by James Scott
In the case of Gary Blanchard, McGonagle told his family that shrapnel had pierced his back and ruptured his liver and right kidney. He described Dr. Kiepfer’s middle-of-the-night surgery. “He was given copious fluids and two units of whole blood as a transfusion to arrest the shock. There was no lack of volunteers to provide the blood he so desperately needed. Unfortunately his condition continued to deteriorate and no effort was spared to save his life,” the skipper wrote. “You will be grateful to know he was spared pain and suffering during this entire period.”
McGonagle and O’Malley worked alone for days in the darkened room at the hotel, immune from the sounds of vacationing guests who strolled the gardens and the hallways. The letters proved emotionally taxing. At times, McGonagle wept. During breaks, the skipper shared his experiences in the Korean War with O’Malley. He described for the young ensign the excitement he had felt as a gunnery officer, firing on enemy shore batteries from the deck of a minesweeper. The rush of combat had thrilled him. O’Malley soaked it up. The earlier friction between the men vanished.
“I was wrong about you,” McGonagle confessed. “I apologize for how I treated you.”
“Forget it,” O’Malley told his skipper. “It’s no big deal.”
McGonagle tried to add a personal touch to each letter whenever possible, though with a crew of nearly three hundred, coupled with his reserved personality, he knew few of them well. The skipper referred to his men by nicknames—Ike, Dick, and Smitty, for example—and warmly recalled attributes that might comfort the families. He described one sailor’s “agile mind and sparkling manner.” Another, he wrote, had “contagious enthusiasm.” McGonagle complimented the “outstanding pride” one sailor took in the appearance of the mess deck and commended another for being a “competent caterer.” He wrote that one of his young officers “unselfishly let the praise shower down” on his men.
The skipper was careful to use only information approved by the Pentagon to describe the attack. But he refused to minimize the violence perpetrated upon his men or their valor in combating it. One of the earliest letters he wrote was to Weetie Armstrong, wife of the Liberty’s executive officer, Philip Armstrong, Jr. Despite differences in leadership, education, and personality, McGonagle had respected his second in command. “Words alone cannot express my personal anguish at the untimeliness of his death and the great burden it places on you,” McGonagle began. “My thoughts and prayers are with you at this time of need and sorrow.”
McGonagle described Armstrong’s effort to knock burning gasoline drums overboard, which resulted in his death. “He had several bones broken, including three in his right leg and two in his left. He lived for several hours after the attack and was given morphine so he would be in no pain. Despite herculean efforts by Dr. Kiepfer and others to tend his wounds and restore his strength, he passed away,” McGonagle wrote. “Apparently the strain and shock induced a fatal heart attack.” The skipper wrote that the men loved Armstrong, who left behind five small children. “You and the children have every right to be proud of the way Philip performed his duties,” McGonagle concluded. “Philip was truly a leader in every sense of the word in our hour of awesome peril.”
True to his nature, McGonagle did not ignore the Pentagon’s insistence that Israel had proclaimed the attack an accident. But neither did he hold back his defense of his ship or his belief that the Liberty had done nothing to provoke the attack. “The ship was in international waters steaming on its peaceful purpose when the unidentified jet fighter aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the ship without warning. Their fire was overwhelmingly accurate and effective. The ship was virtually defenseless against the hail of bombs, rockets, and machine gun fire,” McGonagle wrote in each letter. “The Israeli Government has apologized to the United States Government for the tragic mistaken attack on USS Liberty. That the ship is still afloat today and has not been required to publish a larger casualty list is a result of the outstanding courage, devotion to duty, and uncommon valor on the part of each officer and man in the crew.”
The skipper concluded each letter with an apology for missing the funeral and a promise that the deceased’s personal belongings would be collected and returned home soon. He asked family members to take pride in the actions of loved ones and told them to please call on him or his wife if needed. He wrote that he considered himself fortunate and privileged to have known and served with each man. McGonagle, who rarely if ever showed any religious leanings, ended each letter with a sentence of prayer, as illustrated by the one he wrote to the executive officer’s wife: “May God in His infinite mercy grant you peace as He shelters and gives Philip rest.”
