Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty, Revisited

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Patroklos


I got you, so it has nothing to do with over zealous Ireali naval commanders, probably a little pissed they were playing almost no role it this historic victory, making ****ed up chest thumping comments to our ambassador.

If you chasing Egyptian vessels bombarding your coast, you might wat to find one with guns on it if your trying to prevent it from happening again.

The IDF was criminally negligent. If we did this today there would be a dozen officers behind bars at least. You pilots, at least, had a responsibility to identify the target. Whatever commander sent out the second wave should be shot. And those patrol boats should have had zero difficulty identifying the ship. What is the range of those torps they fired? 5nm? In nautical terms thats me stepping on your toes.

1. Could you stop saying you and your. I am an American citizen, and have just as much interest in pointing out the facts as an American as I do as a friend of Israel.

2. They were in the midst of a rapidly evolving war, and they were under pressure from ground commanders to strike fast. I appreciate your naval experience, but unless Im misreading recent US naval history, youve never been in a comparable combat situation.

3. As for degree of negligence, thats why i suggested the book by Oren.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Why would a merchie not want to go to Isreal/Gaza?

Egypt didnt allow Israel bound vessels to transit the canal.

Did you not know that?

[Patroklos]

Could you stop saying you and your. I am an American citizen, and have just as much interest in pointing out the facts as an American as I do as a friend of Israel.

Apologies, but you have picked a side.

They were in the midst of a rapidly evolving war

The naval war was pretty mundane and uneventful, besides this actually.

and they were under pressure from ground commanders to strike fast.

Were they about to Inchon Alexandria or something? Screw the ground pounders, if you really want to use this as an excuse then the IDF admiral or whatever should be shot.

I appreciate your naval experience, but unless Im misreading recent US naval history, youve never been in a comparable combat situation.

Identifying targets, not shooting blind, recognizing markings, recognizing hull forms, basic radio interrogations/warnings/threats, and common sense are naval skills that are always relevant. The IDF broke every rule. They are either criminally incompetent or involved in mentioned conspiracies. I go with the first.

Egypt didn't allow Israel bound vessels to transit the canal.

Did you not know that?

Why would they have to be coming from the canal?

As for degree of negligence, thats why i suggested the book by Oren.

If Oren uses retarded things like "to fast to be anything but a warship" which is ridiculous, I really have no intention of reading it now.

[DinoDoc]

The El Quseir (The ship it was stupidly identified as) was a Horse Carrier. Why are we to consider it credible that it was tied to an explosion in El Arish?

[LordShiva]

Why would they want to bomb teh poor horsies

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Patroklos

Apologies, but you have picked a side.

About what happened. The US and Israel are not on opposite sides of this.

The naval war was pretty mundane and uneventful, besides this actually.


Were they about to Inchon Alexandria or something? Screw the ground pounders, if you really want to use this as an excuse then the IDF admiral or whatever should be shot.

They apparently believed that the Egyptian navy was hitting Israeli targets on the coast, and killing IDF ground pounders. Given how junior the Israeli navy is to the ground forces, and given that they had no reason to expect anything OTHER than an Egyptian naval vessel to be in the area, its not unreasonable that they acted in haste.

Identifying targets, not shooting blind, recognizing markings, recognizing hull forms, basic radio interrogations/warnings/threats, and common sense are naval skills that are always relevant. The IDF broke every rule. They are either criminally incompetent or involved in mentioned conspiracies. I go with the first.

Im sure those are important skills. But have you ever used them in combat? In combat with a navy nominally superior to your own, in which air superiority is your principle offset?

Why would they have to be coming from the canal?

Youre thinking merchies heading from say Greece, or Italy, or the Western Med towards Ashdod or Haifa? Why would such merchies run close to the Sinai coast, esp given that a war had just broken out in Sinai?

[SlowwHand]

and given that they had no reason to expect anything OTHER than an Egyptian naval vessel to be in the area, its not unreasonable that they acted in haste.

Bingo. If we had answered the question truthfully, still.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Patroklos


If Oren uses retarded things like "to fast to be anything but a warship" which is ridiculous, I really have no intention of reading it now.

translation: rather than read a book that might actually challenge my POV, Id prefer to take issue with snippets quoted by an internet poster, who knows far less about modern naval affairs than either myself OR the author of the book.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
They apparently believed that the Egyptian navy was hitting Israeli targets on the coast, and killing IDF ground pounders. Given how junior the Israeli navy is to the ground forces, and given that they had no reason to expect anything OTHER than an Egyptian naval vessel to be in the area, its not unreasonable that they acted in haste.

If they sent several recon planes out to identify the target and only after they returned they sent out the attack wave, it seems to me like that would be an adequate time to ID the ship. Doesn't seem like haste.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


If they sent several recon planes out to identify the target and only after they returned they sent out the attack wave, it seems to me like that would be an adequate time to ID the ship. Doesn't seem like haste.

but they DIDNT send recon plane to identify the target, which at that point was NOT a target. the recon planes were hunting subs.

