The Most Censored Event In American History: The USS Liberty
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 19 minutes
Words per Minute
150.37747
Summary
In this episode of The Refresher Podcast, we have a very special guest, Phil Turney, a survivor of the attack on the USS Liberty. He talks about his life growing up in the 60's and 70's, and how he got into the Navy. He also talks about the events that took place on the morning of December 18th, 1963, and the impact it had on the lives of those on board the Liberty and the crew on the ground. This is a must listen for anyone who has ever heard the story of what happened on that day, and is interested in learning more about what happened that day and how it affected the lives on board that day. We hope you enjoy this interview, and if you do, please remember to leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and we'll get back to you soon with more updates. - The Crew at Refreshers Podcast. - Shoutout to our sponsor, Caff Monster Energy Drink. We are working on a new product, and we're working on making sure it's as good as it can be. We're working with them to make sure they get the best tasting drinks, and it's the best possible ones. Thank you so much to all the support they can get, we can't thank you enough! - Thank you all so much for all the love, support, support and support you all the way through it! We'll see you next week with another episode of the podcast! We're live on Twitch, we'll be back in 7/Social Media: . and we are live on 7/27/19/8/28/19. Thank you! Thanks for listening to all your support is so much love, and thank you for your support, we appreciate it. XOXO - John & Thank you, P.S. & Thank You, Patrons are so much Thank you for all of the love & support, and support, I appreciate you! -Podcasts are much more than you can do it! -PSPODCAST: Thank You! -MRSG - PODCAST - Thank Me, Thank Me Back! - Thank You. P.R. & A LOTS & P.A. - - PSYCH - RGS - , P.B. & RGS - P.C. & PSA
Transcript
00:08:38.000
This is probably going to be one of the most important interviews we've done.
00:10:00.000
We read those chats first and you don't have to donate as much to get read on the show.
00:10:21.000
Worst case scenario, guys, you guys will see us in seven days on Twitch.
00:10:25.000
But we're live right now on YouTube and on Rumble.
00:10:28.000
Just so you guys know, if you guys are watching this thing on YouTube, fine, no problem.
00:10:30.000
But we are going to probably cut to Rumble here in the middle of the show once we get into a certain thing.
00:10:39.000
Alright, so we've got a special guest in the house.
00:10:46.000
Can you please introduce yourself to the people for those that might not be aware?
00:10:51.000
I'm the president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, and I'm a survivor of the attack.
00:10:58.000
And first, I'd like to give you this, if I may, please.
00:11:09.000
It's in honor of our shipmates, and we give this to you in honor of you for Getting the word out, it means so much.
00:11:21.000
I'm going to make sure that people know about this story and they know what really went down on that day.
00:11:36.000
I'm part of the RGS. We have a small, small podcast, not as big as yours, but we fight for the liberty.
00:11:43.000
We do a lot of things for the liberty, so I'm here kind of as Phil's liaison to help.
00:11:49.000
Yeah, and me and you have been in communication.
00:11:51.000
So shout out to John for coordinating the podcast and making it happen, guys.
00:11:57.000
So thank you for coming and obviously setting this interview up, which I'm very excited to get into.
00:12:02.000
So Phil, can you please kind of take us through your background before you got into the military?
00:12:24.000
Yeah, and we did construction, plastering, stuff like that, and I decided...
00:12:31.000
The day I turned 17, I'm out of here because I'm done with this.
00:13:01.000
And then I went in the Navy February the 6th of 64.
00:13:25.000
So, you joined December 18th, you said, of 1963 or 64?
00:13:35.000
Okay, I got to ask this question because I haven't been able to really speak to someone that's lived through the 40s, the 50s, obviously 60s, 70s, 80s.
00:13:43.000
What was it like living in the 50s and the 60s?
00:13:53.000
It was an America that we said the Pledge of Allegiance, his school...
00:14:02.000
We put the flag up every day and took it down honorably.
00:14:07.000
And that was just in grade school, and I spent a little time in seventh grade.
00:14:13.000
It was right after the war, you know, and people were happy.
00:14:18.000
We didn't have any real problems, you know, until Vietnam came along.
00:14:24.000
Well, of course, the Korean War, but that was another terrible war.
00:14:32.000
Because today, nowadays, we have broken families.
00:14:35.000
We don't have fathers in the household like that.
00:14:37.000
Was the nuclear family much more apparent back then, in the 50s and 60s?
00:14:49.000
No matter what happened, you stayed with your spouse.
00:14:55.000
Yeah, more Christian-based, more oriented to working hard, and frankly, playing hard.
00:15:06.000
Well, how would people, because, right, I don't think people remember a time of what life was like before smartphones and everything else like that.
00:15:14.000
But here, we're not even talking about internet, whatever.
00:15:20.000
What were people doing to, like, you know, for hobbies and enjoying themselves in the 50s and 60s?
00:15:25.000
Well, they would go out, they'd play basketball, pick up basketball, we'd play football.
00:15:37.000
And actually TV just kind of, you know, come out.
00:15:40.000
I remember watching the first Mickey Mouse show.
00:15:44.000
I stayed up late to watch it on black and white TV. Wow.
00:15:49.000
And this is what, in the 50s or 60s at this point?
00:16:02.000
Was racism as bad as they claim it was back then?
00:16:22.000
We had all different nationalities, mostly Spanish and black in Denver.
00:16:38.000
Okay, before the civil rights movement in the 60s.
00:16:45.000
So you're saying back then, we could eat in the same room.
00:16:56.000
Well, nowadays we've got Haitians eating cats and dogs.
00:17:11.000
You mentioned that everyone was much more patriotic.
00:17:41.000
Yeah, so I gave him the mud and he put it on the wall.
00:17:47.000
And how long did you do that for before you decided to join the military?
00:18:06.000
Like, there wasn't women in the workplace like it is now.
00:18:08.000
And my dad would leave, like, $10 a day on his table to feed five kids.
00:18:25.000
He told me back then he could buy a car for like 300 bucks.
00:18:35.000
You know, a used one for five, six hundred bucks.
00:18:41.000
and the new i think a new i bought a new 1966 for galaxy for 2200 bucks wow yeah but it was a lot of money back then yeah yeah what what a time i mean Actually, you know what?
00:18:56.000
What year was this when you said that your dad would leave?
00:19:00.000
When you would leave like 10 bucks on the table?
00:19:07.000
I want to see what that is in today's dollars with inflation.
00:19:21.000
$117 today, would you be able to even feed a family?
00:19:32.000
Well, I got to ask this question because I'm really into true crime.
00:19:36.000
When the Zodiac killer was running around killing people, because at this point you were, you know, probably, because you were born, you said 46, right?
00:19:48.000
Did that hit the news all over the place, or no?
00:19:51.000
It did, but it wasn't prevalent all over the news.
00:19:55.000
It was more prevalent where it was taking place at.
00:20:03.000
Well, it was with Walter Cronkite and people like that, but it wasn't...
00:20:22.000
What was the atmosphere in the United States at that time?
00:20:26.000
What was it like having a president be assassinated in broad daylight?
00:20:34.000
I was 16 years old, and that was 1963, February.
00:20:39.000
And when he was assassinated, I thought the whole world was going to blow up, fall apart.
00:20:51.000
And then, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy, and then Jack Rubenstein killed him right now.
00:21:03.000
Back then, like, did people believe the official narrative, or did everyone think it was a conspiracy?
00:21:12.000
Yeah, and then later down the road, you know, they had the people on the hill, the Nobby Hill and the Grassy Hill and all that stuff, and things started coming out.
00:21:25.000
Even young, I never believed it was a guy up there with an old rifle doing that.
00:21:39.000
And we're going to talk a little bit more about, because obviously Lyndon B. Johnson became president after, and we'll talk about that as well.
00:21:53.000
And I guess it was the same people that killed him.
00:22:03.000
And this was, obviously, that hit national news.
00:22:07.000
What about the MLK, Malcolm X, did those hit national news as well when they were assassinated?
00:22:16.000
Martin Luther King got assassinated at that hotel.
00:22:40.000
And people followed him, and they respected him.
00:22:47.000
You don't go around killing people because you disagree with them.
00:22:52.000
It was just, man, you literally lived through...
00:23:07.000
Well, I did two tours in Vietnam before I got aboard the USS Liberty.
00:23:16.000
It was sad because all these guys were going over there.
00:23:22.000
And I was on an ammo ship then, the USS Monarchia, AE-22.
00:23:27.000
And we would unwrap ships out at sea, carriers and their sister ships.
00:23:33.000
But all that ammo and all those bombs were going to kill people.
00:23:39.000
And that's another war we should have never got in because the Tonkin Gulf was all BS. All BS. I went aboard the USS Maddox DZ-731 when I went back to the Navy.
00:23:54.000
That was the ship they said got attacked in the Tonkin Gulf.
00:24:06.000
So you think it was sensationalized just to kind of drag us into war?
00:24:14.000
Would you say most of those wars were pulse flags created to, like, have drama?
00:24:26.000
You know, Bush's WMD and then you got Cheney and, you know, they're out there warmonging for war and And, you know, they killed, I mean, come on, that shock and awe stuff, they killed so many people.