The personalized anguish of McGonagle’s letters contrasted with the diplomatic considerations the White House applied to its correspondence. Presidential aides wrote thousands of condolence letters to the families of men killed in Vietnam. The White House would mail approximately ten thousand in 1967 alone, prompting aides to create additional templates. The politically delicate nature of the Liberty and the administration’s desire to deemphasize the attack presented a challenge for Johnson’s staff. The three-paragraph form letter used for Vietnam wouldn’t work.
James Cross, the president’s senior military aide, whose office prepared the condolence letters, consulted Harry McPherson, Jr., the administration’s liaison with the Jewish community. “The attached condolence letters, which have been prepared using basic formats approved for Vietnam war casualties, strike me as inappropriate in this case,” Cross wrote in a memo. “Due to the very sensitive nature of the whole Arab-Israeli situation and the circumstances under which these people died, I would ask that you review these drafts and provide me with nine to ten different responses which will adequately deal with this special situation.”
McPherson wrote several possible paragraphs that neither mentioned Israel nor touched on the violence of the attack. He instead refocused the spotlight on the president’s push for peace in the Middle East and how the Liberty’s sailors had died for that cause. “It is my fervent hope that from the ashes of war in the Middle East may rise a new opportunity for peace,” McPherson suggested. “We sought to avert that war. Now that we must help deal with its consequences, we will do whatever is in our power to assure that those who died will have contributed to building a lasting peace.”
Malta proved a welcome respite for the officers and crew after the chaos of the attack and the unease of six days at sea in a crippled ship. While Maltese shipfitters tackled repairs, the Liberty’s crew handled administrative duties. The deck force unpacked twenty-four new life rafts. Sailors stored the Liberty’s machine guns and ammunition below in the ship’s magazine. Others swabbed decks, cleaned filters, and inventoried gear. Officers took turns on watch.
Scores of letters arrived daily from as far away as California and Germany as schoolchildren and adults alike requested details of the spy ship whose existence just weeks earlier had been a government secret. Collectors even mailed self-addressed, stamped envelopes, requesting the Liberty’s canceling stamp. In response to the massive interest, a Malta print shop created one thousand postcards with a photo of the Liberty on the front and the ship’s official history on the back.
News trickled in about the injured, many of whom had left the aircraft carrier America for military hospitals in Italy, Germany, and the United States to begin what for some would be months and even years of physical therapy. Sailors with minor injuries returned to the Liberty and received warm greetings from shipmates. “All our wounded lived and are doing well,” John Scott wrote to his parents. “Ship will be in Malta for another month for refitting. It will be seaworthy—I’ll see to that.”
With the recovery of the bodies and the cleanup of the research spaces complete, the Liberty’s intelligence operators had no more work. The attack had destroyed all the equipment and ended the mission. Less than a week after arriving in Malta, fifty-nine of the spooks returned to the United States and new assignments. Those left
behind felt their absence. “Almost all of the Research people are gone now,” one of the officers observed in a letter. “The ship is emptier than I’ve ever seen it.”
The remaining sailors mustered each morning for head count and announcements. Afternoons were free. Many explored the cobblestone streets, shops, and historic forts of Malta. Others visited catacombs, caverns, and Roman ruins. Sahara Desert winds kept the days warm and dry, prompting men to rent boats and motor out to desolate coves. Using fins, masks, and snorkels, sailors explored shipwrecks in the clear Mediterranean waters. Beer and wine flowed. Crewmembers challenged North Atlantic Treaty Organization soldiers to a softball game one afternoon. The Liberty team throttled them 27–7.
Scott and Painter befriended a cab driver named Shortly, who also owned a bar. Shortly waited each afternoon at the port’s entrance to drive the officers to his bar, where he fired up the jukebox free of charge. The officers listened to Elvis and the Beatles and downed cold Budweiser that Shortly ordered specially for them. Dr. Kiepfer rented a beachfront apartment, where he hosted parties until the early morning hours for the Liberty’s officers and the nurses he befriended at the British Royal Navy base.
