USS Liberty - the Real Story as told by the survivors.

Video Transcript:

Welcome. I have to compliment the people from Oklahoma, the hospitality, and it's really good, so thank you for the opportunity to walk in and see you there yourself. My name is Jack Bede, I was on the USS Liberty along the right here, and I was in the Navy part and the right was the Marine. I'm going to just tell you somewhat about the ship and what I did, and then finish it up with the Marines, or they can tell you they're part of the communication part. I went in the Navy, I was 18 years old, my first ship was the USS Liberty. The USS Liberty was a freighter that was in Baufalves, it was, did serve sometime during World War II in 1945. It was in Baufalves, the Korean War, and then they took it out and then they took it out in I don't know, 64, 65, and they converted it to a A.G.T.R., which is a technical research ship, which was a spy ship, and it was the latest and greatest at its time. I went active duty, I got orders to the Liberty, and I showed up on the ship, and I have to say the first thing, I walked up to Gangplank in North Park, Virginia, I was 18 years old, and Petya sir of the watch looked at me, and he says, you must be a polywalk, and I had no idea what a polywalk is, and for your people out there that maybe don't know. If you're in the Navy and you cross the equator, you will become a showback. If you have an eye cross the equator, you are a polywalk, and a polywalk is the lowest form of life there is. Hence from that day on, it goes on the ship, you were harassed until you cross the cross the equator. That was probably the funniest thing in the Liberty, but hence say, I got on the ship, they put me in engineering department, B division, which was down in the hole in the boiler room. The deployment schedule of the Liberty, you were home ported out in North Forks, Virginia, it's four months over to Africa, the west coast of Africa, we patroled up and down the west coast of Africa, and then back to the North Forks, two months in the North Forks for training leave and whatever, and then four months back over to Africa. That was the rotation schedule, they made many trips like that. I made one trip by cross the equator, I went through the initiation, I am a showback, and I got that my record, I get a little ID card, and I have to know all about it. I was a following log. The brain didn't go across the equator, so we won't go there. But anyways, on the second deployment for myself, we went over to Africa, and we ended up receiving some orders. The mission of the Liberty, from what I could tell, I was an engineering young kid. The communists were in Africa at the time, and so were the Cubans who were over there at the time when they had more of an influence in the world. And we were monitoring the messages and what talk was going on short. We got orders to proceed the rotus pain, the six-day war started. That was the six-day war between Israel and Egypt and Syria, Lebanon, and all those countries. So we flanked speed up the rotus pain. We stopped that rotus pain, picked up some people. I wanted it. And we picked up some people and supplies, and we proceeded to the eastern part of the Mediterranean that was our operating. We were six miles off the coast of Israel. You could see 12 miles to the horizon, and we were just a little bit farther than that. We were patrolling back and forth, doing our job. And on the 8th of June, we had a practice general course, which is like a battle station for everybody who's a practice. And we just took care of some of that. I went back down to the machine shop, and we received something they called them up, that maintenance on the motorway, but the motorway-wheel boat is about to hang over the side. And they used it for a man overboard to put the boat in, and they would pick somebody up. And we, me and Mike Shalea, at Injumay, went up there to do some work on the boat. Clear day, the flag was up, no clouds. The Oat or the sea was kind of perfect day. We noticed after a while that the lookouts on the bridge, the vernacular, were wicking up towards the sun, and people were pointing. And the next thing we knew, the blip bridge blew up. It took a rocket or a cannon, I'm not sure what. But prior to this here, we had overfly-overs from Israeli Air Force. I seen it personally twice. I was out on the deck, and the planes went around us. We actually waved to the pilots on one of the planes. But after the first rockets in Canada hit the bridge, they sounded the fire, our journal was in the border, which is battle stations. Everybody ran to where they were supposed to go. Mike Shalea and me, we jumped out of that border whale boat. I ran, Abby ran forward, and that boat took a rocket about five seconds after we got out of it. I got pictures. There was just the two down, hanging there. And I went inside the superstructure, and then down my station was the emergency fire pump, which was right down the bottom of the ship. I had to go down a two, about 30-something feet down. And it's about 12 by 12, and I had an electric motor and a pump and there a fire pump. If for some reason we lost a fire hydrant pressure, this pump would be a backup pump. I put the phone down. You could hear a rocket and cannon hit the side of the ship. And being a young kid, I had no idea what was going on. I was going to shoot an antis and right away on the phone, they told me to start the pump up and get some pressure. There's some valve, and you have to turn. So we turned that on. Yes. I got a question for you. Yeah. You're going down, but that's three or four dead levels out. Was that three or four? Oh, I don't know. The two is long. I can't say three or four. But when you're having to go down, and many, you also have to close those hatches behind you. You lift that out. You're basically digging your own graves. You're going down. You're correct. That's right. The hatching is closed. The skulls all in. The skull is a little round one. You shemmy through there. You close it and you spin it tight. And that water tights the compartment's water tight. And then you go down a little farther into the ship. You