New USS Liberty Book

[kolnidre]

It's published by the notoriously antisemitic Simon & Schuster, so caveat emptor, but based on this article the author is the son of a survivor and the book's subjects aren't apologizing for the shitty little country:

Deadly attack is personal for S.C. author
Israel's deadly 1967 attack on U.S. spy ship is personal for S.C. author
By JASON RYAN
Special to The State

http://www.thestate.com/local/v-print/story/912862.html
Jim Kavanagh was scraping and repainting a satellite dish atop the USS Liberty when an Israeli plane flew overhead on June 8, 1967. The 19-year-old seaman waved to the allied aircraft before heading below deck to shower off sweat and sea salt.

Little did he know the Liberty was moments away from a bewildering ambush that would kill 34 U.S. sailors. More than 42 years later, the Israeli attack — the subject of a new book by a first-time S.C. author — is a continual source of frustration for Kavanagh and two other Carolinians who survived the incident.

Three days before the attack, war had started in the Middle East, pitting Israel against Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a conflict that would become known as the Six-Day War.

The Liberty, a World War II freighter recently converted by the Navy into a spy ship, was cruising more than 12 miles off the Egyptian coast, eavesdropping on Egyptian war communications. The ship was lightly armed and without an escort, but its sailors expected no trouble as they sailed in international waters.

As he washed himself just before 2 p.m. that summer day, Kavanagh heard a startling rattle from above, like "heavy marbles banging around a metal drum." Bewildered, he stared at the shower ceiling as the rattling started a second time.

Suddenly, a piece of armor-piercing shrapnel flew into his hip, snapping him to attention. With blood running down his leg, Kavanagh ran toward a communications room to join others destroying equipment and classified material.

Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the U.S. ship for an hour, killing 34 and injuring 171 others.

The inexplicable attack by a U.S. ally — and subsequent efforts to sweep the incident under the rug by U.S. and Israeli officials alike — is the subject of Charleston author James Scott's book, "The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship."

In compiling his book, Scott, 34, a former reporter for The (Charleston) Post & Courier and The (Rock Hill) Herald, makes use of interviews with survivors, sailors' correspondence with loved ones, ship records and declassified government documents.

He provides a harrowing and frequently graphic account of the one-sided attack and its aftermath, when President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration was reluctant to publicly challenge Israel's claim that it had incorrectly identified the U.S. ship.

After detailing the attack, Scott spends much of his book poking holes in Israel's claim of mis-identification, as well as highlighting the U.S. government's flawed, shallow inquiries into the attack.

For example, Scott documents that U.S. investigators never interviewed any Israelis about the attack, and that some U.S. officials considered sinking the Liberty to prevent newsmen from photographing its extensive damage and inflaming public opinion against Israel.

Through interviews and a paper trail, Scott repeatedly ties President Johnson's muted response to the deadly attack to Israel's previously friendly relationship with the United States, the strong political influence of Jewish-Americans and the fear of exacerbating the impact of gloomy news from Vietnam, where an average of 26 U.S. soldiers a day were dying in 1967.

The story echoes many of the grudges that some Liberty survivors still harbor about the U.S. government's handling of the attack.

"The only reason this hasn't received a congressional investigation — the only reason — is because of politics," said Kavanagh, who now lives on Pawleys Island and teaches at Lowcountry Preparatory School. "Politics, politics, politics."

'LOOK AT YOUR ARM!'

Kavanagh is among a handful of Liberty survivors who came perilously close to dying at sea that day and now live in South Carolina.

Another is Columbia resident Thomas Lemond, who still has a piece of shrapnel in his lung.

The then-22-year-old seaman was talking with buddies in the bow of the Liberty when the strafing and rocket attacks started. He ran up to the deck and headed toward his duty station on the bridge. Along the way, he ducked down below deck again to conceal himself from the Israeli planes. A fellow sailor stopped him on the way.

"Look at your arm! Look at your arm!" the sailor yelled to him.

Lemond was so excited he didn't notice shrapnel had passed through his left arm. He headed toward the sick bay and, eventually, a makeshift hospital in the ship's mess, where the Liberty's single doctor worked to stitch and save as many men as possible.

Helping the doctor with one badly wounded man was Ensign John Scott, the father of author James Scott.

John Scott and three other men restrained one sailor on a table as the ship's doctor tried, to no avail, to stop massive bleeding in the man's abdomen. The man died on the table, calling for his mother.

