Forty-three years ago today, a U.S. Navy ship was patrolling international waters just north of the Sinai Peninsula. Tensions in the region had been brewing for decades over border conflicts; just days earlier Israel had launched a preemptive strike on Egypt, which they believed was teaming up with Syria and Jordan to plan an attack of its own. The USS Liberty was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught in the midst of the conflict—dubbed the Six Day War—the technical research ship was just miles away from Egypt's Gaza Strip when it was bombed with rockets and napalm from Israeli aircraft.
Ensuing attempts to radio for assistance were intercepted by the Israelis; yet somehow the Liberty was able to communicate with the nearby U.S. carrier Saratoga, which immediately dispatched 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes. When word of the deployment reached Washington, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ordered the planes back to the carrier.
By the end of the two-hour attack, 34 Americans were dead and 171 were wounded. Israelis followed the air raid with torpedo boats. When the Liberty crew evacuated in lifeboats, the Israelis shot artillery at them.
Israel would later apologize for the attack, claiming it had mistaken the Liberty for an Egyptian ship. Skeptics point out that a seizure of Syria's Golan Heights was planned for the next day. Accidental or deliberate, the distraction stemming from the attack was pivotal in the successful takeover of Syrian territory, which became part of Israel's three-fold expansion by the conclusion of the six-day conflict.
To this day, the Liberty attack remains the only maritime incident in U.S. history not investigated by Congress.
