USS Liberty incident

USS Liberty incident

Damaged USS Liberty one day (9 June 1967) after attack.

Date	8 June 1967
Location	Mediterranean Sea near Sinai Peninsula
Result	See aftermath

Participants

Israel[*]

United States[*]

Commanders and leaders

Captain Iftach Spector
Commander Moshe Oren

Commander William L. McGonagle

Strength

2 Mirage IIIs
2 Mystères
3 motor torpedo boats

1 Technical research ship

Casualties and losses

None

34 killed
171 wounded
1 ship heavily damaged

[*]Both nations officially attributed the attack by Israel as being due to mistaken identification.

The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity, though others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.

In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3,323,500 (US$22.9 million 2017) in compensation to the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3,566,457 to the men who had been wounded. On 18 December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million as settlement for the final U.S. bill of $17,132,709 for material damage to Liberty herself plus 13 years' interest.

USS Liberty was originally the 7,725 long tons (7,849 t) (light) civilian cargo vessel Simmons Victory, a mass-produced, standard-design Victory Ship, the follow-on series to the famous Liberty Ship that supplied the Allies with cargo during World War Two. It was acquired by the United States Navy, converted to an Auxiliary Technical Research Ship (AGTR), (a cover name for NSA "spy ships" doing signals intelligence) and began her first deployment in 1965, to waters off the west coast of Africa. It carried out several more operations during the next two years.

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