00:24:40.000
It was on, you could see it on TV, you know, it was headline news and everybody, oh yeah, oh yeah, great.
00:24:50.000
Vietnam was bad because, like, you're fighting on their territory with the Viet Cong in the jungles, and they had all these booby traps out and everything else like that, and they got a lot of prisoners of war.
00:25:02.000
I guess, what was the sentiment from the Armed Forces side with Vietnam?
00:25:07.000
I know a lot of guys use drugs to get through it.
00:25:09.000
What was the sentiment like from the Armed Forces perspective?
00:25:12.000
Well, in the Armed Forces, especially in the Navy, you know, we wanted to have...
00:25:20.000
We wanted to support our servicemen, but they didn't...
00:25:24.000
You know, hey, listen, they called us baby killers and rotten people and...
00:25:31.000
Of course, James Calley, you know, he killed those people in the village.
00:25:38.000
But what they originally did with that war is...
00:25:54.000
Draft dodging was a thing, so it was just a wild time.
00:26:03.000
So, I guess what we'll do is we'll just kind of get our...
00:26:14.000
And take us through, I guess, what led up to that fateful day in 1967.
00:26:24.000
Okay, after I got off the Mauna Key, I was transferred to the USS Liberty on the East Coast because I was on the West Coast at the time.
00:26:36.000
And when I got aboard the Liberty, I didn't really understand what kind of ship it was, Myron, because I was just a dumb kid anyway.
00:26:46.000
Because you're what, like maybe 18, 19 at this point?
00:26:56.000
It was an old victory hole ship, World War II. They called them one-wayers because a lot of them got sunk by torpedoes going back.
00:27:08.000
So it was one of the few that survived World War II, the ship.
00:27:12.000
And so they had it mothballs and they refurbished it in Washington.
00:27:19.000
And made it look like a brand new ship with all the electronic gear and everything.
00:27:27.000
It was the most sophisticated spy ship in the world at that time.
00:27:35.000
I think we could pull up a picture of it real quick, guys, of the USS Liberty, just so they could see.
00:27:46.000
Which, by the way, we're going to show you guys their website as well.
00:28:07.000
So yeah, so it was the most sophisticated ship at the time, Best Buy ship, collecting data, probably able to pick up phones and radio communication.
00:28:18.000
Yeah, almost anything you wanted, they could pick it up.
00:28:21.000
In fact, the ship is so sophisticated, they could bounce.
00:28:33.000
Okay, so roughly a year or two into being in the Navy, you got assigned the USS Liberty.
00:28:39.000
Right, and the Liberty could bounce signals Off the moon at that time and have him back to national security agency within three seconds.
00:29:00.000
64 is when the technology got put on there originally.
00:29:08.000
And this was a ship, and you said the information was going to the NSA? Yes.
00:29:13.000
Anything the spies couldn't decipher, they sent it right to NSA. Oh, so whatever you guys collected went to the NSA. Right.
00:29:22.000
So that they can, I guess, deal with the intel product, create an intel product after the fact.
00:29:29.000
Anything the guys aboard the ship couldn't do, and they'd send it back to NSA. You know, and there was a reason for that.
00:29:35.000
They didn't, you know, they wanted to get all that information.
00:29:42.000
If they can't decipher it, they send it over to NSA. NSA gives you guys back an intel product on what they couldn't decipher.
00:29:55.000
That was like engineering, boatswain mates, cooks.
00:30:01.000
So you're like one of the maintenance heads of the ship, keeping it running?
00:30:06.000
Our job and only job, Myron, is wherever the spies wanted to go, that's where we had to get them.
00:30:19.000
I'm assuming everybody that was on the ship probably had a clearance.
00:30:29.000
I probably had a secret clearance and I didn't know it, but to get on board that ship...
00:30:40.000
Yeah, so, like, were you not allowed on certain parts of the ship where they were collecting intel, or could you go in there as well?
00:30:49.000
There was two different ships, or two different crews on that ship.
00:30:52.000
The spies and ship's company, and we didn't talk to each other.
00:31:06.000
These guys were some of the finest spies in the world and they would never say anything to us or anybody else.
00:31:14.000
They took an oath and they stood by their oath.
00:31:17.000
No, they never told us anything and we didn't ask.
00:31:24.000
So, two different groups of people on the ship.
00:31:26.000
You've got the people that are maintaining, keeping the ship going, whether it's cooks, engineers, etc., making sure that the ship is always in good shape.
00:31:34.000
And then you've got the guys that are on the ship collecting foreign intelligence information.
00:31:39.000
Deciphering it on ship, or if not, sending it over to NSA to get an intel product.
00:31:43.000
And you guys both cohabitated, hung out on the ship, but you guys didn't talk to each other.
00:31:49.000
They had their own spaces in the stern of the ship, and the rest of us has ours up front in the bow.
00:32:03.000
Oh, we had chow time, but they sat by themselves and we sat by ours.
00:32:20.000
I was kind of envious because they had it kind of easy.
00:32:30.000
Were they NSA? Were they CIA? Which agencies did they work for?
00:32:35.000
They worked for the NSA and I'm sure the CIA too.
00:32:43.000
They were military too, on top of working for these intelligence agencies.
00:32:46.000
Yeah, the people and the part of the spies were all military, except we picked up one civilian when we got to Rota Spain, but we'll get into that.
00:32:58.000
Okay, so they were all military and intelligence.
00:33:04.000
Like, were they, did you know their ranks, or...?
00:33:08.000
They went from E2, that's a, well, it's E2, it's a low level, all the way up to Lieutenant, Lieutenant...
00:33:20.000
And you, at the time, were probably, like, a E... I was a third class, E4. E4, okay.
00:33:27.000
Well, take us through a day with your MOS. You said you were an engineer, so in a typical day, what would you do?
00:33:35.000
Yeah, we'd go to jail around 6 and muster up 7.30 and then go to work.
00:33:48.000
And the muster, they'd brief you on whatever needed to be done for the day and everything else like that?
00:33:52.000
Well, they wanted to make sure everybody was there.
00:33:55.000
So it's like taking attendance and then give any news or anything else that needed to be done?
00:34:00.000
And we got certain jobs we were supposed to take care of, which we did.
00:34:08.000
I started out in the boiler room and machinist mate.
00:34:15.000
Yeah, we had the old boilers, you know, and it was hot.
00:34:19.000
I decided I wanted to get out of there and go up topside.
00:34:32.000
And then you went up to the top side and you said you were doing...
00:34:39.000
Welding and taking care of shipboard water, potable water, and salt water.
00:34:47.000
The engineers in the engine room would do that.
00:34:51.000
They'd salinate the water and keep the boulders going and things like that.
00:34:55.000
Okay, so general ship maintenance in that regard.
00:34:59.000
Okay, and so, all right, so you wake up, you sit around five, chow, muster up around 7.30, work during the day.
00:35:11.000
Well, it just depending if we were to stand and watch.
00:35:20.000
And then four hours later, you go on another watch.
00:35:29.000
So you would work at four-hour spurts, and then you go watch.
00:35:35.000
Can you describe to the audience what being on watch means?
00:35:50.000
My watches were still down in the engine room because I knew what I was doing down there.
00:35:55.000
I'd go down there and be a machinist mate, and that's taking care of the salination and all the water supply and the propulsion of the ship, main control, and that's what we would do for four hours.
00:36:18.000
So were you never able to like go to bed for more than like four hours?
00:36:22.000
No, we would have sometimes a full eight hours.
00:36:28.000
Like if you had the mid-watch, they let you sleep in an extra hour.
00:36:32.000
That's from, you know, midnight to four, and they give you an extra hour to sleep and then go back to work.
00:36:40.000
So watch is basically like, I guess, being on watch for whatever MOS you had already.
00:36:45.000
Making sure that you maintaining the ship at all times because, you know, obviously the 24-7 operation, right?
00:36:52.000
And you guys are, I'm assuming, out in the middle of the sea just collecting information, so it's not like you guys are close to shore, right?
00:36:57.000
No, we were always out to sea, far away, not far away, but staying in international waters.
00:37:07.000
In fact, our normal cruising was from Norfolk to Africa.
00:37:28.000
We usually did three months, three and a half months, and come back, and then need to refit the ship, make sure everything's good, and go back out again.
00:37:40.000
That was our normal steaming, up and down the coast, up and down the coast, about five knots.
00:37:46.000
Picking up signals out of the air is perfectly legal.
00:37:51.000
Because you're in international waters at this point.
00:37:55.000
So, and I'm assuming it's not like you guys were rushing to get to Africa.
00:37:59.000
It's just like you guys would kind of be out there in the water, collect, collect, collect.
00:38:02.000
Okay, let's keep pushing, collect, collect, collect.
00:38:04.000
But typically it would be three months, you'd be in Africa.
00:38:07.000
And then you said, how long would you guys stay in Africa before you went back to Virginia?
00:38:15.000
All right, so three months out, get to Africa, three months at Africa, and then three months back.
00:38:24.000
So we're talking like nine months, almost a year, to do a full rotation.
00:38:28.000
While you're sailing on the water, do any countries approach you to ask what you're doing in their waters at all?
