The Liberty Incident Revealed
Page 36
1504
815 to Thorn: Roger, wait.
——— Five by.
——— Roger transmit.
——— Yes.
——— With you
[TR NOTE: Last 4 transmissions are one way communications—All 4 are from same source—other terminal is on different frequency]
185 [sic] to Thorn: We search around and didn’t find anyone.
[TR NOTE: It is believed that Thorn made an error and wanted to call 815. The call sign 185 however has been used by an Israeli jet aircraft (either a Mirage or a Mystère). It is of course possible that Thorn had previously been in contact with 185, but if this was the case there are no COMINT reflections of this activity.)
Thorn to 815: Roger.
815 to Thorn: The big one [the Liberty] is not ours.
185 [sic] to Thorn: How do you read me?
[TR NOTE: Again thorn says 185 vice 815]
Thorn to 815: [CALLS].
815 to Thorn: We searched around and didn’t find anyone.
Thorn to 815: Roger.
———— to Pagoda to 810: Roger.
———— to Tribune: I understand and for the big one [the Liberty]
Tribune to Pagoda: Don’t speak on the channel now [REPEATS].
———— to Pagoda: Five by. It appears to me that I found the men.
———— to Pagoda: Affirmative?
———— to Pagoda: Roger, that’s clear.
———— to Pagoda: Roger.
———— to Pagoda: Negative, it’s not men, it’s boats, it’s not men.
Tribune to 810: [CALLING].
810 to Tribune: Go ahead
815 to 810: [CALLING].
810 to 815: Five by.
815 to 810: What’s going on?
810 to 815: I don’t know anything [1 WD G] [about them] I’ll try to contact them on 186. [TR NOTE: 815 is trying to get in touch with the 3 small ships on 186 frequency]
815 to 810: Are the small ones ours?
815 to Tribune: [CALLING]. Tribune to 815: Five by.
815 to Tribune: pay attention: if any of them are speaking, and if they are speaking Arabic [Egyptian] you tak [sic] them to El Arish [31-03 N 33-45 E] if they are speaking English, not Egyptian, you take them to Lod (31-58 N 34-54 E) Is this clear?
Tribune to 815: Roger.
815 to Tribune: Do you see the men?
815 to Tribune: To whom does the big one [ship] belong?
Tribune: We hear you excellently.
Pagoda to 810: [CALLS].
810 to Pagoda: Transmit.
Pagoda to 810: What are you saying?
810 to Pagoda: Send your report.
Pagoda to 810: What has to be done here?
Pagoda to 810: [CALLS].
810 to Pagoda: Search to see if there are men in the water.
1506
Pagoda to 810: Roger.
———— to Tribune: I understand and for the big one [Liberty]
Tribune to Pagoda: Don’t speak on the channel now [REPEATS].
———— to Pagoda: Five by. It appears to me that I found the men.
———— to Pagoda: Affirmative?
———— to Pagoda: Roger, that’s clear.
———— to Pagoda: Roger.
———— to Pagoda: Negative, it’s not men, it’s boats, it’s not men.
Tribune to 810: [CALLING].
810 to Tribune: Go ahead
815 to 810: [CALLING].
810 to 815: Five by.
815 to 810: What’s going on?
810 to 815: I don’t know anything [1 WD G] [about them] I’ll try to contact them on 186.
[TR NOTE: 815 is trying to get in touch with the three small ships on 186 frequency]
815 to 810: Are the small ones ours?
815 to Tribune: [CALLING].
Tribune to 815: Five by.
815 to Tribune: Pay attention: if any of them are speaking, and if they are speaking Arabic [Egyptian] You tak [sic] them to El Arish [31-03 N 33-45 E) if they are speaking English, not Egyptian, you take them to Lod (31-58 N 34-54 E) is this clear?
Tribune to 815: Roger.
815 to Tribune: Do you see the men?
815 to Tribune: To whom does the big one [ship] belong?
1507
815 to 810: [CALLING] [REPEATS].
810 to 815: Five by.
815 to 810: Don’t leave the vicinity, if you do leave, report [to me].
810 to 815: I’m not monitoring this channel, I’m speaking on 186 with thorn. This is the small ones [sic].
815 to 810: Roger. What should be done?
810 to 815: Search for survivors (whether you find them or not).
Pagoda to 815: [CALLS].
815 to Pagoda: Transmit
1508
815 to 810: Roger.
810 to Tribune: Are you able to go up a little higher in order to see the situation better?
Tribune to 810: Roger.
810 to Tribune: [CALLING] [REPEATS].
815 to Tribune: [CALLING].