The ship’s projector showed grainy movies on the walls of the mess decks other nights, occasionally interrupted by the banging of repairmen. Sailors watched James Stewart’s western Night Passage, Henry Fonda’s nuclear thriller Fail-Safe, and Frank Sinatra’s classic heist film Assault on a Queen. The Liberty operated on shore power in drydock that was weaker than the power the ship’s engineering plant produced. As a result, the actors’ voices were unusually deep, prompting snickers from the men.
The initial euphoria of having survived soon waned. “I just finished counseling one of my seamen. He’s down in the dumps and wants to get married to a British girl that he’s known for two nights. His gal in the States hasn’t written to him in quite a while. He’s all of 19 years old,” Lucas wrote to his wife back home in Virginia Beach. “He’s just depressed and rightly so. What we went through last week was enough to depress anybody. The need for companionship right now is strong.”
Many of the men wrestled with grief and loneliness. Don Pageler wrote a postcard to his parents in Kansas that captured the shock many felt. “I’m O.K. Just a few bruises and cuts. I still can’t believe it happened. Seems like a dream,” he wrote. “Right now all I want to do is come home and see everyone.” Dale Larkins echoed Pageler. “Please don’t worry any as I am all right,” he assured his parents in Nebraska. “The only hurt I have is inside and only time will let me forget.”
Family members noted the sadness. “I guess the delayed grief has set in now for the ones who didn’t make it. Our first reaction was of joy that you were unhurt and now we are thinking of the others and their families,” Ruth Scott wrote to her son. “This sounds silly, but just seeing your handwriting again was proof that you were really all right!” She speculated in another letter that the Liberty “must be a sad place for you all.” “It seems that a week ago’s events couldn’t have really happened and yet I think I have some scars. I guess you appreciate everything now,” she wrote. “It is a strange world. But isn’t it nice to be still in it? I feel that you are indestructible now.”
Some of the men experienced appreciation of what it meant to survive, as one sailor noted in a letter: “it’s still a great joy to get up in the morning.” A British naval officer and his wife invited Patrick O’Malley to the beach one afternoon. O’Malley swam, relaxed, and flirted with a young woman the couple had invited as a blind date for him. The young officer plopped down in the sand and felt the sun on his shoulders. The sounds of other beachgoers swirled around him and for a moment he felt the world pause. O’Malley realized then the awful tragedy he had somehow escaped. “I remember just sitting on the beach and feeling the warmth of the sun on my back and being alive,” he later recalled. “I was just so grateful.”
Sadness and loneliness erupted in other ways, including fights. Scott, Lucas, and Painter stumbled across an altercation in Valletta one night after dinner. A Maltese man shouted at a Liberty sailor in the street. The man charged the sailor, who punched him. Shore patrol and the police soon arrived. Scott drafted a handwritten memo about it for McGonagle. Sailors wrecked a bar later that same night. Lucas described the frustration many felt in a letter. “It’s just not right for me to be lounging around like this, but if I didn’t I’d go buggy,” he wrote. “It’s hard to work, it’s hard to relax, it’s hard to do anything but think about coming home.”
The attack affected everyone, including McGonagle. The rigid skipper, who rarely fraternized with his men, softened. He bought his officers drinks and ignored their long hair and late nights. “The Capt. has changed quite a bit. He is much more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him,” Lucas observed. “He’s calling almost all of the officers by their first names.” McGonagle too longed for home. In a letter the skipper praised his eight-year-old son for helping his mother. He assured him he would be home soon and planned to take the family on vacation to Florida. “Sure hope we will be able to wrent [sic] a boat sometime after I get home,” McGonagle wrote. “Hope you have been winning lots of ball games. The season will probably be over before I get home, but maybe next year I’ll be able to see you play more. Bet you are looking forward to camp arn’t [sic] you? Have lots of fun.” He signed it: “Will see you then, son. Love, Dad.”
CHAPTER 15
Did 34 Americans die and were 75 wounded because of another Pearl Harbor–type communications fumble?