00:38:36.000
We operated alone, and we would see different ships, Russian ships or other different nations, but we weren't harassed by them or anything like that.
00:38:49.000
They're picking up signals out of the side, seeing what they could figure out.
00:38:59.000
And literally, like, just you guys for a couple months, your most on and off.
00:39:06.000
Like, is there, like, things you can do on the ship?
00:39:07.000
For example, maybe, like, games you can play, things you can do.
00:39:10.000
Yeah, how did you guys pass the time when you weren't working, I guess, or on watch?
00:39:27.000
It was called a bad omen if you had women aboard ship.
00:39:46.000
Well, and a support roll, you know what I mean.
00:39:48.000
So, women were never on the ship with you guys, at least back then.
00:39:52.000
They didn't start that until back in the 80s, I think, something like that.
00:39:57.000
Were women even allowed in the military at this point?
00:40:04.000
And most of it was clerical, you know, like corpsmen.
00:40:07.000
Yeah, or yeoman, you know, typing and stuff like that.
00:40:12.000
Yeah, they didn't do anything that could be combat related or anything like that.
00:40:22.000
Because I wanted the audience to really understand what his duties were, etc.
00:40:25.000
Because then the story's going to make sense when he starts talking about what happened.
00:40:29.000
He was definitely there, and he was sort of fully in the military as well.
00:40:34.000
Anything you guys got before we go off YouTube and get on the, go into the, like, obviously June 8th?
00:40:40.000
All right, so guys, come on over to Rumble, rumble.com.
00:40:42.000
We're going to go into June 8th, 1967, a very important day, a very tragic day.
00:40:56.000
Which we'll still have the green banner on for the people.
00:41:02.000
We'll still be live on YouTube, but they're going to switch on over.
00:41:30.000
Okay, I'd like to start by saying first, we left port to go to Africa, our normal steaming.
00:41:43.000
We went to Abidjan to get off ship, go on liberty, have some beer or whatever.
00:41:55.000
And around, I don't know, 10.30 or 11.30, all hell broke loose.
00:42:03.000
And the captain says, get everybody aboard back ship.
00:42:12.000
And they said, get everybody back aboard ship now.
00:42:23.000
You had been there for literally not even 24 hours in Africa.
00:42:26.000
And they're like, hey, get everybody back on the ship.
00:42:34.000
For parts unknown, we didn't know where we were going.
00:42:40.000
They took the governors off the main control, which is the engines, to make it go 18 and a half knots.
00:43:04.000
Okay, because I'm assuming you guys are in Western Africa, right?
00:43:15.000
So let's see if we can pull up a map here real fast.
00:43:18.000
I think that'll probably be better, just so we can give the audience a visual representation.
00:43:26.000
And then we got that picture of the USS Liberty too, right?
00:43:39.000
Which, you know, obviously for the 60s, very sophisticated.
00:43:45.000
There's a theory that the US government has a lot of advanced technology way before we get it as the public.
00:44:02.000
He's sending a bunch of pictures of the damages.
00:44:08.000
So yeah, so we can kind of like know where they were and then where they were sailing.
00:44:16.000
Because in my head, it sounds like you guys kind of sailed towards Italy?
00:45:08.000
So, basically, but you guys were over here, let's say Cape Verde, just to keep it simple.
00:45:14.000
And then they told you to get back on the ship, and you guys went and you sailed around the top.
00:45:20.000
So you guys were passing Morocco, Tunisia, etc.
00:45:24.000
We went right through the rock of Gibraltar, Myron, and headed into the Mediterranean.
00:45:30.000
So you guys were headed towards the Mediterranean Sea.
00:45:43.000
And then we thought, well, something is going on here real bad.
00:46:08.000
Okay, so just so I can make sure I have this right.
00:46:14.000
And then you said on June 5th, you guys, is the reason why you guys got out of there on June 2nd, like they picked up radio transmission of an impeding war coming?
00:46:25.000
And the six-day war, if I'm not mistaken, this is between Israel and Egypt.
00:46:39.000
But the beginning of the Six-Day War was starting.
00:46:41.000
And you guys picked up this intel, so you guys started heading that way.
00:46:51.000
We had like on the 7th when we knew what was going on.
00:46:57.000
Because it took you a few days to get out there.
00:46:58.000
So it took about five days to get to the Mediterranean Sea.
00:47:09.000
We picked up two, excuse me, three marine linguists.
00:47:48.000
So you pick these, what, three or four individuals up, and then you guys continue on towards the Mediterranean?
00:47:59.000
The captain of the ship, Captain William McGonagall, He asked the Sixth Fleet or higher-ups for a destroyer escort.
00:48:15.000
The individual that requested this, was he like the highest chain of command individual on board?
00:48:24.000
And then the second or third in command was David Lewis.
00:48:52.000
Because you guys knew that you were going into a hostile area.
00:48:58.000
So let me just make sure I get this straight just for the audience.
00:49:01.000
You guys landed in Africa on or about June 2nd.
00:49:05.000
Not even 24 hours there, they're like, we gotta hightail it, because you guys got word that there's probably a potential conflict going on in the Middle East between Israel and these Arab countries.
00:49:13.000
You guys go to Spain, pick up four individuals, linguists, three linguists, Arab, and then one Russian, and then you guys request assistance with a warship escort as you get further into the Mediterranean, and they denied you.
00:49:28.000
You guys don't have the same capabilities of defending yourself as a warship, right?
00:49:34.000
The only thing we had a defense was.450 caliber machine guns.
00:49:39.000
So that explains why you guys wanted the support.
00:49:42.000
Now, at this point, what date is it when they denied you guys this warship escort?
00:49:57.000
Were you guys in Spain when you got this information or were you guys already back going towards the Mediterranean at this point?
00:50:06.000
They said you had an American flag, so you were fine?
00:50:34.000
I mean, it was sunny, sunny, beautiful days all the way there.
00:50:39.000
On the 7th of June, and I wanted to tell you guys about this.
00:50:45.000
Everybody aboard the ship had written, not everybody, but you could see stars of David.
00:50:54.000
People would paste up because we knew that the Arabs were fighting the Israelis, or I should put it, the Israelis were fighting the Arabs.
00:51:18.000
Israeli reconnaissance aircraft, smaller aircraft, you know, and then a flying boxcar, which is a two-engine plane, and it would come very low.
00:51:35.000
We'd wave back and we thought, hey man, our buddies are here to help us if anything happens, you know.
00:51:42.000
And then we get on the 8th, the same thing happened again.
00:51:47.000
You could see the bombs dropping, black smoke, and it was, you know, everything.
00:51:53.000
How far were you guys from Egypt at this point?
00:52:05.000
Because of the nature of the ship and what you guys were doing since you were a spy ship.
00:52:12.000
So, you're in international waters, but you're seeing the conflict going on between Israel and Egypt.
00:52:30.000
So they knew, and you guys had the American flag on there.
00:52:34.000
And in their headquarters, they identified us as American and friendly.
00:52:44.000
So they knew who we were on the 7th and the 8th.
00:52:51.000
Was the 7th the first time that you guys got contact with the Israelis?
00:52:58.000
I mean like the first time you guys had saw each other was the 7th.
00:53:02.000
So, just going back real quick so I make sure I understand this because obviously things are going to pick up here.
00:53:13.000
They say no, but you guys head on there anyway.
00:53:15.000
You guys get to about 12.5 miles out from Egypt, but you guys are still in international waters.
00:53:22.000
Recon aircraft from Israel sees you guys, and you guys are assured from your chain of command that Israel knows that you guys are friendlies.
00:53:31.000
And I'm assuming this is the same chain of command that denied you guys the warship escort before.
00:53:38.000
So, this is on June 7th, and then on June 8th you said they passed by again, the recon ships.
00:53:43.000
Yeah, for about four hours in the morning, over and over again.
00:53:49.000
So you wake up, what time, and then we can just go through the whole day.
00:53:54.000
Okay, we get up, and we muster, and it was just like any other day.
00:54:10.000
And our ship was, if you weren't working, you could go up on deck and sunbathe and do anything you wanted to.
00:54:22.000
On the deck, because we did it all the time, going up, you know, down to Africa.
00:54:27.000
And we continued that, because it was just what we did.
00:54:34.000
Now, out of curiosity, they rushed you guys from Eastern Africa and you guys went all the way around towards Egypt because this conflict was going on between Israel and the Arab states.
00:54:47.000
Were you guys there to, I guess, collect intelligence as the main reason they wanted you so close to the action?
00:54:53.000
David Lewis, in one of his interviews, he was a head spy there, Myron.
00:55:03.000
And he was ordered any Arabic, excuse me, any Hebrew or UK Message, you were supposed to drop it immediately.
00:55:24.000
So you guys could not collect on our allies, I guess?
00:55:28.000
That's what he was told, and that's what he told us.
00:55:42.000
You guys think it's all good because, obviously, Israeli aircraft had passed by.
00:55:48.000
The day before, your chain of command assures you, you guys are fine.
00:55:51.000
Israel's aware that you guys are there and you guys are friendlies.
00:55:54.000
So you guys are there collecting information, presumably collecting on the Arabs to share with the Israelis.