815 to Tribune: Are you over whatever you located? [TR NOTE: It should be noted here that helicopters 810 and 815 are now answering control on another frequency]
815 to Tribune: Roger, the first matter to clarify is to find out what their nationality is.
815 to TRIBUNE: Report to me immediately.
1510
815 to Tribune: Roger this is clear.
815 to Tribune: Roger, you watch our [sic] for the masts there.
815 to Tribune: [CALLING].
Pagoda to 815: I understand that the ship is not in danger.
815 to Pagoda: I am not sure that it [the Liberty] is not in danger. Are you suggesting the seriousness of it [the situation], by [saying] this?
[TR NOTE: As heard].
Pagoda to 815: Negative, G.T.R.-5 is written [on it].
[TR NOTE: Letters G.T.R. sent in English]. 815 to Pagoda: Roger. [STOPS].
Pagoda to 815: Does this mean something?
815 to Pagoda: Negative, it doesn’t mean anything.
Pagoda to 815: From behind it [the Liberty] several uninflated boats were seen.
815 to Pagoda: Roger.
815 to Tribune: You take 810 with you and return home, bearing) 070, distance of 6 miles.
815 to Tribune: Five by.
1512
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is clear, did you clearly identify an American flag?
815 to Tribune: Thanks, remain meanwhile over the area.
810 to 815: [CALLING].
815 to Tribune: We request that you make another pass and check once more if this is really an American flag.
Tribune to 815: Roger.
[TR NOTE: Do not hear from 815 until 1327Z]
——— to Tribune: Five by.
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is clear, what kind of flag is it?
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is clear.
815 to Tribune: Five by, remain meanwhile in waiting and we’ll report to you immediately.
815 to Tribune: Is this clear?
815 to Tribune: Take 810, and return home.
815 to Tribune: [Course] 065, distance of 65 miles.
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is clear.
815 to Tribune: Roger, I received. I will notify you immediately as to what to do.
815 to Tribune: Roger.
1516
——— to Tribune: Pay attention
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is clear. According to the instruction, whoever has the 60st [sic] fuel.
1517
815 to Tribune: Roger, I’m checking on it.
815 to Tribune: Pay attention: whoever has the most fuel between you will return home, the one with the least will go to El Arish.
815 to Tribune: Not at the present time. Qpparently [sic] the one who is going to El Arish will return later.
815 to Tribune: Qhich [sic] one of you is going home?
815 to Tribune: Who is going home?
815 to Tribune: Roger, this is known. I Received the notice and it’s known that these orders came from above.
1521
——— Go over to 170 on the way home.
810 to Tribune: He says over to 170 on the way home.
Tribune to 810: Roger.
1527
Jewel to 815: [CALLS] [REPEATS].
[TR NOTE: 815 calls Jewel until 1328Z]
[end of radio telephone conversation]
Comment: This activity had been reported in a condensed version by USA-556 IN ITS 2/J5 /R23067, 082015Z, and follow ups.
Appendix 3
MEMO, DIRECTOR NSA: BRAVO “CRAYON” REPORT, NR2149
This message was sent by the director of the National Security Agency to the White House on June 22, 1967.
Released by NSA on 2 July 2003 pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act Case #40039
22 June 67, 1011.
FM DIRNSA [Director, National Security Agency]
TO OSCAR/PAPA ALFA
WHITE HOUSE
SECRET SAVIN
SIGINT READINESS BRAVO “CRAYON” REPORT NR. 2149
AFTERMATH OF ISRAELI ATTACK ON USS LIBERTY, 8 JUNE 1967
1.GENERAL
THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITY IS BASED ON ISRAELI PLAIN LANGUAGE VHF/UHF VOICE COMMUNICATIONS INTERCEPTED ON 8 JUNE 1967 BETWEEN 1229Z AND 1328Z. THIS ACTIVITY DEALS SOLELY WITH THE AFTERMATH OF THE ATTACK BY ISRAELI JET AIRCRAFT AND TORPEDO BOATS ON THE USS LIBERTY (GTR5). THERE ARE NO COMINT REFLECTIONS OF THE ACTUAL ATTACK ITSELF. [Emphasis added]
2.SUMMARY
AT 1230Z, TWO ISRAELI HELICOPTERS 810 AND 815, WERE DISPATCHED BY HATSOR TO THE AREA OF THE INCIDENT TO CHECK FOR SURVIVORS OF AN UNIDENTIFIED “WARSHIP.” APPROXIMATELY AT 1234Z, THE AIR CONTROLLER AT HATSOR CLARIFIED THE IDENTITY OF THE SHIP TO THE TWO ISRAELI HELICOPTERS BY INFORMING THEM THAT IT HAD BEEN IDENTIFIED AS EGYPTIAN. AT 1239Z, HATSOR TOLD THE HELICOPTERS THAT IT WAS AN EGYPTIAN CARGO SHIP.
