Post-Attack on the USS Liberty–Israel’s Blood Bath

For two hours the USS Liberty was attacked by Israeli jets, and three torpedo boats.
 

After The Attack

On the horizon we could see another helicopter coming at our ship. We thought to ourselves “Oh no, here we go again…more bloodshed from our so-called “friends” in Israel.”

The helicopter hovered above the main deck of the ship and then, to our surprise, dropped a brown paper bag containing an orange and, to our even greater surprise–a business card. On the front of the card read ‘Commander Ernest Castle, Naval Attaché USN’ and on the back of the card, handwritten it asked ‘Have you casualties?’…
 

Helicopter Was Told To Leave

As if the dummies couldn’t tell we had casualties after what our ‘allies’ had just done to us after a million armor-piercing rounds, a thousand rockets and 5 torpedoes. Rick Aimetti took the card to the bridge and gave it to the Captain, who was obviously in no mood to deal with this new lunacy. He told them clearly to get the hell away from his ship, finishing his remarks with ‘We want no help from you.’

They left the area and soon were out of sight.

The Silent Heroes

There were many heroes that day who put life and limb on the line in order to save their shipmates in harm’s way. I found out later that the boiler tenders never left their battle stations, even though the boiler was Israel’s main target. Israel did her homework ahead of time and knew that a direct hit on the boiler would have blown the ship into tiny pieces and that would have been that. For Gary Brummett, J.P. Newel, Gene Owens, it turned out that their bravery saved our ship.
 

Bodies Were Everywhere

The wounded were screaming in pain, bleeding everywhere. Every sailor who could help was doing all he could to calm our fallen shipmates. They had head wounds and bodies full of shrapnel. Lt. Commander Philip Armstrong the (executive officer of the Liberty) was on one of the tables. I stopped to check on him and he asked me to light him a cigarette…I did and gave it to him. He took long drags off it and soon it was gone and he wanted another so I gave it to him. He smoked it the same as he had the first.
 

The Ship's Doctor

Now was the time to care for our wounded, damage control, plugging holes, putting out fires, etc. The mess deck was full of men because we were using it as the main triage center. Every table had a body on it, as well as the deck itself and there was almost no room to move…So many wounded were there, so much blood. I and others were the walking wounded and, judging by what we saw, we were very lucky.

We had two corpsmen onboard and only one doctor, Richard Kiepfer. We kept hoping for help from our government, but nevertheless the seconds dragged on like hours and the hours dragged on like years and soon reality set in and we figured out that we were on our own. The heat of the day gave way to the darkness, which was a welcome change, as the blistering heat cooked our crippled ship, making the smell of blood and death all the more impossible to ignore.

Dying On The Operating Tables

As the night wore on I was told to go to the Officers’ Mess. There I saw Dr. Kiepfer with his life jacket around his waist. Little did I know that his belly had been cut to pieces and he was using the life jacket to keep pressure on his wounds so as not to bleed to death while he tended to the wounded. He never uttered a word of complaint.

My job was to hold a light for Doc Kiepfer as he did his work. While he was working on Gary Blanchard, Gary asked me to take off his socks because he said his ‘feet were burning’. I did as he asked, took his socks off and it seemed to ease him a bit. Doc started cutting him open from his chest bone on down, working as hard as he could, but it was obvious even to me that it was too late. Gary’s kidneys were all shot up and a few moments later he died. This wonderful young man was gone and it was at this point that I began to hate the murderers who did this to us. What did we do to deserve this? This was not the action of a friend, it was like being sucker-punched the way Judas did to Jesus. They had overflown us for hours earlier in the day and knew who we were. We felt safe, and it was at this moment I figured out that what they were really doing was reconnaissance, finding our weak points so as to better kill us.

 The Captain

The Captain stayed on the bridge and would not take any medical help until the crew was looked after first.

Baked On Blood

The gun tubes were full of blood that a fire hose was not going to remove, as the blood was baked onto the haze gray paint of our ship. Blood was streaming down the starboard bulkhead wall. We made are way down to the main deck and finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, our gruesome job was over. What I had just done has been a burden on my soul everyday for 40 years, which by my math is somewhere close to 15,000 days.

Rescue The Next Morning

It is now about 10 am and we see American ships on the horizon. At that moment my body gave out and I laid on the deck…I was exhausted… It was hard to move and I felt relieved that help was there but also anger that help did not come when we needed it the most. Where was my country? Where was my navy? Where was my government? How the hell could they do such a thing to 300 men who swore to give their lives if necessary for the defense of America? My world, my faith in everything that I knew growing up had just been shattered like broken glass, and even though I didn’t know it at the time, this was to be the event that changed me forever, like Saul who, while on his way to Damascus to kill the followers of this new religion known as Christianity, was knocked off his horse, blinded and turned into someone and something new.

Just A Tombstone

Little did I know that my work had only just begun. Now, 40 years later, I am here to tell the story of what happened on June 8th, 1967 to nearly 300 American boys onboard a ship known as the USS Liberty when it was attacked by Israel for nearly 2 hours.

It Relates To The Mideast Today

People may dismiss what I say as the rantings of an angry veteran, but given what is taking place today regarding the war in the Middle East and everything that may happen, my suggestion is that–while there is time, listen, listen carefully to what happened This incident isn't isolated, it likely to happen again, because, as the old saying goes, ‘a leopard does not change its spots.’

Phil Tourney