00:55:59.000
So you guys were there in a support function for Israel.
00:56:03.000
And guys were even chilling out, sunbathing, right?
00:56:11.000
You said you mustered up, it was a regular work day, and then what?
00:56:17.000
About, oh, 11.30, 12 o'clock, they had a general quarter station.
00:56:23.000
And what that is, is you go to the general quarters, and we would do certain drills.
00:56:28.000
You know, it could be, on this particular day, it was a chemical attack.
00:56:34.000
And I was assistant on-scene leader in the forward repair party.
00:56:40.000
And I was wearing an impregnated suit pretending we were washing down the ship with fire gear, fire hoses.
00:56:51.000
Okay, so you were wearing almost like a fireman's outfit during the training exercise of a simulation of if the ship was on fire.
00:56:59.000
No, this is a chemical drill in case we got chemicals dropped on us.
00:57:07.000
And this went on for probably, I don't know, 45 minutes.
00:57:37.000
Maybe a little before that, but the sound pyrophones were working in the forward gun mount on the starboard side.
00:57:48.000
So it was my obligation to make sure those phones worked.
00:57:53.000
So I got an IC man to come up there, David Skolak, young guy, beautiful young guy, and also Hal Thompson was there.
00:58:06.000
So after you finished the biological chemicals, biological attack training, you focused on, now we gotta fix the phones, or make sure that they're up to par.
00:58:15.000
Right, they weren't working, it was right in the gun mount.
00:58:18.000
Random question, but did you guys eat lunch yet at this point, or no?
00:58:23.000
So, lunch, Mustard, work, lunch, chemical training, and then now you're repairing the phones.
00:58:34.000
And I was talking to David Skolak, and I said, hey, you know, this would be a hell of a bad place to be in if we ever got attacked.
00:58:56.000
Yeah, it was right down below on the gun tub where you hook them in.
00:59:11.000
How long had the phones been down before you guys actually brought it to your attention and you said you were going to fix them?
00:59:22.000
Literally, the training exercise you guys had just done?
00:59:34.000
I got Skolak out of the IC shop, and that was his job, to take care of the sound-powered phones and the communications.
00:59:40.000
And you said the phones were right next to the guns?
00:59:44.000
When you try to make a phone call, you better not be using the guns at the same time.
00:59:49.000
There were headsets with a little thing on, and they were sound powered, not electrical.
01:00:01.000
And that's when I said, this would be a hell of a bad place to be if we got attacked.
01:00:20.000
Mid-ships, we had one on the port and starboard as well.
01:00:25.000
The metal on those things was only about that thick around the tub.
01:00:30.000
So I said, well, I guess I'm going to go back to my duty station.
01:00:42.000
It wasn't 30 seconds after I got my workstation.
01:00:58.000
You notice, hey, I need to go back to my station to get some other equipment and materials?
01:01:03.000
You literally get in to your station, and then you start hearing crazy shit.
01:01:14.000
What was the first thing you heard, yeah, when you got back over there?
01:01:16.000
Well, the first thing I heard, first they said over the 1MC, they tested the boats every day to make sure the engines work and everything.
01:01:36.000
And I thought, oh shit, they blew up the whale boat.
01:01:42.000
And the whale boat, just so I make sure I understand this, is that like one of the escape boats, like the smaller boats on the side, emergency boats?
01:01:54.000
So if, God forbid, something happens, you guys get attacked or something like that, you have boats that you can kind of escape on.
01:02:03.000
Well, I thought it was, yeah, I thought that one of the engine men blew it up.
01:02:09.000
So I started to go out there and see what was going on.
01:02:12.000
And this first-class niece, he was a chief a little bit later, he grabbed me by the neck, shirt, and he says, man, we're under attack.
01:02:24.000
So I started running down to my repair station.
01:02:28.000
And as I went down the ladder to the mess decks, I fell completely down the ladder.
01:02:43.000
There were so many men running, trying to get to their duty stations.
01:02:48.000
And I'm assuming, when you say duty stations, this is the station that, if you're ever under attack, this is where you need to go to and do this job.
01:02:56.000
Everybody has a general quarters station they have to go to.
01:03:00.000
And I rolled to my right, and when they quit running, I got up and went to my repair party forward.
01:03:09.000
It was a repair party forward, too, and I was an assistant on-screen leader, firefighter.
01:03:27.000
And everyone else, I'm assuming, is scrambling to get to their duty stations.
01:03:30.000
Because there's a protocol when you're under attack, everyone needs to do XYZ. Right now.
01:03:36.000
And that's what we all did, except the ones that were already getting shot at.
01:03:44.000
So you fall down the ladder, or you fall on your back, you get up, and then what?
01:04:02.000
All you can hear is rockets and cannons hitting us.
01:04:11.000
You could see they had big holes coming through the top.
01:04:15.000
You could see sunshine coming through the deck all over.
01:04:24.000
So you could see literally cratering holes and the sun was coming through.
01:04:29.000
This is what, just not even a minute or two after you heard the first explosion?
01:04:34.000
They took out every tuning antenna on that ship.
01:04:40.000
And every watertight door above the waterline in three seconds.
01:04:47.000
There was only one antenna that was taken offline by Terry Haldebardier because it wasn't sending signals.
01:04:59.000
They had heat-seeking missiles and they knocked them all out.
01:05:23.000
The 6th Fleet picked it up, but I might add, all five of our distress signals were jammed.
01:05:34.000
The only time we could get a signal, not our Terry did, was when they were firing the rockets and they couldn't jam.
01:05:47.000
Captain Tully, which he was a friend of mine, he came to a couple of our reunions.
01:05:58.000
Even before they hit the horizon, they were recalled by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense.
01:06:19.000
Okay, so they were also in the Mediterranean, these ships.
01:06:22.000
And I'm assuming these were warships, not intel ships.
01:06:27.000
The same warships that you guys wanted to escort you.
01:06:29.000
Yeah, we needed something, but they wouldn't help us.
01:06:32.000
But they sent the help, and they were recalled again, and they went to a higher authority.
01:06:43.000
He says, I don't give a GD. If a bunch of sailors die, I'm not going to embarrass my ally, Israel.
01:06:55.000
They were Mystere and Mirage jets, French made.
01:07:03.000
How did Johnson know who was attacking us if we didn't?
01:07:15.000
Luckily, the message was able to get out to the warships that you guys were under attack.
01:07:19.000
Because one of the antennas was still, I guess, up.
01:07:25.000
So thank God we had one more antenna left and you guys were able to do that.
01:07:40.000
McNamara first, and then they went to the next higher authority and requested somebody else.
01:08:08.000
So, when you guys were getting attacked, what was going through your head when you guys were getting attacked?
01:08:14.000
Who did you think was attacking you at that moment?
01:08:16.000
We thought it was Arabs because we didn't know.
01:08:20.000
It was the IDF. They blacked the markings out on their airplanes.
01:08:33.000
Okay, the distress signal from you guys, from Rockstar to everybody else's, we're getting attacked by unidentified aircraft.
01:08:41.000
Wouldn't they care about the spies on the boat for the intel that they have?
01:08:46.000
Wouldn't he want the intel, the president, from the spies or no?
01:08:51.000
Well, I don't think he cared about the intel or anything else.
01:08:55.000
I think, well, to put it bluntly, we were set up by our own government to be slaughtered.
01:09:22.000
Yeah, we had rockets and cannons and the attack lasts about 25 minutes with the aircraft.
01:09:32.000
Were you able to get to your station and do what you needed to do?
01:09:39.000
That 25 minutes, what were you doing the whole time?
01:09:41.000
I was on the main deck pulling sailors off, throwing them into hatches, getting them at least off the deck.
01:10:03.000
So you're pointing out fires and grabbing sailors and putting them in safety.
01:10:39.000
They send the torpedo boats out, three of them.
01:10:44.000
They got in a torpedo launch attitude about a thousand yards out.
01:11:04.000
It hit right in the research bases where all the spies were.
01:11:16.000
There were some that made it out of there by the grace of God.
01:11:20.000
Do you think the spies had intel that would have exposed somebody?
01:11:30.000
Larry Bowen, he was a spy, and he was talking to a friend of his about there's a target that's going to be hit.
01:12:00.000
But they were told, they instructed to not keep listening, right?
01:12:06.000
Well, I don't think he did, because he told Larry that there is a target, and it was very sensitive, but he didn't know what the target was, and it was us, man.
01:12:22.000
Then the torpedo boats got there, and they hit the Star of David on them, and we thought they would come to help us.
01:12:29.000
Okay, so that's when you guys finally realized who was attacking you.
01:12:34.000
First we thought, oh God, our best friends are here, man.
01:12:45.000
It picked the ship completely up out of the water.
01:12:48.000
Myron, and it took it up, slammed it back down, and we went to about a...
01:12:55.000
I'm really trying to have the audience envision being there.
01:12:58.000
I'm imagining here, you just suffered 25 minutes of being bombed to fucking hell by these jets.
01:13:26.000
Oh my god, it sounded an explosion like you can't believe.
01:13:32.000
Do you hear it when it's fired or do you only hear it when it makes contact?
