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USS LIBERTY

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“TREASON ON THE HIGH SEAS”
December 9, 2007

BY PHILLIP F. TOURNEY

SURVIVOR OF THE USS LIBERTY

Part one..

As I sit in my office beginning to write my first article for American Free Press newspaper, I look out my window. I see snow covered peaks, nature at its best in Colorado. It calms me to see such beauty and thank God I’m alive with my family. As I start to write, my heart is beginning to race, my palms are sweating. I’m not as comfortable as I was just a few moments ago. I know all of you know the story of the attack on our ship, the USS LIBERTY, by the government of Israel, but it needs to be repeated.

June 8, 1967 I was a 20 year old 3rd class petty officer in damage control at the time of this sneak attack from our so-called ally, Israel. We were identified as American and friendly many hours before the slaughter began at 2:00 P.M.

The Israeli jet aircraft were ruthless and stubborn in their attempt to sink and murder all hands aboard. They hit every antennae on our ship, no accident for sure. The Israeli reconnaissance aircraft took pictures of our ship in the morning hours, nothing was missed. The attacking aircraft dropped napalm on the bridge of our ship to burn us alive.

Soon after the jets were done with us we see 3 motor torpedo boats approaching our ship at a high rate of speed. We then learned who our attackers were.

We saw 3 flags marked with the Star of David. We were in shock because the Israelis were supposed to be our allies! We had had no idea who was attacking us until then. The attacking jet aircraft were unmarked. The torpedo boats maneuvered themselves into a torpedo launch attitude, now come the 5 to 6 torpedoes. The captain was doing his best to maneuver the ship to avoid sudden death. The torpedoes whizzed by our ship, forward and aft with 1 hitting its mark, almost dead mid-ships, blowing to bits 25 American heroes who stood their ground below the water line and accepted their fate, doing their duty for the United States Government.

The torpedo gunboats were not even close to being done with us. The torpedo gunmen shot at our fire fighters and stretcher bearers, anything that moved. They were shooting at our water line to blow up the boilers inside and finish the job of sinking us.

The captain had given the order to abandon ship, as it appeared we were about to roll over. There were 3 life rafts left that were floatable. We put them over the side so we could put our most severely wounded in them to try to save their lives. The torpedo gunmen would have none of that and blew 2 of them out of the water. They took the 3rd raft aboard their boat, seeing it as an obvious trophy for all their hard work. The torpedo gunmen continued their assault until I guess they ran out of ammunition. They circled the ship and left.

Old Glory was still on her mast, 7’ x 13’ holiday colors. We thought the attack was over. Two Israeli helicopters approached our ship with armed gunmen at the ready to finish us off. They were there a short time and left in the same direction they came. We had no idea why they didn’t shoot at us. We wondered if they were finally done with their murderous carnage on a virtually unarmed ship which only had 4 50 caliber machine guns that had been taken out by the jets on the first pass when the attack began.

Little did the crew know that Terry Halbardier, an ET, got off an SOS from an antennae that was not hit by the Israeli heat seeking missiles because it was taken off line due to a malfunction before the attack. The SOS he sent stated we were under attack by unknown jet aircraft. This message was sent out within 15 minutes of the attack and was picked up by the USS SARATOGA and the USS AMERICA. Captain Tully of the USS SARATOGA sent ready aircraft to our aid only to have them recalled. The USS AMERICA also sent rescue aircraft to come to our aid. These life saving planes were recalled not once but twice. These orders came straight from the White House, first from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and then from President Johnson himself. Johnson said he was not about to attack our “ally”, Israel. How did he know who was attacking our ship when we didn’t even know? Help did not arrive until 18 hours later when the American rescue aircraft could have been there in 15 to 20 minutes driving off the torpedo boats and saving precious American lives.

What remained was a ship with a 40 x 40 foot torpedo hole in her side, 821+ canon and rocket holes, thousands of rounds of fifty caliber armor piercing bullets and napalm that had been burning up our ship. Thirty four American souls were murdered, 173 were wounded, which constituted attempted murder, out of a crew of 294. Two thirds of the crew had been murdered or wounded.

Israel and our government, in this 2 hour attack, had come up with a plan to sink our ship, blame it on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the Six Day War. If this so called accident was so cut and dry, why were all records sealed tighter than Fort Knox? Israel got by with cold-blooded murder and other war crimes and it’s only a matter of time until they do it again, perhaps on a ship off the coast of Iran. Israel controls America’s fate and our elected officials bow to their every whim.

I love my country and will not stand by and let this continue. While there is time, we must do what we can to save our sinking ship of state. In many ways, America today is the USS Liberty after that 2 hour attack taking place 40 years ago. We are badly hit and stand the chance of sinking into the abyss with everyone being lost forever unless something is done immediately. Write your president and congressmen and let them know you know what is going on and you will not fight anymore for Israel. Israel has 300 nukes, so let them take care of themselves. There is nothing, neither in the Middle East nor elsewhere, that is worth one more drop of precious American blood.

The leaders of our country who swore an oath to protect this nation ordered the survivors of the LIBERTY to never repeat this piece of history under penalty of jail or worse. 40 years ago, another nation got away with cold-blooded murder on the high seas, and as an American veteran, let me say this for the record–NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GET BY WITH COLD-BLOODED MURDER, AND ESPECIALLY NOT ISRAEL, NOT THEN AND NOT NOW.

The USS LIBERTY VETERANS ASSOCIATION is offering $10,000.00 to anyone who can disprove that our story is the truth. as of this moment, no one from the pro-Israeli crowd has accepted the challenge.

2007 By Phil Tourney, survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty...




Part two..


2007 By Phil Tourney, survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty

USS LIBERTY

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

December 15, 2007

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?’…

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.

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.

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.

I had no idea how that night would change my life forever, but I was about to find out.

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.

As I was talking to him I thought he would be fine. It seemed to me he would make it, but as it turned out, I was wrong. A few moments later he was dead.

I was shocked and saddened but knew that there would be time to weep later, as others needed help. 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.

Doc put a few stitches in him to keep his insides from falling out all over the place and then it was on to the next person. How Doc was able to do what he did was something not human. It was something from another world, and by that I mean probably from heaven, as no human could have done what he did and I will never forget it as long as I live.

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

As the sun began to rise Captain wanted his ship cleaned up, and for that Rick Aimetti and I got the gruesome duty. We got pressure to our firehoses and began the grim task that still brings me nightmares. Body parts were all over, blood and a shoe with a foot still in it. We had no clue who it belonged to. We did as we were ordered and began washing the body parts of our American brothers over the side of the ship to be forever interred in the sea. Their families would never get the chance of seeing them at their wake…No lock of hair, no goodbye kiss, nothing. The tears were rolling down my face as I did this unholy thing of giving to the sea my friends and shipmates and as I did this I begged their forgiveness.

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.

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.

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. People may dismiss what I say as the rantings of an angry old man, 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–people turn off the Britney Spears, the Desperate Housewives and the football games and listen, listen carefully to what happened, as it is likely to happen again, because, as the old saying goes, ‘a leopard does not change its spots.’

Phil Tourney

Survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and contributing editor for American Free Press newspaper

Last Edited by NoSilence on 02/02/2012 06:10 PM