Pre-Attack Aerial Reconnaissance of USS Liberty

Israel's chief advocate in the United States asserts that while Israeli aircraft may have passed over or near the ship before the attack, these were in fact Israeli transports high in the sky ferrying troops to the battlefield, unaware of Liberty below, and there is no reason to believe that they were engaged in any kind of aerial reconnaissance of USS Liberty:

On the day of the incident, even before the aerial attack, Liberty crew members observed a good deal of aircraft traffic around their ship by aircraft that they presumed were Israeli. As has been mentioned earlier, the ship was observed and positively identified as the Liberty by the Israeli Air Force routine morning reconnaissance flight. On the other hand, since a major War was being fought in this vicinity, it could be argued that not all the Israeli or other aircraft observed were concerned with the Liberty . In addition, the presence of "a ship" off EI Arish was observed and even reported to the Israel Air Force headquarters by other Israeli high-altitude aircraft the Liberty crew never sighted.

The 1982 Israel Defense Forces History Report acknowledges one aerial observation of USS Liberty by IDF forces prior to the attack, shortly after dawn on June 8th, but does not report any other sightings (Source: IDF History Report, pp. 6-7).

These acknowledgments are disingenuous and seek to paint a picture of just a single observation, early in the morning. As the evidence will show, USS Liberty was under almost constant aerial surveillance.

The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry convened to investigate the attack elicited sworn statements from USS Liberty officers and crew attesting to numerous specific reconnaissance overflights in the hours immediately prior to the attack (Source: U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry (excerpts); See also). This does not include the more than sixty sworn affidavits that were taken but not entered into the Court of Inquiry record, including the testimony of the officer of the deck for the morning watch:

I was the Officer of the Deck (OOD) for the 0800-1200 watch on June 8, 1967. During my watch, I observed numerous obvious reconnaissance overflights of USS Liberty by delta wing Mirage jets and by a twin fuselage aircraft that we identified as a Nord Noratlas. Some of those flights were two or three thousand feet high, but several came very close, less than two hundred feet altitude. One of the Noratlas flights came so close to the ship that we were afraid they were going to strike our mast as they flew directly overhead at near-masthead level. On at least one pass the aircraft was so low that the ship's deck plating vibrated noticeably from the sound of the aircraft engines. On several occasions the aircraft were so low and so close to the ship that we could see the pilots in their cockpits. On some occasions the pilots waved as they passed and the crew waved back.

These flights arrived from the direction of Tel Aviv, orbited us at very low altitude, and then flew off. On one occasion a flight of two delta wing Mirage jets circled the ship three times. I was able to see a Star of David marking on the wings of the Noratlas; I could not make out markings on the jets because I rarely had more than a side (wing end) view of those. My recollection was that there were five to eight separate aircraft reconnaissance visits during my watch and a total of thirteen orbits or close fly-bys of the ship. I know there was another reconnaissance visit just before my watch, and one or two more in the few minutes I was away from the bridge during the lunch hour. There is a photograph of one of those flights; the aircraft in the photo looks very much like a DC3 and was unlike anything that visited during my watch.

On several occasions immediately after the aircraft departed, Chief Melvin Smith, the senior analyst on duty, came to the bridge and asked me if we had just been circled by aircraft. When I told him we had, knowing that I was cleared for such information, he told me quietly that our operators below had intercepted the pilots reporting to the headquarters that they were reconnoitering a ship with an American flag.

A State Department Deputy Legal Advisor concluded in a report that there was evidence of no fewer than eight (8) reconnaissance overflights of USS Liberty in the hours immediately prior to the attack (Source: Salans Memorandum, part II).