01:13:38.000
Because it flies through the water, so obviously silent.
01:13:52.000
And when it hit, like I say, I thought we were going to roll over and sink.
01:13:57.000
Did you, like, get knocked on the floor when it hit the ship?
01:14:00.000
No, actually, I went into a torpedo launch attitude where you put your hands on the bulkhead wall and bend your knees to keep the shock from...
01:14:11.000
Okay, so you have to hold on to the wall and then you like crouch?
01:14:20.000
I mean, I didn't know if I was going to die or not.
01:14:23.000
And I'm assuming they train you to, that's how you brace for impact when it hits you.
01:14:31.000
What is the captain doing and saying to you guys?
01:14:36.000
Well, the captain, the 1MC wasn't working very well.
01:14:40.000
That's the communications, shipboard communications.
01:15:02.000
Things would go, this is happening, this is happening.
01:15:06.000
And I might add that the airplanes dropped napalm on us.
01:15:50.000
So when the first one hit, did you even feel it?
01:15:53.000
Because you said it was right above, it was like one deck below you where it got hit.
01:15:57.000
Did you get knocked on your ass or what happened?
01:16:14.000
Do you think the ship would have been able to withstand another torpedo hit like that?
01:16:19.000
You said that the ship rose up out of the water when it got hit?
01:16:43.000
Came up alongside of us with 50 caliber machine guns and shot everything that moved.
01:16:51.000
Now this attack lasts for an hour and a half with the torpedo boats.
01:16:57.000
So they shot five torpedoes and they're using machine guns to shoot at you guys?
01:17:03.000
And finally the old man got communications and he says, prepare to abandon ship.
01:17:13.000
And he's saying this on a loudspeaker, I'm assuming, right?
01:17:26.000
Because I remember you said that you were fixing the phones that were near them.
01:17:28.000
No one was able to jump on those gunners and shoot back.
01:17:41.000
On midships, they were on fire, especially on the starboard side.
01:17:45.000
And they probably got blown up when the planes were hitting you guys.
01:17:49.000
So by the time the ships came to torpedo you guys, you guys couldn't even defend yourselves anymore?
01:18:05.000
So you guys get assaulted for two hours by Aaron C., You guys have absolutely no way to defend yourselves.
01:18:14.000
Not one shot was shot back at these fucking Israelis at all.
01:18:32.000
We were going to put them in the water, which we did, to put our most seriously wounded in so they'd have a chance to live.
01:18:43.000
As soon as we put the lifeboats over, they shot two of them out of the water and took one aboard the boat as the trophy of the kill, which is a war crime.
01:19:04.000
And then the second one you said they took them?
01:19:08.000
Took them aboard the boat as the trophy of the kill.
01:19:17.000
No, we never did get any sailors in them because they immediately shot them up and then took the other one with them.
01:19:24.000
Okay, so the one that did have sailors in it, that made it to the water, they shot that one up, killed them all.
01:19:41.000
Okay, so no one even got in either ship, or sorry, either lifeboat.
01:19:45.000
The moment they dropped them, they got shot up.
01:19:48.000
Yeah, the moment they got dropped them, they got shot up.
01:19:58.000
And then, did any sailors, you said sailors died when they were trying to get in?
01:20:06.000
We were going to bring our most seriously wounded up.
01:20:10.000
But the men that were still on deck, including myself, they were shooting.
01:20:22.000
And one of my dear friends I used to play poker with and go on the beach, drink beer, shoe pool, Francis Brown, he was the helmsman.
01:20:35.000
And I looked at him, and we didn't say a word to each other.
01:20:45.000
I went down to get more CO2. I came back and he was dead as a nail.
01:21:04.000
So obviously it was probably a very graphic scene when you came back.
01:21:24.000
Yeah, because you said these were.50 cal machine guns, right?
01:21:29.000
When it was all said and done, there were over 5,000 armor-piercing bullets in the ship.
01:21:36.000
There were over 821 rocket and cannon holes on our ship.
01:21:44.000
Napalm burnings up, and we're listening to the side about 8 to 12 degrees to the starboard side.
01:21:56.000
So the only reason they stopped is because they felt as though they, I guess, killed enough of you guys.
01:22:05.000
My opinion is, they said what was a mistake in identity.
01:22:16.000
In fact, they sent, the attack wasn't over yet.
01:22:20.000
They sent troop-carrying helicopters with Marines in them.
01:22:26.000
To board our ship, they'd probably ladder or rope down to finish us off and kill the rest of the scuttler ship.
01:22:39.000
There was this guy on the skid, and I'll never forget it.
01:22:49.000
And I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I gave him a finger, and he looked at me and just smiled.
01:23:06.000
IDF. Okay, IDF. Okay, they're equivalent of the Marines.
01:24:04.000
What went through your mind at that point seeing your best friend dead?
01:24:07.000
You literally just saw him like seconds before and then you went to go get the CO2 so you could put out the fire.
01:24:11.000
What was going through your mind when you walked back and you just saw him on the floor bleeding?
01:24:24.000
Let's just say I didn't have any at that moment.
01:24:36.000
Unfortunately, he didn't make it, but we all wanted to live and we all kept on fighting to save our lives.
01:24:51.000
They never sent a plane or anything to come over and see if we were okay.
01:24:59.000
It took them 17 hours and they could have sent an airplane or something over to escort us or to keep us safe.
01:25:11.000
How could this old World War ship with that kind of damage survive through the night without sinking?
01:25:31.000
Some of the crew of the Davis came over and helped to shore up the bulkheads.
01:25:38.000
Maybe there was one or two that came into port with us.
01:25:48.000
A thousand miles away to Malta when the nearest port was Crete.
01:26:05.000
Why couldn't you go on the boats that helped you fill up the holes?
01:26:13.000
Well, they did take the wounded off the most seriously.
01:26:17.000
And the people on the Davis come over to help us show up the bulkheads and do things like that.
01:26:24.000
But they got all the most seriously wounded off.
01:26:30.000
And so we were supposed to go to, like I said, Malta and Crete was closer.
01:26:47.000
Do you know how many of you were still, like, alive when they came?
01:27:01.000
There was 34 killed initially, and 174 others wounded.
01:27:08.000
Some so seriously, you couldn't even hardly look at them.
01:27:12.000
That night, I helped in operations with Doc Evey.
01:27:30.000
And I believe the old man said, hey, what do you got the life check on?
01:27:41.000
The first guy we operated on was Gary Blanchard.
01:27:50.000
The whole mess decks and sick bay and everything.
01:27:57.000
And that night, we were trying to patch people up and save their lives.
01:28:15.000
And they told me to go up and help him, which I did.
01:28:18.000
I was holding a battle lantern, a big light, so he could operate on him.
01:28:23.000
And Gary said, my feet are hot, my feet are hot.
01:28:31.000
I went over by his side and he looked at me and he says, you think I'm going to live?
01:28:50.000
He put a couple stitches in him, put him over the side, went on the next one.
01:29:00.000
As I said, the whole mess was a sea of bodies, broken men, and blood.
01:29:19.000
How many guys were there like you that had minimal injuries?
01:29:26.000
50 of you guys that were able-bodied and can help?
01:29:30.000
And then, like I say, the whole ship came together helping everybody.
01:29:36.000
We were right there helping everybody on the mistakes, you know, trying to take care of them.
01:29:41.000
So, 50 that were pretty much good, able-bodied, and then how many were seriously injured, would you say?
01:29:56.000
And then how many were just, I guess, maybe a gunshot wound here that wasn't fatal?
01:30:09.000
And that was probably from the torpedo hit, I'm assuming?
01:30:15.000
And then the other nine were killed on deck or on the bridge.
01:30:20.000
A friend of mine, Mickey LeMay, he's still got 50 pieces of shrapnel in him right now.
01:30:53.000
The most getting pissed off and pissed off came the next day, and a day after that, when Admiral Isaac Kidd boarded our ship.
01:31:10.000
He was one, I don't know exactly what ship he was on, or if it was flown in right away or whatever.
01:31:18.000
Yeah, well, it was two days after he got aboard our ship.
01:31:25.000
Two days later, 48 hours later, after you guys had been attacked, he comes on.
01:31:29.000
What did he tell you guys when he boarded the ship?
01:31:32.000
Well, he got us in small groups, and he told people, just tell them what happened.
01:31:40.000
Okay, he said, tell them what happened, the truth.
01:31:42.000
Yeah, the truth, and we thought that was a good thing.
01:31:45.000
When he said tell them, who did he mean specifically them?
01:31:47.000
Well, tell me and the JAG officer what happened.
01:32:09.000
And I was in sickbay with four or five other guys.
01:32:20.000
He took off his stars, threw them on the stainless steel table.
01:32:24.000
It rained like a bell, and I've said this before.
01:32:34.000
I said, Admiral, why did—because he's our dad now.
01:32:41.000
And when I got done telling him, why didn't help come?
01:32:48.000
Several other pointed questions that I don't think he liked.
01:32:51.000
And I really found out he didn't like them when he put his stars back.
01:33:01.000
And he looked at me and he got beet red, Myron.