go right down the belly of the beach. Right? No air conditioning really. Nothing. It's your bike yourself down. And the missiles are slamming into the side of the ship and exploding. It was scary. Yeah. And you're trying to go down for it. If your cluster foe be it would be probably pretty nervous. Just not to make sense. Well, that's your correct. You're familiar with what I'm talking about. And then I got down there and I was on the phones. And we got the pump running. And I was pacing back and forth and thinking, well, what's going on? On the circuit, you can hear all the people calling in through that. And it's fire fighters and lots of action on the phone circuit. So after about 40 minutes, the attack stopped. It seemed like there was a low. And after a while they said standby for a torpedo attack, starboard side. So I'm thinking, you know, starboard side torpedo attack. You know, this wall bokeh, that was the starboard side of the ship. The ocean was on the other side. I realized that I'm down below the waterline. So again, on the phone, I said, request permission to get out of here. You know, of course on the Navy, they said, wait one. That means hold on. We'll let you know. So meanwhile, I'm going up the ladder. And I got to the top of the ladder. And I was just crawling through there. And they said, get out of there right away. And as I did, the torpedo entered the ship. And it blew up and killed 25 people. It was in the communication department where the torpedo hit the shell. Hence, the ship was like this and it started rolling. The bokeh, where I was at, collapsed and it was smoked. And it flipped me around like a ragdoll. So right away, we started running up the word abandon ship. As they passed the word prepared abandon ship. As we went up one flight, we kind of go outside on the main deck. The machine gun bullets, they were literally just pounding us under from there was four boats out there. Four torpedoes. We couldn't even go out on the deck. We closed the hatch and there were slugs coming through the deck. So we basically hunkered down for several hours. And the attack quit. Bryce will tell you why the attack quit in a minute. We had 170 four casualties. At 34 dead, there was nine outside, 25 below decks. The valley was full of wounded. Every table was somebody that was wounded. We had them on the deck. We had two corpsmen on the ship. We didn't have a doctor. An unusual for a ship to have a doctor that size, but we did. So we were four to two. I love them. How big was the ship? It was pretty big. I'd say a galley area, a place where you eat big is this? Maybe bigger? Yeah, a little larger. A little larger this here. There was a table's boat. And then there were tables to feed the most of the crew. Yeah, I'm wondering. Every in the book there, you showed a picture of a, every table had a casualty on it. Everybody. It was like a slaughterhouse really. We had no, the only protection we had was four or fifty calibers. Those guys were killed outside. You can't knock a jet down with a single barrel of 50, so. So that, the boat, that, that little boat big idea. Was that targeted? Well, I don't know. They were pretty good. We jumped out of it ran and it was gone. And then when it hit the communications section, was that targeted here? Or is that just? They were using heat seeking missiles. And those heat seeking missiles immediately destroyed all of our transmitting antires. Yeah. Now, the ship, the excuse was it was a mistake of identity. The ship is well marked. It's a grade ship on the bow, on the front of the ship, on the left and right. On the back and the whole side, five foot letters, GTR, five, four different places. And on the back of the ship, the stern is liberty and one foot letters. The flag was up. I was outside. I heard the flag. I know the flag was up. You can hear it snap in there. You can hear a flag snap in the wind. That's what it was doing. They said we were unmarked and then they didn't know what to do. It was a long night. We were on fire. We were sinking. They sent some planes to our assistance. The planes were called back. There would be no assistance for the liberty. So we were out there all night on the road. Bryce will tell you more about that. We steamed. It was about four days. The next morning, excuse me, the USS Davis came alongside the destroyer and it literally pulled up to the side of the ship eventually and about 20 guys come off. We had a big bulk wall that was bowed out and that would have broke. The ship probably would have sunk for sure. They came aboard and they shorted it up so that it would not pop apart. They brought some food on board, some more medics. We needed lots of medics. And finally, the fleet came. The carriers came and they telecoptered the dead and the wounded off the ship. We steamed about four nights. We got the boilers up the mulletop which was about four days away and we went into the dry dock. In that compartment, there was 25 dead. The CTs volunteered to go in there and recover the dead. I think we lost six bodies we never found. The rest, they had to go through there. That compartment was full of black oil. Sea water. It was really a mess. It sunk so bad. If you have body bodies for four or five days underwater, you couldn't eat on the ship. We were sleeping on the ship. We had to use the toilet facilities off the ship. We were there at least five weeks I'm thinking they patched it up and sent us back to North Florida. Eventually, the ship was scrapped. The keel was bent on it. Why we were going back to Malta and four nights, Admiral Kid came on board. He was on one of the ships from the fleet. I was laying in my rack this early in the morning and probably around six. I looked up and I see this bell buckle with three stars on it and it was an Admiral. We came to attention on that. Sure, have a seat. It's not that often as an E3, you see an Admiral on board. We jumped up and he was talking to these drinking a cup of coffee. He told us after this little conversation that we were to keep our mouth shut or else we'll end up in the Web of World Prison as a 19 year old kid. That was it. I never said nothing