The attack on the Liberty was not simply a case of a single bomb going astray. The attack followed over nine hours of surveillance. Israeli pilots circled the ship at low level 13 times on eight different occasions before attacking. The attack continued for nearly two hours. It involved rocket and napalm attacks by multiple flights of Israeli jet fighters, a simultaneous torpedo attack by three vessels of the Israeli navy and the machine-gunning of lifeboats tossed overboard as the Liberty survivors prepared to abandon their wounded ship. Radio operators in Spain, Lebanon, Germany and aboard the ship itself all heard the pilots reporting to their headquarters that this was an American ship. They attacked anyway.
thelink.concordia.ca
Thirty-four American sailors died and 172 were wounded. Fighter pilots of the attacking forces were instructed to "shoot out the lifeboats" and leave no survivors or witnesses.
couplescompany.com
We slowed and circled the Liberty, and most of us on deck saw some things we had never seen before. That was the most beat up ship I ever saw afloat. She was listing to starboard and down at the bow. She had a large hole from the torpedo about amidships or just forward on her starboard side, and there were holes everywhere in the skin of the ship. The bridge had been worked over and the gun tubs where filled with holes. There was nothing left of the lifeboats or the rafts; they were gone.
ussdavis.org
"Our .50 caliber machine guns, which are our only armament, had a chance to return some small fire before another wave of jets knocked out the gun mounts and destroyed all the lifeboats and life- rafts."
geocities.com
Most of the lifeboats had been destroyed in the earlier attack but the ship managed to launch three life rafts. They were immediately attacked by Israeli motor torpedo boats which destroyed two of them—a war crime in itself—and captured the third.
washington-report.org
In an attack lasting more than two hours, the intelligence gathering ship was bombed, rocketed, strafed, napalmed and torpedoed. As valiant crewmen fought the flames and rushing sea water, their life rafts and lifeboats were deliberately destroyed by Israeli gunfire.
ussliberty.org
Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, authors. "It is clear that the Israelis knew that they were attacking a vessel of the US Navy, especially as it was flying a large Stars and Stripes at the time. The fact that they spent six hours reconnoitering and executing the attack, which included machine-gunning the lifeboats, attest to the deadly intent of the operation.
sf.indymedia.org
Let me know if want more cites. There are plenty of them. |