AT 1307Z, HATSOR TOLD HELICOPTER 815 TO TAKE ANY SURVIVORS THAT SPOKE EGYPTIAN TO AL ARISH ((31-08N 34-54E)), BUT IF THEY SPOKE ENGLISH TO TAKE THEM TO LOD ((31-58N 34-54E)).
AT 1312Z, THE ISRAELI HELICOPTER 815 APPARENTLY INFORMED HATSOR ON A DIFFERENT FREQUENCY THAT IT HAD SIGHTED AN AMERICAN FLAG ON THE SHIP. HATSOR THEN ASKED THE HELICOPTER TO MAKE ANOTHER PASS TO CHECK “IF THIS IS REALLY AN AMERICAN FLAG.”
THE HELICOPTERS AND THE MTBS WERE COMMUNICATING ON A UHF FREQUENCY WHEREAS THE HELICOPTERS AND THE AIR CONTROLLER AT HATSOR WERE USING VHF THROUGHOUT. AT 1310Z, HELICOPTER 815 INFORMED THE MTB USING CALLWORD “PAGODA” THAT THE SHIP WAS NOT IN DANGER. THE SAME HELICOPTER THEN REPORTED THAT G.T.R.-5 WAS WRITTEN ON THE SHIP AND INQUIRED IF THIS MEANT ANYTHING. THE MTB REPLIED IN THE NEGATIVE.
THROUGHOUT THIS INTERCEPT, THE USS LIBERTY IS REFERRED TO AS THE “BIG ONE” WHILE THE THREE ISRAELI MOTOR TORPEDO BOATS ARE REFERRED TO AS THE “SMALL ONES”. THE HELICOPTERS USED CALLSIGNS 810 AND 815. THE AIR CONTROLLER AT HATSOR AIR BASE USED CALL WORD “TRIBUNE”. THE MTBS USED CALLWORDS “THORN,” “PAGODA,” AND “CRISIS.” THE CALLWORD “JEWEL” IS NOT IDENTIFIED, BUT MAY BE HAIFA.
3.DETAILS
NOTES
Chapter 1. Roll In on Target
1.It is customary for military aircraft flights to be assigned radio call signs. During the June 1967 war, Israel Air Force Mirage IIIGJ flights were designated by radio call signs in Hebrew named after household items. The flight that first attacked the Liberty was designated Kursa, which means “armchair.” Another Mirage IIIGJ flight call sign was Menorah, meaning “lamp.” The Super-Mystère B2 aircraft flights were assigned call signs named after cigarettes. The second flight to attack the Liberty was a flight of Super-Mystère B2 aircraft call-signed “Royal.” The Mystère IV aircraft flights were call-signed after world leaders, “Churchill,” “Roosevelt,” “Nixon,” etc.
The full name of the Kursa lead pilot remains classified under Israeli policy, although part of his name has been inadvertently disclosed. This author personally interviewed the pilot. The Mirage IIIC was developed in France by Dassault with substantial assistance from Col. Danny Shapira, the chief test pilot for Israel Aircraft Industries. Many modifications resulted from his recommendations. Bernard Wacquet, the sales director at Dassault, designated the Mirage IIIC aircraft sold to Israel as Mirage IIICJ. The J stood for Juif, the French word for Jew. Aside from the letter designation and the replacement of the SEPR 844 rocket motor facilities with two 30 mm cannons, the J aircraft were essentially the same as the French Mirage IIIC. Bill Gunston, An Illustrated Guide to the Israeli Air Force (New York: Arco, 1982), 88.
2.The author has been criticized by some jet pilots for writing that the Mirage flew at “nearly 600 miles per hour” in the strafing run. The critics claim strafing runs are conducted at between 450 and 500 knots. As a pilot who primarily flew propeller powered aircraft and never flew a strafing run in a jet supersonic aircraft, I may have overstated the speed of the run. If the run was at 450 rather than 600 it changes the rate of closure from a half mile every three seconds to a half mile every four and a half seconds and increases the margin for error from three seconds to four and a half seconds. I have spoken with Mirage IIIC pilots who confirm that when flying an attack run, they fly as fast as they are able, to minimize the time the enemy has available to shoot at them, and that some have strafed at speeds in excess of 550. It is suggested that the one-and-one-half-second differential has no important effects on the facts of this event.