"It was like a nightmare," said Scott, who splits his time these days between houses in Charlotte and on Kiawah Island. "Everything was pleasant. Then, everything went to pieces."

The Israelis attacked on Scott's 24th birthday. Though he wasn't injured himself, Scott saw enough carnage that day to know that many dramatizations of war on television and in film don't come close to the real thing.

"It is horrible," he said. "You just don't lie down and don't get up. You get blown apart."

Beyond strafing, rocket and napalm attacks by Israeli planes, an Israeli boat torpedoed the Liberty, killing 25 men and again injuring Kavanagh.

The torpedo ripped a 39- by 24-foot hole in the ship's hull. Seawater instantly flooded compartments, causing the ship to list badly to one side. That forced men like Kavanagh, with additional shrapnel stuck in his legs, to cling to ceiling pipes in the dark and climb their way through hatches to safety as engineers tried to contain leaks.

When the attack stopped, Israel quickly relayed an apology to U.S. commanders, saying it had made a mistake. The Liberty, in danger of sinking, limped toward Malta to undergo repairs and unload its wounded to another ship.

"It was the worst day in my life," Scott said. "I didn't think I would live through it."

'LET'S TALK ABOUT WHY THIS HAPPENED'

Kavanagh spent four months recovering in military hospitals.

After more than 42 years, his wounds have healed, but he's still sore at the lack of closure. He hopes James Scott's book spurs a congressional investigation into Israel's attack on the Liberty.

"Now is the time for people to say, 'All right, let's put this to rest,'" Kavanagh said. "Let's talk about why this happened."

He's not alone.

John Scott calls an eight-day Naval inquiry, convened immediately after the attack, a "joke."

Lemond describes it as a "total whitewash job."

The Liberty's sailors are upset no one was ever punished for the attack.

As James Scott shows in his book, the sailors were not alone in their outrage.

Three weeks after the attack, U.S. Rep. Craig Hosmer of California raged on the House floor that those responsible should be court-martialed on charges of murder.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Abernethy of Mississippi was equally indignant about Israel's claim that its military confused the Liberty with an Egyptian horse-and-troop transport ship, less than half the size of the U.S. ship.

"The (Liberty) was well marked... . Its name was painted on its stern. U.S. letters and numbers were on its bow. The day was clear. And it was distinctly flying the (U.S.) flag," Abernethy said. "But what respect have we shown for it since it was so recklessly shot down by the Israeli attackers? What complaint have we registered? What has Washington said?

"To tell you the truth, this great capital as well as this great government — if it can still be called great — was and is as quiet as the tomb regarding this horrible event."

Despite Abernethy's comments, Congress held no public hearings. To this day, the motivations for the attack still are shrouded in mystery.

Scott doesn't come to a firm conclusion on why Israel attacked the Liberty. But, he reports, senior U.S. officials thought Israel wanted to limit U.S. information about the war's progress. Israel also wanted to preserve an impenetrable line of defense that the Liberty had encroached upon.

Few officials in the Johnson administration, Scott reports, truly thought it was an innocent mistake.

In time, Israel made reparations to wounded sailors and the families of the deceased. Israel also paid the United States for damage to the Liberty.

For most of the Liberty's crew, that isn't enough. They would like a congressional investigation.

"I would like for that to happen, but it will never happen," says Lemond. "After (nearly) 43 years, you have to face the facts.

"I don't knock my head against the wall forever."

Jason Ryan, a former writer for The State, lives in Charleston.

[VoltaXebec]

I think Gary Brummett (Liberty survivor) has endorced this book.

There is no mention in the review that the aircraft were unmarked, I wonder if the book makes this point.

From Body of Secrets by James Bamford, a former investigative reporter for ABC News.

Without warning, the Israeli jets - swept-wing Dassault Mirage IIICs - struck. On board Liberty, Lieutenant Painter observed that the aircraft had "absolutely no markings", their identity unclear."

"In the communications spaces, radiomen James Halman and Joseph Ward had patched together enough equipment and broken antennae to get a distress call off to the Sixth Fleet, despite intense jamming by the Israelis. "Any station, this is Rockstar," Halman shouted, using the Liberty's voice call sign. "We are under attack by unidentified jet aircraft and require immediate assistance."

http://hnn.us/articles/191.html