for about 15 years and I don't think anybody else could. But yes, you saw the surveillance planes flying overhead before him. Twice, two days. Then the officer of the deck had the guy that's driving the ship in the morning. Six o'clock in the morning, they were reporting that they were seeing these planes flying over them, observing them. They could tell they were Americans. Right. There was something else too that I just thought of from the last trip. In the Middle East, you don't see anybody but Americans sunbathing. Right. You know what I'm saying? Everybody in the Middle East, every picture you see of terrorists or odd, you know, they've always got their face covered. Well, they do that in Asia and all over. They don't want to get their skin darker than it is. It's also a protection. But not the Americans. You know, you got this clean, maybe ship. They're all over the decks, sunbathing, you know. Who does that? America. Yeah, it was that you're right. You know, sunbathing. Yes, sir. So I have a question, sir. If the Israelis in the presume that was the attacking party, if they knew that you were Americans, even though they trumped up an excuse, what would be the real reason for the attack? The right is going to go over three reasons. We're pretty sure we know the answer to that. But I have to say one other thing. We have a new website. We just put up last year. We have a couple of Liberty Veterans Association, which is all the survivors. And then the Liberty Alliance, which is a group of people. I can't, I'm describing web rules. And there's an answer. We're tied in with that. And we're trying to get an investigation, a congressional investigation. There's never been one on the Liberty. Never. But we have this website, usslibertedocumentscenter.org. And in that, we have freedom of information. We've been pursuing for years. Just last year, we got these documents released from CIA. And there it is. Black and white, an memo from the CIA in November, 68. Motion Diane was the one that authorized the attack. At a meeting, there were some people there, the CIA, however they do it. There was an admiral and a general that was outspoken. No, we will not attack them. And he ordered a roto and he said, we will. We have the document, end of conversation, smoking gun. Our allies attacked us intentionally. He Israeli admiral said, my this is murder. That's the way. And that document was just released. It's been 40 some years. Yes sir. What was the name of the admiral who was even, those were redacted. Admiral and the general and also whoever our person was in that meeting. The president of our association is a retired CIA, Bernie Gallo. He wrote one of the books there. And he said, those are things you probably never know. But apparently the CIA had a source in that meeting. You'll never know. Did you captain survive? Yes he did. He received the Medal of Honor. And did he have direct communications with the Secretary of Defense? Or President Johnson? That was the Commander of Com Six Fleet. Right. A bright soul explained that part of the, bright soul is in the communication part I was and so he's got a good insight into what that was. But I just have to recite it. The ship should have sang really, but it didn't. From the US, yes, literally there was one Medal of Honor, two Navy crosses, twelve silver stars, twenty bronze stars, two hundred four purple hearts, nine Navy kind of combinations, a total of 834 medals. There was a presidential unicitation and 291 combat ribbons. It was the most decorated ship for one incident ever saw. And you couldn't talk about it. And I'm here to talk about it. And the Medal of Honor was presented in a shipyard. Fifteen right. Captain received the Medal of Honor in the Washington shipyard. Anyone that receives the Medal of Honor goes to the White House always. And usually the crews are invited people that even know. Our captain received it in the Washington Navy. I think the Secretary of the Navy presented it on. It was low key. I didn't even know about it. And he and the captain never talked about the incident for years and years. And then, one reunion, we showed up and we mentioned that we should have. It should be a mystery. Oh, who is the President? And was it Johnson? Johnson was President. And Mac Tiber was the Secretary of the France. Is the official story was fought? It was a mistaken identity. Thank you. It's hard to wait. I mean, is Rayleigh-Thinkley was an Egyptian ship or something? Yes, they thought it was. Well, talk about that. Yeah. He's got that. He's an horse straighter. Well, yes, sir. Have you or anybody from the crew ever heard or been contacted by any of the Israeli pilots or crew members on the gun boats or anybody like that? No, but in one of the books here, I don't know if we have any left, but there's another book written by one of the officers was on the ship. His son is the journalist publisher, Rona Park. And at the end of the book, in the last paragraph, they go to Israel and his dad goes with them. John Scott was my boss on the ship. He was the damage control assistant. They went over there. His son found one of the pilots from one of the planes. He's back on the door. He invites some men. They go outside to his guard. You'll read about it in the book. And he's asking them about the liberty. He was an overman. He wouldn't talk about the liberty. He says, I can't do anything. He mentioned by dad's in the taxi cab. He couldn't believe he says, bring your dad into the house. John Scott comes into the house. You read that part of the book right? So in the back. We had several books. And there was a rich politician there, and our new meeting. He wrote us a big old check. And he bought almost all of our books. Right. Anyway, John Scott comes into the house and meets one of the pilots that woohoo. And this guy, Shrippin' Pan, said, I'm sorry. And that was basically the end of the park. That's the only park that I know that anyone ever met up with the pilot. One of the pilots refused the mission. Went back to the base and he was a pork martial. I believe he got five years. My years. Like Israeli pilots. So they knew they were going to