00:00Thank you. And on this Memorial Day, we have an unusual story about an attack on a U.S. Navy
00:04ship, the USS Liberty, happened back in June of 1967, and it's connected to the USS Little Rock, which is
00:13now a museum ship here at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. Now among the many that
00:18were killed aboard the USS Liberty were two sailors from here in western New York. Channel 2's Ron Plants brings
00:25us this story from the turbulent 1960s.
00:30As we can walk the decks on a tour of the USS Little Rock, a former Navy cruiser today, it
00:36may bring us to this point where we can look out on the Buffalo River. Back in June 1967, at
00:42nearly the same spot on board, Little Rock commanding officers and Navy sailors are seen in this photo looking at
00:49the heavily damaged USS Liberty at a distance in the Mediterranean Sea.
00:54The Liberty was a unique fleet vessel back then in the tense days of the Cold War as the U
01:00.S. and Russia with their nuclear weapons were locked in a global standoff. And the Liberty, armed only with machine
01:07guns, was really one of the Navy's spy ships.
01:10They had the ability to spy on communications of other countries. Certainly we had great intelligence gathering at that time
01:22in the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet.
01:24In this incident, the backdrop was the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt and other Arab nations, which
01:32also affected international relations just like today.
01:36And back then, the USS Liberty was there to watch and listen.
01:41It was filled with crypto texts, cryptological texts that are able to read encrypted writing and communications.
01:50And they were parked off of Israel about 14 to 25 miles and potentially listening to Israeli communications during that
02:02pivotal Six-Day War in 1967.
02:06Then for some reason, perhaps miscommunications and the sometimes tragic confusion called the fog of war,
02:12the USS Liberty and the USS Liberty and her crew of 400 suddenly came under attack on June 8th, 1967.
02:19And the attackers came from what was supposed to be a U.S. ally, a friendly nation.
02:24Suddenly, Israeli jet fighters, like one seen here, riddled the Liberty with cannon fire.
02:30When you have the jets strafing, they're splintering all of the metal.
02:34The shells ripping into the ship.
02:36Those were the other individuals that perished were from the strafing of the jets,
02:41the metal breaking and shattering, and just spraying into the crew.
02:46Then from the sea, Israeli torpedo boats attacked, one visible here speeding by the ship.
02:51One torpedo struck the Liberty in its hull with devastating effect below decks.
02:56A lot of the spaces that would have been down below deck were radio communications, were radar communications.
03:02And that's where the torpedo hit, was one of those spaces.
03:05And a very high fatality rate of the 34 came from that one space.
03:13As he said, 34 were killed, including cryptologic technicians,
03:1831-year-old Frederick James Walton of Niagara Falls,
03:21and 21-year-old Richard W. Keene, Jr., originally of Batavia, who was engaged to be married.
03:28When it was over, at least 170 crew members were also wounded.
03:33Records show that Israel then notified the U.S. Embassy that the attack was a mistake.
03:38They thought the Liberty was an Egyptian ship,
03:41even though accounts say it was flying the U.S. flag with a special hull designation.
03:46The USS Little Rock, with other Navy ships which were not nearby,
03:51responded to assist the damaged Liberty.
03:53Small utility boats and helicopters transferred the dead and wounded sailors
03:57and brought medical corpsmen and more damage control specialists aboard the Liberty.
04:02They were able to save her and ride her pretty quickly
04:05and shore her up to be able to get to port, to be able to have a full repair.
04:10But the Little Rock crew, which took some of the less wounded sailors
04:13to its ship's sick bay for treatment,
04:15was also at general quarters to be ready at battle stations.
04:19You don't know if Israel is going to come and attack again,
04:23or maybe Egypt will now get involved and attack us as well.
04:27Fortunately, there were no further attacks.
04:29In Washington, President Lyndon Johnson accepted Israel's apology,
04:34and there are to this day lingering allegations of a U.S. government cover-up.
04:39But a lot of information probably isn't coming out,
04:42especially to placate the families of the victims of the USS Liberty.
04:49Eventually, Israel did pay reparations.
04:51Any inquiry didn't go as far as I think the family would have liked to have seen.
04:56On your side, Ron Plants, Channel 2 News.
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