01:33:06.000
He says, If you ever repeat what you just told me, I'll make sure you end up in prison or worse.
01:33:18.000
When he told you this, was there anyone else in the room?
01:33:33.000
And he said, if you ever repeat these questions, you'll be put in prison or worse.
01:33:37.000
And you never talk about it, even with your shipmates.
01:33:51.000
So everyone that was on the USS Liberty that day, they pretty much got assignments completely spread apart.
01:33:57.000
Now, when you guys had this conversation, this is two days later, was this on land?
01:34:12.000
They came to ask to see what you knew, to figure out where you were at.
01:34:19.000
Were you the only person that, like, spoke up and said, hey, why the fuck did Israel do this?
01:34:25.000
But our testimony was redacted from the Board of Inquiry.
01:34:35.000
It started two days after, and it lasted seven days.
01:34:39.000
The Board of Inquiry should have lasted at least six months to a year.
01:34:49.000
They took the people that murdered us and murdered us all over our word.
01:34:56.000
They said it was mistaken identity, and that's what they went with.
01:35:00.000
So Admiral John S. McCain Jr., he was the commander of European Forces Europe, ordered Isaac Kidd and Ward, Boston, to find it was a mistaken identity.
01:35:18.000
And those orders came from LBJ. Mistaken identity.
01:35:26.000
It was a mistaken identity, and that's what they're still saying now.
01:35:30.000
The Congress says there's been many official investigations about the USSR. There's never been one, not one.
01:35:40.000
They're protecting the murderers that tried to kill us all.
01:35:45.000
So you've only been questioned about this event one time in your life, and it was back then with the Admiral, right?
01:35:52.000
You've never had a criminal investigator or spoken maybe at a hearing or anything else like that under oath.
01:35:59.000
The only time you've ever been questioned about this was back in 1967 by the admiral.
01:36:05.000
You told him exactly what you thought and he told you if you ever repeat this, you will go to prison or worse.
01:36:22.000
Pete McCluskey out of California, Paul Finley of Illinois, and of course Jim Traficant out of Ohio.
01:36:35.000
And Cynthia McKinney tried to help us too, but they run her out of Congress.
01:36:40.000
So, there was a very few people that wanted to help us.
01:36:45.000
In fact, nobody wants to help us in the Congress.
01:36:51.000
And, you know, Tom Massey revealed that here, what, about a month ago?
01:37:00.000
So, I guess they tell them exactly what to do and what the foreign policy is and whatever they want.
01:37:06.000
That's incredible to me that you've only been questioned about this once, officially.
01:37:11.000
Two days after the fact, and they told you you would go to prison if you talked about it again.
01:37:16.000
Did they make you guys sign any nondisclosures or any other forms like that, or no?
01:37:27.000
A lot of the most seriously wounded got maybe $80,000, $90,000, which they well deserved for all their injuries.
01:37:45.000
And that was for damage from my clothes, they said.
01:37:49.000
But most of the crew got less than $200 or $300.
01:37:59.000
And Israel settled for $6 million for a $40 million ship to pay the most seriously wounded and the dead, the men that were killed.
01:38:11.000
And the U.S. government came out of the U.S. Treasury.
01:38:24.000
And talking about Congress, it's been that way ever since 1967.
01:38:35.000
From every president, from LBJ to Biden, they want nothing to do with us.
01:38:41.000
Because we can prove that our own government colluded with the Zionist state to sink our unarmed ship, the finest spy ship in the world, blame it on the Arab states, and start a nuclear war.
01:38:56.000
There were SAC aircraft in the air even before they fired on us.
01:39:22.000
There were Russian subs there, ready to launch on Israel the Temple Mount.
01:39:36.000
How many lives we saved by not sinking is incongruable.
01:39:42.000
If we sink like they want it and blame it on a foreign country, it was a land grab, just like they're getting right now.
01:39:50.000
So the goal of that attack was to blame it on the Arabs, kill all the witnesses, and say it was Egypt that attacked the United States.
01:39:59.000
And our government was in on it, and Israel was in on it, and they're still in on it.
01:40:06.000
Because that's why they don't want the truth told.
01:40:11.000
And guys like John, he's here to carry on when we're all dead and gone.
01:40:16.000
You know, my son, Bryce, he's going to get involved.
01:40:22.000
But we need people like you to spread the word.
01:40:31.000
No, it's my honor to host this podcast and speak to you as a survivor and thank you for your service and this is absolutely fucking atrocious that this happened And most Americans don't know about it.
01:40:45.000
You know, I wasn't kidding around when I named the title of the show, The Most Censored Event in U.S. History, and I truly do think so, because they don't want you to know this, right?
01:40:57.000
And the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson said, just let these sailors die, who cares?
01:41:06.000
To sacrifice Americans doing their duty on the high seas for a false flag to get us into war.
01:41:15.000
And the thing that kills me is that you guys were out there to help Israel.
01:41:18.000
You guys were there to collect information and intelligence from the Arabs to assist Israel.
01:41:30.000
I think this attack was planned probably a year in advance or more.
01:41:34.000
But I'm saying you guys were out there to help them, is what I'm saying.
01:41:36.000
You guys were out there to help them, and they repaid you by trying to kill you.
01:41:42.000
But what they did, this just wasn't a spur-of-the-moment deal.
01:41:51.000
Well, there's a reason why they didn't want to give you the warship escort, right?
01:42:02.000
Because you said the captain, he was there on a ship with you guys, and you asked for a warship escort, and he denied it.
01:42:09.000
Why would he do that if he's putting his own life in danger if he's on the ship?
01:42:24.000
The top of the brass on the ship requested it, and they denied them.
01:42:35.000
When the torpedo hit, he was in the spaces where the CTs were.
01:43:09.000
And Admiral Geist swarmed his secrecy until Admiral Geist died.
01:43:16.000
And then David was a very honorable, great man.
01:43:21.000
And then he opened up and said, you know, this is the deal.
01:43:46.000
You know, when they attacked us, they attacked all of us.
01:43:55.000
And Captain Tully, when he was at one of our reunions, he was crying, saying, man, I tried to help you guys, I just couldn't.
01:44:07.000
And then they took his command away for him even before he got back to port.
01:44:12.000
That was in 67, because he sent aircraft to us.
01:44:22.000
Because he didn't want to take orders from, you said Nakamura?
01:44:27.000
McNamara, who was the Secretary of Defense at the time.
01:44:39.000
They had to cut his eyelids open so he could see.
01:44:45.000
You know, people always think that false flags and our allies attacking us is something that's unfathomable, but it actually, like, the USS Liberty, when you really look at it, right, it was a false flag attempt to get us to blame the Arabs, right?
01:45:00.000
Luckily, we had some witnesses that are alive to tell the story like you're telling now.
01:45:10.000
It's like 9-11, people get, if I mention, hey, yeah, Israel was involved in 9-11, oh, that's an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
01:45:19.000
We know that they attacked us, like, 100% confirmed in 67, killed our servicemen.
01:45:25.000
You don't think they're going to blow up a fucking building with innocent people, too?
01:45:32.000
If you look at it from a historical standpoint, I mean, back then, they literally took out the Son of God.
01:45:48.000
And I feel like the service members that work to protect the country are pawns to their desires because they're making plans, informing the people that are working hard to protect the country what's happening and saying, go over here,
01:46:16.000
What has, I guess, been some of the, like, because I'm sure they've done everything in their power to silence you and censor you.
01:46:23.000
Have you gotten, like, death threats for coming out with the story?
01:46:27.000
Have you been, you know, what has happened, I guess, post when you try to tell the story?
01:46:33.000
Yes, I've been harassed and death threats and my wife and I were In San Diego, at the bar, getting a drink, waiting to get a table, have dinner.
01:46:46.000
This guy come up beside me and sat down right next to me.
01:46:59.000
And he had a big watch on, and he put it right up my face.
01:47:12.000
Well, actually, it was back probably 14 years ago.
01:47:16.000
I thought it was earlier than that, but it was about 14 years ago.
01:47:26.000
He said, if you know what's good for you, you're going to shut your mouth.
01:47:34.000
So he tells you, if you know what's good for you, shut your mouth?
01:47:50.000
If he was or not, the message was clear anyway.
01:47:59.000
The next day I went down and talked to the bar manager.
01:48:03.000
Well, he's been coming in here a couple days saying he was a doctor.
01:48:14.000
Or maybe somebody in the hotel told me I was going to stay there.
01:48:20.000
I want to put it past, you know, the Mossad, man.
01:48:23.000
I mean, look, I mean, we know for a fact when 9-11 happened, those dancing Israelis that they talk about, those guys were Israeli intel.
01:48:31.000
Watching the event happen, taking pictures and documenting it and dancing and celebrating and, you know, and then they passed, they failed polygraph tests and two of them had ties to the Israeli agency, so...
01:48:42.000
Yeah, I mean, I don't put anything past Israel anymore.
01:48:53.000
He was treated as an Israeli hero when he got back to Israel.
01:49:08.000
Sheldon Adelson's plane, which is one of the biggest mega-donors.
01:49:12.000
He's dead now, but Miriam Adelson is giving Trump $100 million.