attack the American show. Do we have his name? We do have, but I can't. Just call it all the time. Yeah. It's a true story. It's easy to say because that's what I see now. Yes, sir. When your captain was awarded that medal, was that in Patuxet, Naval Yard? In the Navy Yard in Washington, which is, I'm the river that I have not been to the Navy Yard, but the Nier Antikovsky, I believe, somewhere in that area. Wherever the Navy Yard is at in Washington. I'm going to let Bryce fill in the blank, sir. Thank you. That's about it. I'll make it. What happened? When it comes just briefly, the African crews up and down the west coast of Africa, we were targeted. I didn't join the ship until she was in Rotas-Spain, which is actually on a Mediterranean. The ship was targeted against Cuban and, I don't know, I'd be the following. Probably, that was up there. In the early 60s, there was a big independence movement on the subcontinent of Africa. A lot of countries that have been ruled by Portugal and France and Spain and Belgium and EU-Native were winning their independence. Well, these countries are rich in natural resources. Go. And the Soviets wanted part of that. And the Soviets and the Cubans were reducing troops in there. The job of the SS Liberty was to keep track of them. They received orders. They were in Abagen on Port Call of Liberty and, late at night, they were getting a call to post-hase sail for Port of Rotas-Spain, take on the stores and additional troops and sail at flank speed for the Middle Eastern War Theatre. The war was imminent between Israel and the United Arab Republic. The United Arab Republic consisted of the countries of Jordan, Syria, Libya, and Egypt. Of course, the big military power, both Egypt and Syria were supplied militarily by the Soviet Union. They were sending advisors shortly before the attack. We had arrived on station of the Sinai Peninsula in Eastern Mediterranean on, I believe, the 7th of June. The war was already ongoing and it started on the 5th. The operations officer got all of the supervisors together, gave us our instructions. I was a voice intercepted law section supervisor. I had a five linguists and advisor at the North underneath me. There were three sailors, two Marines and civilian advisor. The civilian advisor and the two Marines were all Arab and English and the three sailors that worked for me were primarily Port to Gace, French, and Spanish linguists. They were all English understandable since she's cruising up and down the coast of Africa. Those were primary languages of the countries that were running operations and transfers. We were told that if we picked up an Israeli target, we were too identified and dropped it. We were not targeted in the military. Our primary mission. I had children too. Mine's over there as she grew up. Where was I? In front of any mission? Our primary mission there was the squadron of the Soviet two U-90 Viser long range bombers whose primary mission was spying on the US-6 fleet. The Soviets had told the world that they were manned by Egyptian crews and they had nothing to do with it. That was not exactly accurate. Of course, the Soviets had never told a lie. Our government never does either by the way. They were actually manned by Soviet troops. All of the ground troops surrounded the planes and guarded the planes were manned by Soviet troops. They were wearing Egyptian uniforms. All conversations were conducted in Arabic when they would go on in the mission to overfire our US-6 fleet. They would take off all the languages for taxing and which run-way and flight to take and so forth. It was all done in plain language Arabic. They would get over the Mediterranean. They would switch frequencies and go to plain language Russian. It was my job as a Russian linguist to the other supervisors where Russian linguists our job was to nail down the Soviets and find out their frequencies and record their conversations. We had searched diligently and we didn't find much of that meaning. Egyptian troops were getting their butts kicked. We found a lot of Israeli targets there were identified and dropped. I did see one message cross my desk which had originated a few days earlier and it was rolling orders for Israeli tanks to invade Egypt. I did not originate that message but I saw a copy of it and that was originated on the first day of a six days war. The Liberty Doctor wrote a spain and they were taking on stores. When I got down to the docks there were two other Marines there and three civilians. They were all Arabic when it was in the Russian. I couldn't understand why I was there to find out until many years later that I had a specific specialty of processing messages and knowing where they originated and realizing where they were going. They wanted a Russian linguist to have that capability. That just happened to me so I received orders to the ship and I just happened to be in rotispein at the time. My home base was in Bremer, Holland, Germany and I was ordered on temporary duty in rotispein. We were working with VQ-2 which is an airborne intelligence collection unit. We were flying eight threes. This is a 20-inch and medium range bomber that was reconfigured for electronic spying and collection. We were flying maybe version of any of your member of the TWA constellation from the 40s and 50s. That was a workhorse back then of Transworld Airlines. That was originally a military transport plane and the Navy had several that had been reconfigured with radar domes and collection antennas and bristling with electronic gear. VQ-2 had one of those and that was a mission that I was flying on actually out of Keflavik Iceland over flying Soviet northern sea flea summer exercises. The ships were all home ported. I believe the Mermatsk is off the Yala Peninsula and northern Russia. They're really cold up there and it's iced in like six or seven months out of the year and nothing can sail. So when summer comes around they've got to get everything out of dock and try and patch up all the holes and get them to work in a little bit. It was nasty engines kicking a couple of times to get them to working and get out to see and that