Cold War, USA Navy: USS Liberty Into Malta Drydock After Attack By Israel
from wiki;
The
USS Liberty incident was an attack on a
(
),
, by
jet
and
, on 8 June 1967, during the
.
The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian
employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship.
At the time, the ship was in
north of the
, about 25.5
(29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of
.
Israel apologized for the attack, saying that the USS
Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship.
Both the
and
conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity.
Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.
In May 1968, the Israeli government paid US$3.32 million (equivalent to US$28 million in 2022) to the U.S. government in compensation for the families of the 34 men killed in the attack. In March 1969, Israel paid a further $3.57 million ($28.5 million in 2022) to the men who had been wounded. In December 1980, it agreed to pay $6 million ($21.3 million in 2022) as the final settlement for material damage to the ship plus 13 years of interest.