01:49:20.000
He gets on a plane, Pollard, with Sheldon Adelson, gets to Israel.
01:49:44.000
Well, we're bought and paid for by the Zionist state.
01:49:47.000
And I believe that wholeheartedly, and I don't care who knows it.
01:49:55.000
You know, if any other country had done that to the USS Liberty, they would have got nuked into fucking oblivion.
01:50:07.000
And they fucking blew Nagasaki and Hiroshima up with nuclear bombs.
01:50:13.000
This is the only time in American history, and especially naval history, That a ship has been attacked by a foreign government, and our government didn't retaliate.
01:50:30.000
Do you think if Kennedy was in office, he would have let that slide?
01:50:33.000
If Kennedy was in office, we'd never had Dimona.
01:50:56.000
With shows like this, with patriots like you guys, hell yeah, we can fix it.
01:51:01.000
We can fight back like hell and let everybody know.
01:51:12.000
I love this country, but I don't love what's going on with it.
01:51:19.000
I didn't even talk about it to my wife for 18 years.
01:51:32.000
You know, listening to the story, I have vivid images in my head like I can imagine.
01:51:37.000
I can barely even imagine what went down, seeing your shipmates decimated, body parts all over the place, arms, legs, torsos, blood everywhere.
01:51:47.000
Your best friend shot in the back of the neck bleeding everywhere.
01:52:05.000
So literally a couple months after the attack, you were out.
01:52:20.000
Were you able to acclimate back into civilian life?
01:52:34.000
I wasn't a druggie or nothing like that, but I was drinking too much.
01:52:53.000
My own government thought I was a piece of shit.
01:52:57.000
Did you choose to not go back in because of the obvious incident with the USS Liberty?
01:53:05.000
Yeah, because I was married and I had a baby and I didn't have a good job.
01:53:17.000
And I stayed there for a few years and got out and I was done.
01:53:21.000
And that's when I talked to the guys about the Maddox.
01:53:31.000
They said the U.S.'s liberty was never attacked?
01:53:44.000
Like Johnson said, when Kennedy died to his buddies in Israel, you may have lost a friend, Kennedy, but I'm a better friend.
01:54:00.000
Carved up the liberty, suspended inspections of...
01:54:15.000
And the ADL is the arm of the Zionist government.
01:54:38.000
As we were talking earlier, you don't take away your livelihood, your credibility, who you are.
01:54:43.000
You know, the USS Liberty Survivors are some of the most bravest, honest, gallant crew I had the honor to serve with.
01:55:00.000
And us speaking out now for the USS Liberty, like I said, we're a small group, and I know you're going to put up the website.
01:55:08.000
Yeah, let's pull it up real quick, real fast, if you guys want to support, because we need justice for these guys, man.
01:55:15.000
This is fucking pissing me off listening to this story that we haven't done anything to these dickheads that attacked us.
01:55:27.000
Help us bring the true story of the attack on the U.S.'s liberty to the American people, June 8, 1967.
01:55:32.000
You guys can see here, that is the ship after the attack.
01:55:38.000
Now that helicopter, that came off the U.S.'s America, taken and wounded off.
01:55:50.000
The fact that anyone can, and you can see it leaning in the water, too.
01:55:53.000
Like, the fact that anyone was even able to survive is a miracle, man.
01:56:02.000
There's nowhere to hide, there's nowhere to run.
01:56:22.000
Can you guys tell us a little bit about what the goal is here?
01:56:26.000
Obviously, bringing awareness is very important, right?
01:56:29.000
But what is the goal with the website and bringing awareness?
01:56:35.000
The goal is to make sure those 34 American heroes did not die in vain because they've been treated like shit for the last 57 years.
01:56:45.000
In the mass grave, I think you've showed that or have you yet?
01:57:06.000
And you guys can see there the 34 roses for those that died on that day.
01:57:11.000
And, John, can you tell them a little bit about what it said prior?
01:57:17.000
Well, it said died in the eastern Mediterranean.
01:57:26.000
It's like they got in a car wreck or something.
01:57:30.000
You can see on the bottom there, Myron, you see how it's kind of darker down there?
01:57:37.000
They've rubbed all that off and killed aboard USS Liberty.
01:57:45.000
And all the wards we've got, the USS Liberty is the most decorated ship in naval history.
01:57:52.000
Medal of Honor, Navy Crosses, Silver Stars, Bronze Stars with a V, 208 Purple Hearts, Combat Action Ribbon, Presidential Unit Citation.
01:58:09.000
In fact, the Medal of Honor was given to our captain at the Navy Yard.
01:58:31.000
Because they don't want to ask questions about, oh, well, what happened on this day?
01:58:39.000
And then they try to say they don't control the media.
01:58:41.000
It's anti-Semitic to say they control the media.
01:58:49.000
We've been called anti-Semitic Jew-haters and Nazis for telling the truth.
01:58:56.000
And if you bring that other picture, please, of the monument.
01:58:59.000
You know what I say when they try to say I'm anti-Semitic?
01:59:05.000
This monument here was made in my hometown, Cedar Ridge, Colorado.
01:59:24.000
We tried to get this monument in a place of great honor, like the Naval Museum, and they didn't want it.
01:59:39.000
No, the Naval Museum is in Little Creek or Norfolk.
01:59:46.000
And they have a museum of all kinds of different artifacts.
01:59:57.000
But Terry Haldebarty, or excuse me, Terry McFarlane, He wouldn't give up.
02:00:04.000
Right close to where John lives, post 4809 VFW post, they voted and they took it 100%.
02:00:16.000
So we need all the veterans out here to help us.
02:00:19.000
That's crazy that the museums don't want it in there, and that's obviously by design as well.
02:00:30.000
Here on the back, it's got more of the attack, but it shows, you know, pretty much what's going on in the airplanes and everything and the two carriers and SOS. Don, you want to chime in?
02:00:42.000
So I want to mention something about that rocket hole.
02:00:47.000
When they, when Phil and them, and this story Phil has told me, when Phil got to Malta and they were doing the repairs, Phil discovered that they were trying to cover it up.
02:01:02.000
What they were doing before they sold it is they were...
02:01:06.000
They were repairing the ship, so when they got back to Little Creek...
02:01:09.000
That's why they wanted you guys to go all the way over there.
02:01:13.000
Instead of going into Crete, they wanted them to sink because it's 1,000 miles away.
02:01:19.000
So with that rocket ship, or with that rocket hole, Phil realized that they were trying to cover it up.
02:01:25.000
And being a young man, he had the clarity to start cutting them out and saving these.
02:01:33.000
And that's one of the only rocket holes from the boat left.
02:01:38.000
And that's why we have physical evidence, because Phil Turney himself had the mental wherewithal to actually go, hey, they're trying to cover this up.
02:01:51.000
So it wasn't enough that they tried to kill you.
02:01:53.000
It wasn't enough that they sent the IDF over there in helicopters to try to finish you guys off.
02:02:24.000
I mean, you can see how beautiful that was done.
02:02:28.000
And I asked her, I said, would you be interested in please making a monument for us?
02:02:35.000
I said, you get in trouble for doing it, first of all.
02:02:39.000
And about a day later, she says, I don't give a shit.
02:02:57.000
Of course, I helped her with the design and stuff, but it's a beautiful monument.
02:03:03.000
It's the same marble that all the monuments are made in.
02:03:06.000
Yeah, no, that was in C-Race, but the same marble in that monument.
02:03:24.000
But that marble is the same marble that all the monuments are made in Washington, D.C. Come out of the same quarry.
02:03:35.000
Yeah, I mean, that is a crazy story, the USS Liberty.
02:03:41.000
It's something that, you know, they don't talk about in history much ever, you know, and it's probably one of the most tragic situations, probably, I would say, one of the most censored events because it's crazy that, like, the media won't talk to you guys.
02:03:53.000
So, I saw a documentary on this recently, and they mentioned that Israel gave the survivors money.
02:04:07.000
They said they paid six million, but they didn't do it.
02:04:20.000
So they gave that, or they were coerced into giving it.
02:04:28.000
And like I say, when I got the 200 bucks, it said on there, you could never sue Israel or the United States.
02:04:46.000
You said you didn't talk about it for 18 years, right?
02:04:48.000
18 years until I saw an article in the old Rocky Mountain News.
02:04:57.000
He wrote about it, and I felt the whole world come off my shoulders.
02:05:01.000
Because I never told my wife I was in the military.
02:05:05.000
Then when I went home and I told her about it, she's been steadfast with me 100% all the way doing this, and she's been helping me do it for the last damn near 40 years.
02:05:16.000
What motivated you to say, I'm going to come out, I'm going to talk about this, everyone is going to know that Israel betrayed us on that day?
02:05:23.000
Because I was pissed off that they got by with cold-blooded murder, and we're witnesses to cold-blooded murder.
02:05:28.000
They put a gun to my head, too, and pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger.
02:05:32.000
Luckily, I didn't get killed, but the other guys did.
02:05:41.000
They take the word of the Zionist state, the idea of a mistaken identity over the people that were there, instead of American servicemen, the most highly decorated there are, They don't take our word.