was our job. It was over a mile and a clutch communications. We left Rotospein and arrived on station I think on the 7th of June. I had the midwatch the night of the 7th of June got off watch at 6 o'clock in the morning. I had been traveling in civilian clothes like US GI and traveling in Europe and civilian clothes you can't figure out. But anyway those are my orders. I had a Samsonite suitcase and I had three utility uniforms for wearing a orc ship but only had one dressing uniform. Down there on the docks join the ship. I got off watch on the morning of the 8th of June and I needed some quite underclothes and no underclothes and it had hardly any with me. So I went to the small stores aboard the ship and I walked to New T-shirts and I wake up over there. I was at my bunkstaping my name in my T-shirts when the first shell struck the ship. I'd never been under fire before but there's a very distinctive sound of the exploding metal against steel and sound at sea resonates highly especially where steel is about the whole ship would rain. And excuse me there were 821 large caliber shell strikes. That was 40 millimeter or larger. 40 millimeters of shell about that size around. It was about that long explosive charge and end of it. The other strikes were guided missiles. They immediately knocked out all of our transmitting antennas with PCP missiles. That cannot be done by accident. They had to have specific armaments and specific ammunition to do the job that they were doing. That can't be done by accident. I immediately dropped what I was doing and ran from my GQ station which happened to be the center part of the ship below the water line. We had a lot of classified information on board ship. We had these large canvas bitching bags with brass pearls in them and lead weight in the bottom. You had to stuff those things full of that classified information. The idea was to get them up topside while you're at sea and pitch them over board. With that lead weight in the bottom they would sink in by the time somebody managed to get down there and recover on anything that was in there would be unreadable. Well folks it's a marines job. I get it shaw and a half. The division officer stuck his head in the door and he said Sergeant Buckwood, did you come here? I said step down in the passageway and he just got me an excursion with the operations officer about getting a working party together to get those ditching bags topside, pitch them over side and there was a blinding flash off or ringing in my ears and I was knocked to the deck and I was kind of semi-conscious and the only thing I could think I was Lord I guess this is it. I guess it's over at least. I guess I'm coming home at least lower than the kids are taking care of. I felt something cold and looked down and there was water gushing in and while I was in the 80s, upper 80s outside the ambient water temperature was in the low 70s in the Mediterranean and it felt cold and I felt oh my God we're in trouble. I heard a loan behind me and there was a sailor back there but I didn't find out until 25 years later his name is Joe Lentine. Joe would take a piece of shrapnel and his left thigh and it had gone completely through at least two sheets of steel that was a skin of the ship and then struck him on the thigh and was bleeding profusely. He sat down on the deck and leaned up against the ladderway, this is a very narrow stairway they call it ladderway and weren't shit because it's not only narrow the steps are very narrow and steep and he was trying to put a turn to get on that left leg. His name was propped up like this. We had a sheet steel temporary bulkhead which separated our office spaces from the passageway. Yeah a bulkhead is a wall but it was thin sheet steel but when there's an explosion behind it that struck him in that left leg and just made two things out of it and I reached over my, the water was coming up, I guess it was up to his belly by then and I got my arms under his armpits and was trying to pull him out but he was ledge day tight. And I said I can't do it myself you gotta help me and I'm trying to pull him and he's moaning and his heads are rolling around and by that time he's choking water and I didn't know his left leg was smashed. I said come on help me you gotta get your legs under you and push I'm yelling at you and say come on push push so I'm stumbling around and you got us right leg underneath him and he pushed just enough to where it could pull him free but his left leg was still kind of up in that sheet metal wreckage and by that time the water was up within about a foot ahead of the overhead ceiling. We had a lot of electrical cables that were in conduit steel pipes that ran across there and I got a hold of one of those steel pipes and I saw this unconscious sailor that was rolling around in the water and he was heading out the torpedo hole. I reached down and got an arbor around him and held him about of the water and I said to Joe I said are you gonna be alright? And I said it's kind of rolling around he had all of these pipes and he said yeah I'm okay and I still didn't know his leg was still tangled up and all the sailors were on that ladder way screaming and hollering and with all the confusion you'd have to understand that. I mean I was done for a reason this thing is going to date with Joe's as locker folks and I just screamed and I said y'all mocked it off if y'all don't settle down and I'm not going to get out of here alive. I remember hearing the division officer Mr. Bennett pounding on the hatch up there and he said this Mr. Bennett opened his hatch and apparently I passed out because the next thing I remember I was down there alone we didn't have any electricity the only light that we had was coming through the torpedo hole underwater and everything was dark and there was sea water and oil everywhere. And I didn't find out till later they said that I took one man out and dropped him on the dead I was told I should not go back down or it was a Charlie too dangerous. Chief Smith it was a senior listening man aboard so he looked me right in and I said Sarge can't go back down there and he said I just