3.The ammunition load for each gun was about 125 rounds. The total firing time to expend all the ammunition was about seven seconds. Each plane could fire a little over two seconds in each of its three runs. In that time the plane would move almost a half-mile over the earth’s surface and then break away. If firing started just inside a mile from target, it ceased and the plane broke away about a half mile from the target.
Data on the guns and planes from Gunston, Illustrated Guide, 86, and Peter B. Mersky, Israeli Fighter Aces: The Definitive History (North Branch, Minn.: Specialty Press, 1997), 47.
4.Military time is on a twenty-four-hour clock. 1358 is 1:58 p.m.
5.The Incidents at Sea Agreement is unique in that it is not a treaty between nations but an agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Soviet Navy.
6.The 1967 cruise book of the America shows a picture of Rear Adm. L. Geis at a news conference on board the America on June 9, 1967, together with a picture of the briefing board used by the admiral for his briefing. The board indicates Soviet surveillance on June 5, 1967, by DLG 381, a Kashin-class guided-missile destroyer. This destroyer was mentioned in a message from COMSIXTHFLT 022032Z June 67: “3. Soviet Kashin-Class DLG-381 021700 posit 34-24N, 23-37E, course 270, speed 18.”
See also Neil Sheehan, “A Larger Soviet Vessel Follows U.S. Carrier in Mediterranean,” New York Times, June 4, 1967, 4. Sheehan, writing on board the USS America, described no. 381 as a large guided-missile destroyer (six thousand tons) of the Kashin class that had appeared on the scene on Friday, June 2, 1967.
On June 6, the Soviet surveillance was again by DLG 381. On June 7 the Soviet surveillance was by DLG 383, which was identified in Life magazine, June 16, 1967, as a Kashin-class guided-missile destroyer. Life reported that two days before the fighting in the Middle East broke out, DLG 383 sailed through the Bosporus past Istanbul en route to the eastern Mediterranean.
In 1967 the U.S. Navy used the designation DLG (guided-missile frigate) to indicate a large, missile-armed destroyer. In 1975 the U.S. Navy belatedly dropped the confusing DLG designation and began using DDG (guided-missile destroyer).
7.The USS America 1967 cruise book quotes this message in full. See CVA-66 News Release, no. 29–67. The book contains several pages of pictures of various Soviet warships in tight formation with the USS America task group.
8.Phil G. Goulding, Confirm or Deny: Informing the People on National Security (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 146–48; and Jack Broughton, Going Downtown: The
War against Hanoi and Washington (New York: Pocket Books, 1990), 193–210.
9.Goulding, Confirm or Deny, 137–67.
10.Ibid., 145.
11.Ibid., 144.
12.Ibid., 152.
13.The summit meeting did in fact take place shortly thereafter, on June 23 and 24, 1967, at Glassboro, N.J.
14.There are many excellent accounts of the June 1967 war. See, e.g., Randolph S. Churchill and Winston S. Churchill, The Six Day War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967); Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall, Swift Sword: The Historical Record of Israel’s Victory, June 1967 (New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1967); Associated Press, Lightning Out of Israel: The Six Day War in the Middle East (New York: Associated Press, 1967); Raphael Bashan, The Victory: The Six-Day War of 1967 (Tel Aviv: E. Lewin-Epstein, 1967); J. N. Westwood and Edgar O’Ballance, The Third Arab-Israeli War (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1972); J. W. Westwood, The History of the Middle East Wars (New York: Exeter Books, 1984), 80–107.
15.See Benjamin Franklin Cooling, ed., Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, Air Force History (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1990). Brereton Greenhous wrote the section titled “The Israeli Experience.” Greenhous comments on the 1956 Suez campaign, “During Operation Kadesh, the Israelis claimed a sortie rate of better than four per day for their jets and about two and one-half per day for their propeller-driven aircraft. It seems unlikely that the Egyptians achieved a rate of one sortie per day” (p. 501).
This author believes that the Israel Air Force improved its turnaround time between 1956 and 1967 and that the Arab air forces did not. It is noted: “The Egyptian Air Staff had planned that in the event of war with Israel it would have its attacking aircraft over Israeli targets about once every three hours; this allowed comfortably for a turn around time of two hours, with which Egyptian ground staff and pilots could cope; and for aircraft to make two or three sorties a day.” Westwood and O’Ballance, The Third Arab-Israeli War, 79–80. Other experts believe that the Jordanian air force was well trained and capable of more than one sortie a day in 1967. This may be so, but there is no evidence confirming these assessments. One explanation of why the Egyptians claimed that U.S. and British aircraft participated against Egypt was that the Egyptian leadership could not conceive that Israel turned its aircraft around so many times in one day. The conception was based on their own capability, and therefore they believed that other aircraft were involved.