02:05:59.000
So you said you didn't speak about it for 18 years, and then you saw this article come in the news.
02:06:03.000
Is that what prompted you to say, I'm going to go public with this?
02:06:05.000
Like, what was the motivating factor for you to say, I'm going to come out now?
02:06:10.000
The motivating factor is I had to get it off my chest, and I've been getting it off my chest ever since.
02:06:15.000
And when you saw the news article post out, you said, I got to do the same?
02:06:29.000
So you're like, you're at this point, because when you're attacked, you're 18 years old.
02:06:33.000
Yeah, so you're like 40 years old at this point.
02:06:35.000
And you know, I'll bring up another interesting point too, Myron.
02:06:39.000
Back in 89, 1989, about a year before that, I did an article in the old Spotlight newspaper.
02:07:03.000
Entrepreneurs, very rich men, they're from Sweden.
02:07:08.000
In fact, one of them made a deal with Ford Motor Company because they made better transmissions than Ford.
02:07:15.000
But anyway, when we were dedicating the monument, We had to have a SWAT team there on the roofs.
02:07:34.000
So there was a library in Wisconsin, right, Phil?
02:07:40.000
And these guys wanted to name it something else.
02:07:47.000
And Ernie Gallo, another survivor, has written a book about all the atrocities that have happened to the survivors, and this is one of them, where they had a library, and the Grope Brothers were going to name it the USS Memorial Library.
02:08:05.000
And what happened was, this was the 80s, People called in bomb threats, sniper threats, so they had to have a SWAT team there when they dedicated this library to the USS Liberty.
02:08:18.000
Because these fucking assholes would try to SWAT you guys.
02:08:24.000
ADL and APAC came down on us, said, you guys are nothing but you haters and Nazis, for wanting to have a memorial about our ship.
02:08:35.000
And the library's still standing, USS Liberty Memorial Library.
02:08:39.000
In fact, they didn't have- Tell them the truth, it's anti-Semitic.
02:08:46.000
And they had on their U.S. something library, U.S. Liberty Library.
02:08:56.000
So Ben had to pay another $50,000 if he had Memorial put on there.
02:09:06.000
You know, and it's funny because conservative creators, I got two clips here.
02:09:10.000
When they're questioned about this, I want to show you guys this real quick and then we'll wrap up the show.
02:09:15.000
Let's go ahead and show the Ben Shapiro one real fast.
02:09:19.000
Because if you talk about the USS Liberty, man, these other YouTubers will never talk about it.
02:09:29.000
They get the questions about Israel and suggesting that if you're pro-Israel, this means prioritizing America of Israel.
02:09:36.000
If America had a policy that was not good for Israel but was good for America, I would back it.
02:09:47.000
There have been multiple studies, U.S. Navy, Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, House, Senate, NSA. Most of the reports, according to historian Richard Brownell, do not assign culpability for the incident.
02:09:58.000
I have to say I'm a little bit bewilder why you're so obsessed with an incident that is now 52 years old.
02:10:02.000
If you have theories that are better than those of the American...
02:10:04.000
So, we're obsessed with something that's 52 years old.
02:10:08.000
See how he tries to down it like it's not that serious?
02:10:13.000
Is it a miscommunication or is it mistaken identity?
02:10:17.000
Well, a lot of what Ben Shapiro is talking about, they're lies put out by Jay Kristol.
02:10:32.000
I'm almost certain this guy's a neocon as well.
02:10:34.000
But Jay Crystal put out a bunch of lies about the USS Liberty.
02:10:40.000
That's the shit that's coming out of their mouth is their lies.
02:10:45.000
And it's funny because the USS Liberty Veterans Association actually has a $10,000 Challenge.
02:10:52.000
They'll pay anybody $10,000 to prove Jay Crystal's What is it?
02:11:14.000
And James Bamford, he was the only one sticking up for him.
02:11:17.000
He wrote The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets.
02:11:24.000
Myself and one other fellow, he's passed on, I can't remember it, but they said we could talk after they said all this stuff about mistaken identity.
02:11:36.000
I got up to the mic, and this is at the State Department, and they shut the mic down.
02:12:17.000
So from America First perspective, why do we give 3.8 billion dollars to Israel, which is more aid than we've given to Africa, more aid than we've given to South America, and more aid than we've given to the Caribbean combined, which is home to a billion poor people, especially when they deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in the 1970s.
02:12:34.000
Do not peddle conspiracy theories in our event.
02:12:39.000
Okay, Dean Rusk disagrees with you and he was in Secretary of State at the time, but that's fine.
02:12:44.000
And then the second part is also you have the Apollo incident in which they illegally stole weapons-grade uranium.
02:12:50.000
I love how he said you're not going to peddle conspiracy theories here.
02:13:09.000
Like, oh, why are you so obsessed with an event that happened 50 years ago?
02:13:12.000
Why are you peddling conspiracy theories in our event?
02:13:18.000
They talk about World War II. Yeah, you can talk about all that shit.
02:13:25.000
The most censored event in American history is the USS Liberty.
02:13:33.000
You know, I want to give a shout-out to my family.
02:13:36.000
They're watching this, and I know they're all appreciative of the time you've given myself and John.
02:13:46.000
I think, you know, these big conservative channels are not going to have a conversation like this.
02:13:51.000
You know, we'll go places that other people won't.
02:13:52.000
We'll challenge narratives that people never will.
02:14:01.000
I'm just glad that you're here with us to tell the story.
02:14:05.000
God bless you, and let me shake your hand, sir.
02:14:08.000
Thank you so much, Phil, for coming on the show.
02:14:10.000
Guys, ussliberty.org, please go support on there.
02:14:19.000
And the thing is, just imagine, if they didn't survive to tell the story, what would have happened?
02:14:25.000
They would think Egypt attacked us, or Syria, or one of these other countries.
02:14:28.000
You know, so, and we're two days past 9-11, right?
02:14:33.000
Of course you're gonna think, you know, they went ahead and said, oh yeah, we were attacked by this dude in a cave, etc.
02:14:37.000
But then you do your research and you figure out, wait, there's Zionist fingerprints all over this shit.
02:14:41.000
So, they've stolen secrets from us, they've attacked us, they've killed our service members.
02:14:45.000
And they dance when they commit mass destruction.
02:14:52.000
Okay, I'll read some of these chats because I think they might have questions for you, Phil, actually.
02:14:55.000
Thank you, Phil, and FNF for spreading the truth regarding the USS Liberty.
02:14:58.000
The podcast with Jocko with a few other survivors was great as well.
02:15:03.000
I got the books, the lighter, and a coin a few weeks ago.
02:15:12.000
It's still something I consider every day a foolish, as some people might say, but what would you tell a young man considering he serves in today's climate?
02:15:20.000
Where Zionism is no longer discreet and we're on the brink of World War III. I think that's a question for you, Phil.
02:15:25.000
I would say it's bad timing to go in the military.
02:15:31.000
But if your heart says you've got to do it, that's up to you.
02:15:36.000
And I'm not saying that you're not a proud, loving American.
02:15:40.000
But, man, don't push yourself through this stuff for somebody else.
02:15:51.000
Can you guys do a more in-depth show on the Mustache Man and them boys?
02:16:14.000
Can we get a guest take on the recent attempt on Donald Trump's life since he lived through so many assassinations?
02:16:20.000
Well, we know a lot of people want him gone as well.
02:16:25.000
Currently at a Trump rally with another Cast Club member.
02:16:28.000
Haven't seen a single weirdo since I've been at this event.
02:16:31.000
He's a fellow veteran, Phil, for speaking up about this event, WFNF. And he said that nobody shows up to his events.
02:16:36.000
Al Fresh, please stop spreading misinformation.
02:16:40.000
I understand it's funny, but repeating it may make people believe it's true.
02:16:47.000
What was your reaction to the people on the ship when the president, who you thought was going to help, said, let the sailors die?
02:16:53.000
The most heartbreaking thing that I could ever imagine to be set up by our own government.
02:17:00.000
They colluded together, Israel and the United States, to sink an unarmed American spy ship and to be set up to be murdered by your own government.
02:17:16.000
And they got more money when they killed my shipmates than they ever did in their entire history after they murdered my shipmates.
02:17:25.000
They got more money and they're still getting more money right now.
02:17:29.000
Yeah, but like in the foreign aid too, we give Israel the most foreign aid by far.
02:17:34.000
Yeah, I mean, and Lyndon B. Johnson is the commander-in-chief.
02:17:37.000
He's the head of the military, so for him to, you know, allow...
02:17:40.000
You know, now it makes sense why they would attack you guys because you couldn't even defend yourselves.
02:17:47.000
Fresh updates, WFNF. But by the grace of God, you guys survived and told the story.
02:18:00.000
Anything that you guys want to donate to us, I want you guys to go ahead and donate it to them instead.
02:18:13.000
We're going to keep this alive and let the people know that these motherfucking assholes are not our real allies.
02:18:26.000
Are the architects of foreign wars for their own betterment.
02:18:28.000
So, Phil, thank you so much for coming on the show.
02:18:30.000
We're happy to have you, man, and I wish much success to you in the pursuit of truth and of hopefully holding these fucking dickheads accountable.