gave him a blank look I don't remember any of that. He said I just gave him a blank look and went back down. Anyway when I finally got him out we were told that we had to go to the radio room over on the port side or the left side of the ship that was opposite where the torpedo had struck and should the ship go down that would be the last part that was above water and we could get off of there but we didn't have any way to get off. Jack has some pictures of this ship here there's a picture right here you mentioned the word Dallas. Dallas are like police on board ship they're called a Dallas. There's a two of these structures here this was a wrap of life wraps and there was a land you're going to the side of that wrap and in case of an emergency at sea you can jerk on that rip cord in a small explosive charge that you'll off and those life wraps are automatically inflated and shoot out to sea except it's railways dropped in the night I'm on all that stuff. We had no way of getting off. I was lying in the deck at the radio room and they were talking about jamming or distress frequencies. I was not familiar with jamming but I didn't know that was going on. They had destroyed all over transmitting antennas but we had one whip antenna that's like what you used to have on your car years ago. It had not worked the entire cruise and it had about only one of our radio and got a big reel of coaxial cable and ran it from the transmitter through the radio room down the side of the deck to the back part of the ship where that whip antenna was while the railways were riddling us with machine gun fire hooked it up to that whip antenna. He came back with his arms all bloody from Shracknell and he says well I think I got it up and that's what we got our made-on. Firefox, firefox. This is Rockstar, Rockstar. Under attack by unidentified surface and naval air units require immediate assistance and as soon as that made-day was acknowledged a shooting stock. I remember seeing sailors with three blow up old rubber lifeprass walked through the radio room and threw him over the side. I didn't seem throw him over the side but I could hear what was going on. I heard a revving of diesel engines and more rattling and machine guns and what I came back in and he said I don't know what we're going to do now. What had happened is Israeli said deflated two of those rubber lifeprass severed the line that's the rope that holds it to the ship so it didn't float away. Came in and picked it up and carried it off. This ship that torpedoed us the wheel from that ship is in the Israeli naval museum. That hypha Israel and that rubber lifer raft labeled United States Navy is in that same museum. As a trophy? As a trophy. Yes. The Israelis that were attacking us were treated in Israel's heroes. But there are allies. There are best friends. Yes, sure. Well, could you explain on a moment when you say they were seen as heroes and are you saying it's literally presented as a trophy? Yes. It's not a glass cube. I'm proud of it, Charles. I'm not a victim. It's a spoil of victory. No, not. I understand that. I'm just trying to see. I'm trying to picture my own mind. If we go over there today and see the difference. Yes. Bragging about it? Yes. What's the name of the museum? Wow. I don't know the name of it but it's in hypha Israel and it's not that big of a city. Then how can they say it was a mistake? Yes, I'll cover that. I'll cover that. I'll give you enough to think. Brian Williams covered that. I don't want to break that metal. Katie Curry. Yes. The mistake was that it didn't go off as they planned. Yes. They fired five torpedoes and the same portal was missed. Do the three torpedo boats, if any of you watched, what's that John Wayne movie? In harm's way. In harm's way. Thank you, sir. That's it. In harm's way. He's a torpedo boat captain in World War II. It shows the machine guns raking off your targets and it shows the torpedoes being fired. They're tortured. Typically there's two torpedoes who want to be inside three of them so that'd be six torpedoes. They were ready for fire. We think that what a malfunction. Thankfully the Israeli Navy wasn't nearly as competent as the Israeli Air Force was. They missed with four. One of our guys, Jack had wrenched earlier, a fellow named Rick Imedie. Rick was up in front of the ship. I think below decks. And he heard this funny sound. He wondered what was that? That was a near miss. I heard some helicopters and I'm on there on the deaf one. What is going on? And I didn't see the helicopters, but I was told by our sailors aboard the ship. The Israelis say they sent helicopters over to see if there were survivors in the water and to pick up survivors. Excuse me. There were armed troops on those two helicopters. They had built some machine gun ammunition hanging off them, hanging or not hanging off them. Now what's that for? Shoot in sharks. They were in sharks over there by the way. In the reject. Sharks were off. Africa. Yeah, Africa. Apparently they were called off because the Mayday had just gotten out, just prior to that. Apparently they were called off because we heard them depart and then I heard another helicopter. I didn't know the US Naval Attisha was on that third helicopter. He was a Navy commander. He was stationed at Tel Aviv, Israel. His name was gone. His picture of his card and back one of those books over there. He dropped his call in card in a brown paper lunch bag, waited down with an orange onto the deck and laid it next to a severed leg of a wounded sailor. The captain said a runner down there to pick up the bag and on the back of the card says, have you any casualties? Excuse me, folks, there was blood everywhere. Excuse me. Israel said they didn't see a flag. It was a calm day and the flag was hanging straight down. That's not true. We were standing at five knots and there was a five to eight knot breeze. As Jack said, the flag was snapping in the breeze. They said he couldn't see the flag from the smoke. There wasn't any smoke until he dropped a napalm all over us. It was their own napalm. They said they were being shell by a worship from the sea at El Erish