blatent attack no one unless blind misses an american flag its unique only to america now if it was dutch russian chinease then maybe

On the question of why it didn't sink:

Cargo ships and military ships have a fundamentally different honeycomb internal structure. Cargos have large open areas, and military ships are compartmentalized to a far larger extent. If you hit an ammo bunker, then it's going create a large, open internal space. Which floods, which sinks the canoe.

It's a converted cargo ship, and there would have been some changes made to it. Those large open areas would have been compartmented with a bit of welding, just to increase internal security of classified gear and increase living space.



I remember something about it was flying a flag other than American when the first recon of the ship was done. I think after the first attack, the American flag was raised. So, there was deception on the part of the crew, of course.

Re: U.S.S. Liberty
 

Okay, whats your source for this serious study?

I disagree. The Liberty was a converted WW2 cargo ship and except for some extra antennas and some numbers painted on the bow, still looked a lot like one. So given that, and the fact the US didn't inform the Israelis of its presence in the war zone, which of the following scenarios is more believable?

a. US navy using an obsolete cargo ship as a military vessel
b. Egyptian navy using an obsolete cargo ship as a military vessel

Besides, iirc, Atlantis once disguised herself as an auxillary cruiser, but the point was that a flag alone is not really an effective means of differentiating between friend, neutral and foe in war.

You've hit a nail on the head. I hope the confused who think that a flag is enough will stop and think a little before they say that a number on a bow in a color particular to the US Navy is enough to identify the ship. In a time of war.

Re: U.S.S. Liberty
 

The most authoritive and comprehensive study at this moment on the Six Day War, its political causes and military actions is - as I wrote in my frist posting on this thread - "Six Days of War", by Michael Oren (Oxford University Press 2002). It uses Arab, Israeli, Soviet and American sources and personal interviews.

Some essential points that need to be considered before anybody can give an evenhanded judgement are:
1. The area where the U.S.S. Liberty sailed was declared a war zone by Egypth and thus forbidden for neutral shipping This was acknowledged by the US, and the Sixth Fleet was withdrawn to a safe distance. So one could expect only warships of Egypth and Israel in that area;
2. Egypth had planned an attack from the Gaza strip along the Israeli coast line on Saturday (Sabbath) May 27, 1967 at first light (Operation Dawn). Orders were given but this attack was litterally halted at the very last moment.
The story is almost unbelievable. Israeli intelligence found out on May 26 that Egypth would strike the next morning. Israel immediately alarmed and informed Washingthon. Shortly after midnight of Saturday May 27, less than six hours before H-hour, Moscow received this news by cable from Washington with an US warning. Premier Kosygin knew about the Egypthian preparations but was shocked to learn that Israel knew them too. He immediately dispatched the Soviet Ambassadors in Israel and Egypth to Premier Eshkol and President Nasser. Within 2 hours Ambassador Chuvakhin woke Eshkol up and spoke to him on Saturday morning between 02:15 and 04:00 in the Dan hotel in Tel Aviv. He achieved nothing. The Soviet Ambassador in Egypth, Pojidaev, spoke at 02:00 for less than an hour with Nasser. Nasser immediately went to the Supreme Headquarters and informed the Army that Operation Dawn was exposed and dhould be stopped. Litteraly 15 minutes(!) before the Egypthian air attack was bound to start the pilots received orders to stand down!
So much for who was the agressor in the Six Day War...
3. Israel had repeatedly requested a naval liason officer from the U.S. 6th Fleet. President Johnson had refused this because he considered it contrairy to his policy of evenhandedness and a possible reason for the Arabs to accuse the US Fleet of support for Israel. This frustrated the Israeli Ambassador in the US so much that he complained: "If war breaks out, we would have no telephone number to call, no code for plane recognition and no way to contact the Sixth Fleet."(!)
4. There were serious political differences between the US and Israel during the weeks before the war. The US withdrew its obligation towards Israel to keep the (intrenational) Straits of Tiran open after Nasser closed them, which was a shock for Israel, and never OK'd the Israeli attack. The U.S. was only willing to lend material support if Israel was struck first, something the country was not prepared to accept.
5. Rabin (Israeli Chief of Staff) had summoned the US naval attaché and told him that Israel would defend it's coast by all means possible and requested that the US should acknowledge or remove all ships.
6. Rabin had given a standing order that any unidentified ships in the war area should be sunk.