Lets go over this again.

The crew would also testify later that six IAF aircraft subsequently flew over the ship, giving them ample opportunity to identify its nationality. Israel Air Force reports, however, make no further mention of the Liberty.19 There may indeed have been additional Israeli overflights, but the IAF pilots were not looking for the Liberty. Their target was Egyptian submarines, which had been spotted off the coast. At 11:00 a.m., while the hunt for Egyptian submarines was on, the officer on duty at Israel’s naval headquarters, Capt. Avraham Lunz, concluded his shift. In accordance with procedures, he removed the Liberty’s green marker on the grounds that it was already five hours old and no longer accurate.20

So, they go looking for subs. They see a ship, and they DONT identify it. Back at HQ, they decide its the Liberty. 5 hours later, the neutral marker is removed - they the recon reports are outdated, and they dont know WHATS out there.

Then, at 11:24, a terrific explosion rocked the shores of El-Arish. The blast was clearly heard by the men on the Liberty’s bridge, who had been navigating according to the town’s tallest minaret, and who also noted a thick pall of smoke wafting toward them. In El-Arish itself, Israeli forces were convinced they were being bombarded from the sea, and the IDF Southern Command reported sighting two unidentified vessels close offshore. Though the explosion probably resulted from an ammunition dump fire, that fact was unknown at the time, and both Egyptian and Israeli sources had reported shelling of the area by Egyptian warships the previous day. There was therefore good reason to conclude that the Egyptian navy had trained its guns on Sinai.21

So yeah, they definitely thought a coastal attack by the Egyptian navy was underway.

Minutes after the explosion, the Liberty reached the eastern limit of its patrol and turned 238 degrees back in the direction of Port Said. Meanwhile, reports of a naval bombardment on El-Arish continued to reach IDF General Staff Headquarters in Tel Aviv. Rabin took them seriously, concerned that the shelling was a prelude to an amphibious landing that could outflank advancing Israeli troops.

Yup, an Egyptian Inchon. Not terribly likely, but if it had happened, a huge disaster for the IDF. Of historical proportions.

He reiterated the standing order to sink any unidentified ships in the war area, but also advised caution: Soviet vessels were reportedly operating nearby. Since no fighter planes were available,

Note well - no planes available at this point.

the navy was asked to intercede, with the assumption that air cover would be provided later. More than half an hour passed without any response from naval headquarters in Haifa. The General Staff finally issued a rebuke: “The coast is being shelled and you--the navy--have done nothing.”22 Capt. Izzy Rahav, who had replaced Lunz in the operations room, needed no more prodding.

No admiral involved.

He dispatched three torpedo boats of the 914th squadron, code-named “Pagoda,” to find the enemy vessel responsible for the bombardment and destroy it. The time was 12:05 p.m.

At 1:41 p.m., Ensign Aharon Yifrah, combat information officer aboard the flagship of these torpedo boats, T-204, informed its captain, Cmdr. Moshe Oren,23 that an unidentified ship had been sighted northeast of El-Arish at a range of 22 miles. The ship was sailing toward Egypt at a speed, Yifrah estimated, of 30 knots.

Big mistake. I dont know how hard it is to make such an error. I dont know if its criminal.

Yifrah’s assessment, twice recalculated and confirmed by him, was pivotal. It meant that the ship could not be the Liberty, whose maximum speed was 18 knots. Moreover, the Israelis had standing orders to fire on any unknown vessel in the area sailing at over 20 knots, a speed which, at that time, could only be attained by fighting ships. This information, when added to the ship’s direction, indicated that the target was an enemy destroyer fleeing toward port after having shelled El-Arish.

The torpedo boats gave chase, but even at their maximum speed of 36 knots, they did not expect to overtake their target before it reached Egypt. Rahav therefore alerted the air force, and two Mirage III fighters were diverted from the Suez Canal, northeast to the sea. When they arrived, the vessel they saw was “gray with two guns in the forecastle, a mast and funnel.” Making two passes at 3,000 feet, formation commander Capt. Spector (IDF records do not provide pilots’ first names) reckoned that the ship was a “Z” or Hunt-class destroyer without the deck markings (a white cross on a red background) of the Israeli navy. Spector then spoke with air force commander Gen. Motti Hod, who asked him repeatedly whether he could see a flag. The answer was “Negative.” Nor were there any distinguishing marks other than some “black letters” painted on the hull.

