Remembrance Day: A look back at the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 with 34 dead sailors, including 2 from WNY

BUFFALO, NY — Memorial Day weekend brings an unusual story about an attack on a U.S. Navy ship called the USS Liberty.

It happened in June 1967 and is related to the USS Little Rock, which is now a museum ship in the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park.

Among the many dead that terrible day were two sailors from western New York State.

Today, as we walk the decks of the USS Little Rock, a former Navy cruiser, a tour may take us to a point on board near the ship’s bridge or command area where we can look out over the Buffalo River.

In June 1967, a photograph taken at what appears to be almost the same location on board shows the commanders and sailors of the Little Rock looking from a distance at the badly damaged USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Liberty was a unique naval ship during the tense times of the Cold War, when the United States and Russia were embroiled in a global stalemate with their nuclear weapons.

And the Liberty, armed only with machine guns, was actually one of the Navy’s spy ships in 1967. Historian and museum director Shane Stephenson of the Naval and Military Park explains it this way: “They were able to spy on other countries’ communications. We certainly collected great intelligence with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean at that time.”

The background to this particular incident was the Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel, Egypt and other Arab states, which – similar to today – also influenced international relations.

And back then, Stephenson said, the USS Liberty’s mission was to watch and listen. “It was full of cryptographers – cryptology technicians who can read encrypted texts and messages. And they were parked about 14 to 25 miles off Israel and could potentially intercept Israeli communications during the decisive Six-Day War in 1967.”

But then, on June 8, 1967, for some reason—possibly due to communications problems and the sometimes tragic confusion known as the “fog of war”—the USS Liberty and her 400-man crew were suddenly attacked. And the attackers came from a country supposedly allied with the United States, a friendly country.

Israeli fighter jets, seen in another photo taken on board, riddled the Liberty with cannon fire while shells tore through the ship’s decks and hull. Stephenson says: “When the jets fire, they shatter anything metal that shatters. The other people who died were killed by the jets’ attacks. The metal broke and shattered and hit the crew.”

Then Israeli torpedo boats attacked from the sea. In another picture, one can be seen speeding past the ship. One torpedo hit the Liberty in the hull and had devastating effects below deck.

Stephenson points out: “Many of the rooms below deck were dedicated to radio and radar communications. And it was in one of these rooms that the torpedo hit. And a very high death toll of the 34 ships came from that one room.”

Stephenson said 34 people were killed, including 31-year-old Navy cryptographic technician Frederick James Walton of Niagara Falls, who was buried in a cemetery in Lewiston. Arlington Cemetery records also list 21-year-old sailor Richard W. Keene Jr., originally from Batavia and engaged to be married.

In the end, at least 170 crew members were injured.

The records show that Israel then informed the US embassy that the attack was a mistake.

The Israeli government and military leadership stated that they actually believed the USS Liberty to be an Egyptian ship, even though, according to some reports, it was flying the US flag and had the special designation “AGTR” for “technical research vessel” on its hull.

The USS Little Rock (the large ship now anchored at the marine park, which was the flagship of the US 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean in 1967) and other naval vessels that were not nearby rendered assistance to the damaged Liberty.

Small rescue boats and helicopters transported the dead and wounded sailors and brought medics and other damage control specialists aboard the Liberty. Stephenson says, “They were able to rescue her fairly quickly and get her upright and shored up to get into port and get a full repair done.” That port was in Malta, and other images from 1967 show naval officers and others looking at the damage to the ship.

But the Little Rock’s crew was also on combat alert, taking some of the sailors with minor injuries to their ship’s infirmary for treatment. Stephenson says that was necessary in the opinion of the fleet commanders. “You don’t know if Israel will attack again or if Egypt might now get involved and attack us too.”

Fortunately, there were no further attacks.

Back in Washington, President Lyndon Johnson accepted Israel’s apology. But to this day, accusations persist that the government covered up the situation.

Stephenson says: “A lot of information is probably not coming to light to reassure the families of the victims of the USS Liberty accident. Ultimately, Israel paid reparations. However, the investigations did not go as far as the families would have liked.”

A further search found declassified documents, reports and records related to the Liberty incident.