—THE PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND
Israeli chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin picked Colonel Ram Ron to investigate the attack. Ron’s family had immigrated to Israel from Poland in the mid-1920s when he was still a child. He was not certified as a lawyer or judge; he had served as an army paratrooper and later a military attaché in Washington. Unlike the American court of inquiry, made up of a panel of senior officers aided by a legal staff, Israel’s investigation into the Liberty attack consisted only of Ron. Some of the witnesses who testified before him—including the head of the Israeli Navy—outranked him, meaning he would have to pass judgment on his superiors. All told, Ron’s investigation lasted only four days.
Soon after Ron submitted his report to Rabin, the Israeli Foreign Liaison Office summoned American naval attaché Commander Ernest Castle to review the findings on the evening of June 17. A South Dakota native and graduate of the Naval Academy, Castle had served in the Korean War and later on defense secretary Robert McNamara’s staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Navy assigned Castle to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv in 1965. There he worked as a member of a small team of American officers to hunt down intelligence about Israel’s military, a job that often involved such basic tasks as counting ships in the harbor or cruising around in a black Ford station wagon with diplomatic plates.
Castle, who had flown out to the battered Liberty hours after the assault, had learned little more about the attack in the subsequent days. He relayed apologies and official messages from the Israeli government, but any efforts to investigate the assault proved futile. The only promising lead—a distraught Israeli sailor who initially discussed the torpedo attack with his embassy staffer neighbor—failed to develop when the sailor suddenly declined to answer any more questions. Israel refused to allow Castle to interview any of the pilots or torpedo boat commanders nor was he offered any government records. Castle confessed his frustration in a telegram to Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, Jr. “From information available,” he wrote, “it can be presumed that only the IDF knows with certainty the exact sequence of events that led to the tragic incident.”
Rabin aide Lieutenant Colonel Raphael Efrat dictated the report’s findings, translating them from Hebrew to English as Castle jotted down the points. Ron’s probe concluded that a series of several mistakes led to the attack, beginning with an erroneous report at 11:24 A.M. that an unidentified ship had shelled the Egyptian town of El Arish. The Navy dispatched three torp
edo boats from Ashdod at 12:05 P.M. to investigate. One of the torpedo boats radioed at 1:47 P.M. that the unidentified ship steamed toward Egypt’s Port Said at thirty knots. Under standing Israeli orders, commanders could consider any ship traveling more than twenty knots in a conflict zone as hostile, since only warships normally sailed at such high speeds. The Navy ordered the torpedo boats to check the speed again. A second report moments later determined that the Liberty sailed at twenty-eight knots—nearly twice the Liberty’s maximum speed and almost six times its actual speed at the time.
Israeli reconnaissance planes had identified the Liberty early that morning, according to Ron, but when the torpedo boats zoomed in hours later, commanders failed to consider that the target might be the Liberty. “Even if the unidentified ship were thought to be Liberty,” Ron concluded, “the fact that she was reported to be making 30 knots would have denied the identification.” The torpedo boats called in an air strike. When the boats arrived after the air assault, two officers on separate vessels mistakenly concluded that the Liberty was the Egyptian horse and troop transport El Quseir, a thirty-seven-year-old ship a fraction the size of the Liberty and lacking the spy ship’s unusual antennae configuration. The Israeli skippers, believing that the Liberty fired at them, launched the torpedo attack.
Ron concluded that each error was either reasonable or outside the scope of his investigation. He refused to examine the source of the erroneous report that an unidentified ship had shelled El Arish, the catalyst for the attack. Ron also ruled that the gross miscalculation of the Liberty’s speed was understandable after the head of the Israeli Navy testified “that such estimations require expertise.” Ron conceded that torpedo boat officers might have been reckless in identifying the Liberty as a warship because “serious doubts” had surfaced about whether the ship was Egyptian. Despite those doubts, Ron determined that the officers’ conduct was acceptable because the Liberty failed to identify itself, was engulfed in black smoke, and “behaved suspiciously.”