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USS Liberty incident

1967Contested

On June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the U.S. intelligence ship Liberty off Sinai, killing 34 Americans; Israel called it a mistake, and survivors still dispute that.

The story

On June 8, 1967, the fourth day of the Six-Day War, the USS Liberty, a lightly armed Navy ship packed with electronic listening equipment for the National Security Agency, was sailing in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli fighter jets attacked it with cannon, rockets and napalm, and Israeli torpedo boats then hit it with a torpedo that tore a hole in its side. Thirty four Americans, Navy sailors, two Marines and an NSA civilian, were killed and 171 were wounded. The crippled ship survived and reached Malta.

Israel said its forces mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian ship and apologized, eventually paying compensation to the families, the injured and the U.S. government. Inquiries by the U.S. Navy and Israel concluded the attack was a case of mistaken identity. Many survivors, and some senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and former Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer, rejected that conclusion, arguing the ship's flag was visible and the attack too sustained to be an error. In 2003 the NSA released intercepts of Israeli helicopter pilots' radio traffic, and a former Navy inquiry lawyer signed a statement saying the investigation had been ordered to find an accident.

Why it mattered

  • The Liberty remains the deadliest attack on a U.S. Navy ship by an ally.
  • The dispute over whether it was deliberate has become a lasting point of contention in debates over U.S. Israel relations.
  • Its communications failures, including warning messages that never reached the ship, led to changes in Navy command procedures.

Sources

  1. Friendless Fire U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings
  2. The Liberty Incident Middle East Quarterly
  3. U.S.S. Liberty attack (document archive) The Black Vault

Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made

Contested history

Consensus: Navy and Israeli inquiries concluded the attack was a tragic misidentification. Survivors, some former officials and a former Navy inquiry lawyer argue it was deliberate and that the U.S. inquiry was rushed and constrained.

Israel attacked the Liberty, killing 34 AmericansEstablished
All sides agree on the basic facts of the attack and its casualties.
Read this view
The attack was a case of mistaken identityDebated
Israeli and U.S. Navy inquiries concluded it was, and researchers such as A. Jay Cristol defend that view. Critics point to the long duration of the attack, the visible flag and reconnaissance overflights earlier that day.
Read this view
The attack was deliberate and the U.S. government covered it upMinority view
Survivors' associations, Admiral Thomas Moorer's 2003 review and Captain Ward Boston's 2004 declaration argue the attack was intentional and the inquiry was ordered to find otherwise. No Israeli motive has been documented, and released records do not settle the question.
Read this view
Warnings to move the ship farther from the coast never reached itEstablished
Messages ordering the Liberty to move away were misrouted and delayed, a failure later acknowledged by U.S. investigations.
Read this view

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