USS Liberty

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by stabiz

Not very strange that Israelis writes this up as an accident.

Brilliant logic of proof of guilt here.

Personally I lean towards stupidity and arrogance.

Look.

In.

Mirror.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

Brilliant logic of proof of guilt here.

Look.

In.

Mirror.

No.

Personal.

Attacks.

Thanks,
The Management

[Lurchi]

Identifying a ship from a fast moving plane is very difficult - especially by fighter-bomber pilots who aren't trained for this.

On the other hand:
Why were the Fast attack boats unable to identify it?
Why noone asked the for the reason why this unidentified ship didn't fight back?
Why wasn't this -obviously defenseless- ship contacted by those attack boats who were seemingly close enough to shoot at it with guns?

A ship with so much antennas and cupolas could only belong to the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. as it was clearly a reconnaissance ship. Personally i believe the israeli commanders knew very well what they are doing: The ship was well known before and the only reason for the attack i can imagine is that they didn't want the U.S. to gain information about their tactics ...

Many friendly fire incidents were pretty short encounters - however, this one was not: First the planes and then torpedo boats attacked half an hour later which placed a torpedo into the Liberty's side.

Looks pretty much like a planned and coordinated attack to me.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Lurchi

Identifying a ship from a fast moving plane is very difficult - especially by fighter-bomber pilots who aren't trained for this.

On the other hand:
Why were the Fast attack boats unable to identify it?
Why noone asked the for the reason why this unidentified ship didn't fight back?
Why wasn't this -obviously defenseless- ship contacted by those attack boats who were seemingly close enough to shoot at it with guns?

A ship with so much antennas and cupolas could only belong to the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. as it was clearly a reconnaissance ship. Personally i believe the israeli commanders knew very well what they are doing: The ship was well known before and the only reason for the attack i can imagine is that they didn't want the U.S. to gain information about their tactics ...

Many friendly fire incidents were pretty short encounters - however, this one was not: First the planes and then torpedo boats attacked half an hour later which placed a torpedo into the Liberty's side.

Looks pretty much like a planned and coordinated attack to me.

I have a tendancy to agree with you there

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Lurchi

Identifying a ship from a fast moving plane is very difficult - especially by fighter-bomber pilots who aren't trained for this.

On the other hand:
Why were the Fast attack boats unable to identify it?

Damage, heavy smoke, the Liberty fired upon them, keeping them at range. The Liberty signal-identified itself as "AA", the same signal given by an Egyptian warship that attacked Israel and evaded Israel's navy in 1956.

Why noone asked the for the reason why this unidentified ship didn't fight back?

But the Liberty did, during the torpedo boats' approaches.

Why wasn't this -obviously defenseless- ship contacted by those attack boats who were seemingly close enough to shoot at it with guns?

But it was.

A ship with so much antennas and cupolas could only belong to the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. as it was clearly a reconnaissance ship.

In fact, it was assumed to be Russian and that was due to the blunder of the Israelis not recognizing the Latin letters on the hull.

Everything I say above is from the 2002 IAF report on the Liberty incident. Sorry, it's in Hebrew. Yes, I know some of you want me to spend days translating it for you. Cannot do.

Personally i believe the israeli commanders knew very well what they are doing: The ship was well known before

According to all documented reports, the last thing that entered any Israeli commander's mind was that there was a US ship - of any kind - in the area, which was an assumed battle zone, as Israeli ground forces in El Arish, Sinai, reported prior to the attack that they were being shelled, possibly from the sea.

and the only reason for the attack i can imagine is that they didn't want the U.S. to gain information about their tactics ...

Baseless.

And when you add such baseless to the fact the you didn't get any of your main facts above correct, the whole picture is one of simply a war tragedy that could have happened to anyone under such circumstances.

Many friendly fire incidents were pretty short encounters - however, this one was not: First the planes and then torpedo boats attacked half an hour later which placed a torpedo into the Liberty's side.

Looks pretty much like a planned and coordinated attack to me.

It was very well coordinated. That does not detract from the fact that Israel only realized their mistake after the attack was over and the damage was done.

[joea]

Well sh&* happens in war, if someone made a list of all the friendly fire incidents in war it could fill a book. Hey the IAF is very efficient and some of the most skilled pilots in the world today.

So was the Luftwaffe in it's time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wikinger

Bombed Dublin too IIRC. :hmm:

No political connotations intended.