Egypt. This was a town that they had just taken from the Egyptians. The Israelites had captured an entire Egyptian brigade over 850 men on the morning of June 8th at El Erish. They forced them to dig their own graves and brutally slaughter them all. Most of them had their hands wired behind their backs. Did they ask them anything? Did they dig those bodies up? I had no idea. It makes me wonder when what was the general saying that was President of Egypt that time. He was assassinated, soon years later, gone the lot of Delta and that's the one after him. No, no, no. No, no, no. The one after him. I'm more sadot. When sadot negotiated the turnover of the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, I can't understand why he didn't scream about that to all the news media in the world. And we didn't find out about it until 1986 when two Israeli journalists told the US news media about it and there's a little tiny article on the inside of a newspaper about like that with it. What's the government? Who controls it? They say they were being shell from the ship at sea. The so-called shelling from the ship at sea was actually their own troops blowing up captured Egyptian ammunition. They say, oh, we thought we were an Egyptian warship called the El-Kassir. Excuse me, the El-Kassir was one third the size of the USS Liberty. She was a world war one horse carrier. Her only armament was a four inch muzzle loading cannon. How far do they count with shooting? Certainly, a good fire, 13-napp-naughty galalos. You probably don't need a heat sink in the missile. Certainly, probably don't need a heat sink in the missile to destroy that, buddy. Well, the El-Kassir had not gone to sea for 20 years and was waiting to be cut up for scrap. And if you know anything about the Israeli Mossad, surely they must have known that. The difference in the markings. Egyptian ships are painted black with Arabic script markings. US ships are painted vanishing gray with plain language, English letters and numerals. The numbers on this side of the ship, GT-R5, that stands for General Technical Research, which means she's a non-combatant. You do not fire the non-combatant ship. The five stood for the fifth ship of her class. Every ship that's seen it's a warship is required to have a copy of James All the World's fighting ships on the bridge. Had they had one and they should have had one, it would have been very simple to look up any index, alphabetical number, GT-R5, go to the page number. There's a picture of the ship. What a complement is. What our engines were. What our tonnage was. Everything about it is there in plain old black and white. Surely they must have known. Oh, by the way, the El-Kassir is in there too. And it states it had not gone to sea for 20 years and was waiting to be cut up for scrap. They said, well, it must have been a warship because they were tracking us on radar and our speed was tracked at 35 knots. What was their flight speed, Jack? Maybe a little team. It was a Tracan-Arralum. What was the propulsion system on board? It was used through the Simplikating or the St. No, it was in Turban. Okay, so we come to the reason why. Now it is produced such a thing. We had some books, but that politician bought them all this afternoon. By Paul Fiddley, he was 22 years in US Congressman from the state of Illinois. Paul wrote a book called Speaking Out. In the, I had several copies of it, but that guy bought them all today and passed them out so you're stuck with us. Paul devotes a whole chapter in there to the USS Liberty. And he states in that chapter, the reason for 9-1-1-0-1, the horrible attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, is laid directly to the feet of our own government for not properly investigating the attack on the USS Liberty and giving the Israeli's license to do whatever they want. And believe you may, they've done so. They keep encroaching on Palestinian territory, forcing them from their homes, building on that land which really belongs to the Palestinians. And folks, there are 1.7 million Palestinian refugees that have been displaced from their homes by the Israelis, living in concentration camp conditions in the Gaza Strip. For any reason or no reason, the Israelis cut off their water, cut off their food supplies and their shipments, cut off their diesel fuel which they need for generation of their power. You can't do that for very long before they're going to get 1.7 million people per day mad. The excuses. Why? Okay. I mentioned I was in Paul Finley's home. Right. And this voice on the other end with a thick accent wanted to interview a survivor of the Liberty for Israel television. And we carried on a few minutes of conversation and he says to me, why would he do such a thing? And I said, well, we would like to know about ourselves. And again, he says, why would Israel do such a thing? And I said, you're it. Israel, why don't you find out? And tell us. And think there are three reasons. Number one, the massacre of 850 Egyptian troops. Israel is a signature to the Geneva Conventions and by the Geneva Conventions. Captured troops have to be treated with respect and dignity. They have to be fed and housed and water. And that's a violation, a serious violation of their national law. Number two, Israel desperately wanted the Gohan Heights. The Gohan Heights was on the edge of northern Israel. For any reason or no reason, the Syrians would try to out their mortars and their long-range artillery in pound Israeli kibbets as well. There were a lot of them in the sentence, Israelis that were being killed. And I don't blame them for wanting to capture the Gohan Heights. But there's a problem, folks. The Gohan Heights were controlled by Syria. Syria was supplied by the Soviet Union. There were Soviet advisors on Gohan Heights to attack that would invite Soviet intervention. Very well could have been World War III. On the 9th of June, there were, we got access to some of the Israeli battle hires and a plan was to take the Gohan Heights on 8th June, where the USS Liberty shut down and unable to transmit on the 9th of June, the Israelis took the Gohan Heights. And there's