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The events surrounding the attack on THE LIBERTY took place in four hours, roughly from 1200 to 1600 LIBERTY time. (At 1205 three MTBs were dispatched from their base near Tel Aviv to investigate the reported naval bombardment of the coast near El Arish. At 1610 the Israelis notified CMDR Castle, the US naval attaché in Tel Aviv, that they had accidentally attacked THE LIBERTY.) The actions in these four hours took place so quickly, and are still so much in dispute, that they need to be examined in detail. Israeli sources for this topic are many.
Official works include Ram Ron Report, 1967; Bloch Report, 1967; IDF
Preliminary Inquiry File 1167, known as the "Yerushalmi Report",
1967; and the IDF History Department "The Attack on the LIBERTY
Incident", 1992. Unofficial works include an AP dispatch by Micha
Limor, an eyewitness account, 1967; Hirsh Goodman and Zeev Schiff,
"The Attack on THE LIBERTY", ATLANTIC MONTHLY, 9/84; and A.Jay
Cristol, "The LIBERTY Incident", a dissertation on the topic at the
University of Miami, 1997. Other works which the Israelis use to
provide evidence for their account are the US Navy Court of Inquiry,
1967; CIA Report of 6/13/67; and Thames TV film "Attack on the
LIBERTY", 1987. MTB Pursuit of the LIBERTY (1) The MTBs moved south at 30 knots, and at 1341 they made their first radar contact with LIBERTY. (The LIBERTY crewmen, who dispute every point of the Israeli account, say that such contact was impossible at this time. However, in this case and in all other cases of such dispute, I will reserve specific comment and criticism until later). (2) The MTB radar gave an incorrect reading of Liberty's speed; it said that the ship was moving at 30 knots, while in reality the ship was moving at 5 knots. The Israelis checked this reading on the radar on a second MTB, and this time they obtained a reading of 28 knots. Cristol discusses these false readings, and attributes them to inadequate equipment and to the inherent difficulty of reading speed of a target from a pursuing MTB. (3) Since the top speed of the MTBs was 30 knots, they could not catch the ship and therefore requested aid from the Israeli Air Force. Planes were diverted from other missions to attack the ship. (4) A short time later, when the MTBs came in sight of the ship, the MTB commanders identified it as El Qesir, an old and decrepit Egyptian horse transport. (1) The Israeli planes orbited the ship looking for a flag or other marks of identification. They could find no flag or such marks, according to most Israeli reports. A few Israeli reports say that there was a small flag, difficult to see, or a flag which was raised only near the end of the attack. Cristol says that the attacking pilots could not see a flag due to the speed of the planes and the distance from the ship. Hirsh and Goodman say that the point is "moot", i.e. it does not matter whether or not there was a flag, for the point is that the Israeli pilots THOUGHT there was no flag.(This issue of "no flag" is a major and basic one to the crewmen, the most fundamental point in their account, and they discuss this at length. The LIBERTY men also claim that there are records of Israeli pilots reporting back to base that the ship has an American flag, and being ordered to attack anyway. This will be discussed later.) (2) LIBERTY men say that the Israelis jammed the ship's radios. The Israelis neither deny nor confirm this claim; they do not discuss it. (3) The Israelis claim that the air attack ended at 1412, after only 12 minutes of assault. It ended because one of the pilots saw a number on the bow of the ship and therefore knew that the ship was not Egyptian. (Arabic ships do not have numbers near their bows). However, this information was not passed on inside the Israeli system of communications to prevent the MTB attack which followed closely upon the air attack. (1) The MTBs approached the ship after the planes left. (How long the interval was between attacks is, like nearly everything, a matter of dispute). (2) Israeli claims vary in describing the approach of the MTBs to the ship. In a few cases, the Israelis claim that the ship refused to respond to demands for identification and sent no signals. In most cases, Israelis claim that the ship responded with the signal "AA". The Israelis claim that this means "identify yourself first". LIBERTY signal men deny that they sent "AA" and also that "AA" means "identify yourself". However, the "AA" signal, to the Israelis, was proof that the ship was Egyptian, for an Egyptian destroyer in the 1956 war had sent this same signal when facing Israeli demands for identification. In fact, the destroyer sent that same message to the Israeli officer who was now in command of the MTB squadron. This coincidence was, in Israel i accounts, final and dramatic proof that the ship was Egyptian. (3) Crewmen claim that they put three life rafts over the side of the ship in response to the captain's order to prepare to abandon ship. They say that the Israelis sank two rafts and took the third under tow. They also say that Israeli gunfire then destroyed remaining lifeboats on deck. The Israelis do not discuss this issue. (4) Israelis claim that the attack ended about 1430, shortly after the torpedo struck the ship. Crewmen dispute this and claim that the attack from the MTBs continued until 1515. |