[q/]IAF Intelligence Chief Col. Yeshayahu Bareket also claimed to have contacted American Naval Attaché Castle at this point in an attempt to ascertain whether the suspect ship was the Liberty, but the latter professed no knowledge of the Liberty’s schedule--a claim later denied by Castle but, strangely, confirmed by McGonagle.24 One fact is clear, however: After two low sweeps by the lead plane, at 1:58 p.m., the Mirages were cleared to attack.[/q]

Some more mistakes this time on the US side.

[lord of the mark]

"Before dawn on June 8, three days into the war, the Liberty finally reached its destination, barely within international waters north of the Sinai coast. Plying at a speed of five knots between Port Said and Gaza, the Liberty entered a lane rarely used by commercial freighters, which Egypt had declared closed to neutral vessels. Anxious about his proximity to the fighting, McGonagle asked the Sixth Fleet commander, Vice-Adm. William Martin, for permission to pull back from the shore, or else to be provided with a destroyer escort.

[Patroklos]

At 1:41 p.m., Ensign Aharon Yifrah, combat information officer aboard the flagship of these torpedo boats, T-204, informed its captain, Cmdr. Moshe Oren,23 that an unidentified ship had been sighted northeast of El-Arish at a range of 22 miles. The ship was sailing toward Egypt at a speed, Yifrah estimated, of 30 knots.

Ridiculous, a DDG has a visual range of 17nm at 20.' There is no way a PC saw anything at 22nm.

Look at a silhouette of the Liberty and ask yourself if it looks like a destroyer. And again, 30kts is well within a commercial vessels capability.

And since when did a PC have a flag officer on board. Flagship my ass.

Yifrah’s assessment, twice recalculated and confirmed by him, was pivotal. It meant that the ship could not be the Liberty, whose maximum speed was 18 knots. Moreover, the Israelis had standing orders to fire on any unknown vessel in the area sailing at over 20 knots, a speed which, at that time, could only be attained by fighting ships. This information, when added to the ship’s direction, indicated that the target was an enemy destroyer fleeing toward port after having shelled El-Arish.

So he had plenty of time to see what the thing looked like (a group 2 merchant) and was not rushed. The vessel was not going 30knts, which is such a simple Maneuvering Board equation it is ridiculous that an officer, an apparently qualified TAO no less, ****ed it up. Thats like week one onboard stuff, I would **** an Ensign up for that. You can see with your own eyes between 18 and 30kts.

And standing orders to fire on unknown vessels? Well suprise suprise, is anyo ne amazed that they ended up hitting something unintentional? Who the **** does Isreal think they are, even German U-boats in WWII verified their targets. Iranian submarines still have to VID their targets now.

Sailing at over 20 knots, you have to be kidding me. LotM, this is just complete incompetance of the highest order.

Some more mistakes this time on the US side.

I see no mistakes, why would the US have to identify their vessels in international waters?

Let me see if I can dig up a silhouette of a Z-class destroyer.

And why did the TBs attack at point blank range, or do you maintain they can't tell the difference between a destroyer and a merchant at 3-5nm?

[Patroklos]

a lane rarely used by commercial freighters, which Egypt had declared closed to neutral vessels.

So, does that somehow change the fact that the Liberty looked like a merchant vessel, was not doing 30 knots, was fired on without being IDed, at point blank range, but IDF surface warships?

Can the police just shoot to kill anyone in dark alleys because, hey, good citizens rarely use them.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Patroklos


So, does that somehow change the fact that the Liberty looked like a merchant vessel, was not doing 30 knots, was fired on without being IDed, at point blank range, but IDF surface warships?

Can the police just shoot to kill anyone in dark alleys because, hey, good citizens rarely use them.

1. Im not sure how important it is, but you seemed to think it was important previously.

2. I dont know what it looked like to them, or how good they were.

But no, they didnt ID it. Once again, there were no merchies there. There was not supposed to be anything there other than Egyptian or Israeli naval vessels. This was a war, not an alleyway in peacetime, and they were a naval forces, not a police force. And if the TPs had been caught by the "destroyer" they would have been blown out of the water.

Does that make the mistakes "reasonable" instead of criminal? I dont know, but Im not persuaded by folks who wont even read the relevant history arguing the other way, and whose knowledge of the history of the six day war allows them to make assertions about crowded sea lanes that are 100% wrong.

[Patroklos]

This...



Does not look like this...



Can you tell which one is which? Quick, the TBs only thought they had 4 hours (!!!) to close and identify it before getting into weapons range. So they thought anyways, more like 40 minutes for those of us that can do cadet level tactical caculations. Though maybe you think that wasn't enough time either. I bet they thought it odd that they were closing so fast, as they calculated only a 6kt closing speed.

And how could I tell?

Well, I could count the master maybe? Look at the locations of the masts. The amount of freeboard perhaps? Count the funnels of course. Note the location of the funnels. Then there is the fact that one is group 2 (superstructure amidships) merchant type hull. One has deck guns, one doesn't. The differences are night and day.