one more reason. Last week I got a phone call from a very prominent Jewish gentleman, his name is Dr. Robert Kamansky, a very wealthy guy. He was raised Orthodox too. Not very long in our conversation, he said, Bryce, when he give these talks, he need a reminder, folks, that there's a difference between good Jews and Zionists. And it's a Zionist that are controlling things. Nothing good Jews. He, there's a book out called Operation Sinite. I don't have any copies of that book. It's written by a Scottish journalist by the name of Dr. Peter Thunin. He did a bunch of research into the attack on the Liberty and found out that prior to the attack on the Liberty, President Johnson had called a nuclear alert. B-52s were in the air, armed with nuclear bombs. They approved that. But Dr. Kamansky told me in the conversation, prior to the Six Days War, there was a member of the Israeli Embassy in Washington that visited Lyndon Johnson and the White House. Then took a plane to Israel and visited Washington, Iran. They're in Washington, Iran ordered the attack on the Liberty. The two aircraft that were sent by both the aircraft here at USS America and the aircraft USS Saratoga were launched as soon as they heard our Mayday. They were almost immediately recalled. One of the pilots from the USS America called me a few years back, told me his name and said that he was executive officer VQ-33. That's a fighter bomber off the award of the USS America. And he was the first plane that was launched to Condor A. He said 10 minutes into the flight they were recalled and no reasons were given and he didn't find out until much later what those reasons were. They were ordered recalled by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense. A fellow by the name of Bill Martin was the Admiral for US Six Fleet. And Admiral by the name of Larry Geiss was commanding officer of Task 4-6. That was the fighter group that contained both of the aircraft carriers, their escorts, the USS Little Rock, which is a big cruiser, their destroyer escorts. And Larry Geiss contacted Secretary McNamara and wanted to know the reason for the recall. And he said, I am ordering the recall. And Larry Geiss and Larry Geiss said, I want to hear that from higher authority. That was his right that only higher authority was President Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon Johnson said, get those GD aircraft back on death right now. I don't care if the ship sinks. I will not have my allies embarrassed. How did he know his allies were tacking us? They were using unmarked aircraft, which is a violation of international law. And we did not know who it was. Questions? You probably owed them for what they did to help him become President. Yeah, well. Lyndon Johnson's grandmother was full blooded Jewish. In the War for Independence in 1947, Lyndon Johnson had a huge ranch in Texas, as you all probably know. He was exporting a lot of grapefruit. And there were lots and lots of big old cases marked Texas grapefruit that were being shipped to Israel. A lot of grapefruit. So you also tied 9-11-01 into this, too. The Latin of proper investigation and getting Israel out there and having them say it was something other than the indication of mistaken identity. That's what I would really worry about. The fact that there's constant plans of constantly flying over it all day, obviously, an American ship of that plan. I mean, it was disfhrowers. So do you think that his tent was to be known? Was he a tent just to disable the liberty so they could take to go on heights? Or was it bigger than that? Were they looking to launch a nuclear strike against the covers with fully armed groups? Right. I mean, I would say that basically if they could blame the liberty attack on Egypt, that would pull American to the war we would need. And that could be a valid excuse. False flag. Yes, sir. When you had the, as you were talking about the 9-11 connection, we had the Mosad agents who were filming the Twin Towers coming down, arrested by the FBI, detained by the FBI, and released by the FBI. And then Larry Silverstein's buildings are interesting in the Twin Towers and the building seven. What kind of connections can you draw between this event and the Mosad and the USS liberty? He's just telling this for me. I can't build there. I was a Marine. I'm not that intelligent. So I will build there. I'll lead after the politicians. He's just talking about the liberty. That's enough. Well, it's at the precedent. That's what you're saying. It's at the precedent for what we have today. It allowed them to get away with it like you said, unscathed. Any other questions? Yes, sir. How would you like this to be resolved? That's possible. There has never been a full congressional investigation. In the year 2007, we had a reunion on the 8th of June in Washington, D.C. at the Liberty Veterans Association and the Liberty Alliance. The Liberty Alliance consisted of the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Tom Moore, who was the chairman of the Jochi Stat, Admiral Mark Hill, who was Admiral Moore's second-hand command, Admiral Murtland Starring, who was a senior Navy jack officer. That's the legal officer for the entire department of the Navy. Then he was familiar with the jack shell on TV. He's a guy with all the gold parade on his wrist. Those fellows put together a war crime formal war crimes charges and presented them on June 8th of 2007. Under American law, it is the duty of the Secretary of the Army to investigate all acts of violence against American military personnel. He's required to do so. Never have him. At least a year later, Admiral Mark Hill and Admiral Starring, the senior jack officer, wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Army to man the he looked into it. He never answered the letter. Admiral Starring and I'm sorry, General Ray Davis, a four-star Marine Corps general, there's all on that Liberty Alliance. Ray Davis was at a middle of honor when he were from the Korean War. Mark Hill and Admiral Starring, all those books are dead now. And basically what you're trying to do is put it off until we're all alive. Thank you.