell to the officers, who gathered in the wardroom after the court of inquiry to discuss medals. Reports of heroic actions surfaced. Men on the forward machine guns had died protecting the ship. Damage control teams had fought fires and kept the Liberty afloat. The doctor and his corpsmen had performed surgeries while others rescued men from flooded spaces and the main decks as the fighters attacked. Officers investigated each case. The men learned that not everyone had acted heroically. Stories arose of sailors found hiding. Fear paralyzed others and some cried. One officer claimed to have rescued a blinded colleague in the torpedoed compartments when the investigation revealed an enlisted man made the rescue.
Purple Hearts presented a dilemma for the Pentagon. The medal’s criteria required that recipients be killed or injured fighting opposing armed forces. Israel was an ally, so the Liberty’s crewmen weren’t eligible. Admiral McCain’s office intervened. Liberty men no doubt believed the attackers represented a hostile force. “Suggest that failure to award Purple Hearts could later become known to press and could generate unwelcome public discussion of procedures which could be interpreted as discriminating not only against the dead and wounded but against cases of unquestioned heroism in action which are only now beginning to become known.”
The Pentagon acquiesced, but soon discovered that combat pay posed a similar challenge. Troops in war zones received roughly an extra fifty dollars a month. The Pentagon didn’t recognize the eastern Mediterranean as a war zone. McCain’s office again advocated for the crew: “A favorable determination would be of financial benefit, a boost to their morale and tangible recognition of the heroic deeds and sacrifices of the officers and men of the USS Liberty.” This time the Pentagon compromised. Rather than pay the entire crew—a minimal expense given the Navy’s $21 billion budget that year—Pentagon penny-pinchers decided that only the injured men and the families of those killed were entitled to combat pay. The uninjured got only regular pay.
Lost in the Pentagon’s arithmetic was the incalculable toll the attack took on the sailors and their families. Many of the families still grieved and sought answers to explain how loved ones had been killed. Others wanted guarantees that Israel would be held accountable. William Allenbaugh, whose son died in the torpedoed research spaces, expressed that in a letter to President Johnson. He asked what action, if any, the government planned to take against the Israeli government. “This was a dastardly deed,” Allenbaugh wrote. “We feel that something should be done to correct the loss we have all felt so keenly. Please advise, if possible, what course we can take in regards to this matter.”
Soon after her husband’s burial in Arlington, Weetie Armstrong wrote a letter to the crew. “You lost your XO and I lost my husband but we were fortunate to have been a part of his life. I know all of you prayed and did what you could for him in his last hours and for this I thank you. I don’t understand why God chose to take Philip but I accept God’s will. This was His plan for Philip. My children and I are fine. Of course our future looks a bit dim but God will give us the strength to take life a day at a time,” she wrote. “I’m not going to make any definite plans until I have some time to think. In any case please feel free to call on me and my children when you are home again. May God bless and keep all of you safe. My prayers are with you.”