The book 'Operation Cyanide' contains many serious factual mistakes.

According to some sources, there might have been a British radar intel operation going on from Jordan towards Israel and a denieable CIA operation with a couple of unarmed RF-4's from Israel to provide both Israel and the US with accurate post strike information against Egypthian targets, as well as a Russian intel and training operation within Egypth. The U.S.S. Liberty may have been tasked to relay intelligence information from US subs off the Egypthian coast. There were US subs in the area (Operation Frontlet 615).
However officially non of the superpowers was or got involved; the Arabs got - conditional and certainly not full - political support from Russia and Israel - conditional and certainly not full - political support from the US.

The Liberty was recording radio communications of Israel and Egypt. Thats a fact. They had to go as close to shore as they did because of the range of their equipment and the area they needed to cover.

http://www.rense.com/general47/betey.htm

Exactly how big do you think their navies are?

I would hazard to guess at least bigger than a fighter pilot or gun boat skipper could be expected to remember.

Brad you don't seriously think Isreal attacked the Liberty knowing it was a US ship do you?

Let me see-:
Ship under surveilance for 8 hours prior to attack as close as 200ft
Ship lettered in white western numerals.
American flag flying.
Looks nothing like anything Egyptian navy has.
With antenna system an obvious electronic inteligence gatherer.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1184

So, yes I do. To me you have to be blind not to.

That theory makes absolutely no sense. The Israelis were not sporting Egyptian colors, nor were they keeping radio silence.

Only an instantaneous sinking, with no survivors, had any chance of keeping the attacking units from being identified and reported, which is exactly what happend. However the attack was not conducted with weapons that would quickly sink the ship and they didn't even finish the job. If it were indeed a machiavellian plot to frame the Egyptians then it was a strikingly inept one, requiring the cooperation and silence of a very large number of people.

Correction, it was surveilled 8 hours prior to the attack, then contact was broken until the attack itself. That's a long time to guarentee with any degree of certainty the target is the same one seen earlier.

In fact, as is mentioned earlier in this thread, the report the Isreali air and sea units were responding to was not the air recon 8 hours earlier, now removed from the plotting board as too old, but by a ground based observer only a couple hours before the attack.

A trip to my local hardware store and 30 bucks provides me both paint and flag. No US Navy ships were supposed to be there remember?

It was a (then) 25 year old war surplus cargo design that was still in use by many countries around the world as civilian merchantmen. It doesn't have to be listed in the Egyptian naval order of battle for it to be converted and used by the Egyptian navy. Again, no US Navy ships were supposed to be in the area.

Antennas are used for more things than intelligence gathering, but even granting that, the question remains whose ship was it? Certainly not the Americans as their fleet, as far as the Israelis knew, was 250 miles away.

No but they were jamming the ships radio for some odd reason and they would have heard the transmission from Liberty to the fleet.
If they were going to sink an animal transport why would they bother jamming it's radio's?
However if they meant to sink a U.S. navy ship and didn't want it found out they would jam.
Israel never once claimed that they assumed it was the animal transport in disguise. The only one that came up with that assumption is you.

The Israeli's knew what the Egyptian navy had. It did not look anything like the ship they said it was. You are also wildly assuming this
or were you there?

Right, they stuck a large amount of anntena on a animal transport. Painted it gray, used western numerals and flew an american flag to disguise it to shell the shoreline. Does this sound a little dippy? I think it would be obvious that it's an American ship irregardless of where the fleet was.

So your assumption is less wild than mine? Lets agree to disagree since it's obvious i'm not going to change your mind.

you know what happens to a ship that impersonates a millatery vessel ?

for the royal navy its commendeard or ceased the origanal owners are put in the brig for trying to impersonate one of her majestys ships

U.S.S. Liberty
 

Well Bradclark1, you are a true believer and difficult to convince by facts...I have given the answers on the questions you pose. There are really no logic reasons why Israel would intentionally attack an U.S. naval vessel that cannot been countered by reasonable arguments rising from the circumstances, the warsituation and its progress.
Two things we agree upon:
1. The Israeli Defence Forces were capable enough to sink the U.S.S. Liberty if that was really a priority for them.
2. The Israeli Defense Forces did attack but not sink the U.S.S. Liberty, actually halted their air attack first and their navy attack later.
Conclusion: it was a screw up. In your eyes that she was not sunk, in my eyes that she was attacked (and I keep my eyes open in every direction).