[Tronics]

Most modern blue v blue incidents are a caused by poor communications...period.

80% of US FF incidents unfortunately involve other NATO constituitents, this is partly because of the complete unfettered chaos and lack of discipline that is and revolves around NATO communications protocols.

And no it's not the US Army messing it up...CANFORCE (blame Canada?) comms make the US ARMY communications disaster seem like a heated debate on the metaphysical clauses of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

The remaining 20% involves US forces hitting themselves because again, someone isn't where they said they were, or aren't following their orders....which leads yet again to communications.

Personally I don't think that the Israeli military made a conscious decision to hit a US Electroinc Warfare vessel.

It dosen't strike me that Israel would bite the hand that feeds intentionally and just to mess up some intel gathering or porbing operaton.

I think that probably someone in a cockpit made that decision because they heard what they wanted to hear, or at least they thought they did, and who knows maybe they did hear it correctly and the comms operator was the one who heard wrong...

Only one person really knows and they have to live with it for the remainder of their days.

[Jimbuna]

The 'War Machine' USS Liberty section

http://files.filefront.com/USS_Liber.../fileinfo.html

[PeriscopeDepth]

Originally Posted by Lurchi

The ship was well known before and the only reason for the attack i can imagine is that they didn't want the U.S. to gain information about their tactics ...

Then they probably shouldn't be training together all the time and sharing intelligence, either.

PD

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

Then they probably shouldn't be training together all the time and sharing intelligence, either.

PD

My own teke on it was at the time....the Americans were under pressure from around the world to reign the Israelis in...but the Israelis had the upper hand in the fighting and needed to buy time to achieve their military objectives...it was not in their interests to let the Americans know how well things were going

[robbo180265]

In all honesty this is the first I've heard of this incident,but as has been said earlier these things happen fairly often in war,those poor A10 pilots not so long ago spring to mind.

I wouldn't put it past any country to organise an accident,if that country stood to gain from it. But as far as I can see Israel could have lost a lot,and stood to gain little from it.

So I reckon it was probably an accident.

[MadMike]

"Pre-attack reconnaissance. Israel says there was no pre-attack reconnaissance. Any aircraft we saw, they say, were high in the sky carrying troops to the battlefield. Not so. Here is an Israeli reconnaissance airplane that circled the ship about an hour before the attack. The pilot was heard reporting to HQ that he saw an American flag and men sunning themselves on deck."





http://www.ussliberty.com/gifs.htm

Yours, Mike

[Lurchi]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

Then they probably shouldn't be training together all the time and sharing intelligence, either.

PD

The fact that countries are allied doesn't mean they share all their intelligence. You are naive when you believe a country gives all information to another - especially not in wartime.

Now you seem to be of a different opinion so i would like to ask you why the U.S. sent SR-71s over the Negev to get information about the Israeli Nuclear program for example? Why U.S. ships shadowed new german submarines of Type 212A during tests in norwegian waters?

This is not unusual at all ... and i believe it is true what jimbuna said:
The U.S. were not aware of the extent and targets of the israeli operation especially not of those aimed at the Golan - that's why they probably sent the Liberty.

And the Liberty was indeed almost unarmed: 4 50cal machine guns in open mounts are pretty useless against fast jet-fighters or torpedo boats. The return fire must have been pretty weak and according to crew members they were silenced pretty soon.

The Liberty even wore her unique designation which easily identified her as an U.S. ship and which were much different in style from soviet ships. A quick encounter between friendly forces can always happen - but this was a massacre, partly at point-blank range. Seems that the americans knew pretty soon who attacked them ...


Israel is very sensitive in respect to intelligence gathering:
Recently an F-16 fired warning shots above the reconnaissance ship "Alster" which is very similar to the Liberty in it's mission. First it was said that this incident happened in israeli waters - later it became clear that this ship was 100 km away from the lebanese coast.

[ABBAFAN]

ON the subject of "WAR MACHINE"

do you know where copies can be got?who was the pu8blisher?

[PeriscopeDepth]

Of course even allied nations don't share everything. But in times of need when both benefit, say in the middle of the Cold War when Israel was fighting Soviet client states they certainly share a lot more than normal.

I am under no illusion about the relationship between the United States and Israel. They will not hesitate to stab us in the back when it suits them. I can understand why though as they are a small country whose very existance is far from a sure thing, they have to play dirty and frequently do. I just don't think the Liberty was one of those times.

PD