00:00It goes down as one of the darkest days in U.S. Navy history.
00:04Fifty-seven years ago this week, for reasons still not completely understood,
00:08Israel attacked the Navy ship USS Liberty, killing 34 sailors.
00:12Mike Gooding talked to some local survivors, new at 5.30.
00:18It's like a hot potato. Nobody wants to touch it.
00:20That's a fact.
00:21It's become a forgotten chapter in Navy history on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.
00:27Without warning, Israeli jets and torpedo boats launched an attack
00:31on the unarmed, non-combatant American technical research ship USS Liberty,
00:37killing 34 crew members, wounding 171 others.
00:40Both the Israeli and U.S. governments later conducted inquiries
00:44and issued reports concluding the attack was a mistake.
00:47This was not an accident.
00:49Former Liberty sailors Terry McFarland and Jim Smith
00:52are convinced the full story has still never been told.
00:55And the government's waiting for us all to pass on
01:00so they don't have to deal with the USS Liberty
01:03and the Liberty Veterans Association anymore, and they can just bury it.
01:09McFarland and Smith hope to begin setting the record straight this weekend
01:12when the USS Liberty Veterans Association dedicates a monument
01:17at VFW Post 4809 in Norfolk.
01:20Smith hopes the public can come out and learn.
01:23They haven't learned much in 57 years, so hope is always there
01:27that maybe they will learn and maybe they can learn
01:29and maybe we can teach them.
01:31The ceremony is Sunday at 5.
01:33Mike Gooding, 13 News Now.
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