US Navy kept denying a request for verification that a US ship was in the area.
Captain gave orders not to fire on the torpedo boat, but his order was either not heard or ignored. Once fired on the Torpedo boat fired on the USS Liberty.
Israel had just been attacked and was looking for the ship. USS Liberty was in the wrong place, but where the pilots were told there was no US ship, they targeted the USS Liberty as an enemy.
There was so much wrong and much of it by the US Navy and the crew of the USS Liberty, as well as the mixed signals the pilots were getting. When told there was no US ship and to target the ship, they would have to believe the ship was flying false colors.
The over sized flag was flown after. It was a ceremonial flag and would not have been raised while at sea.
All these years and still false stories and half truths abound about the incident. We all know ships in the region have been attacked by other countries.
Ship designs back then were unique to the designers. The Israelis knew what an American ship looked like. Certainly they didn't think it was a Palestinian or Egyptian ship (considering the "fact" that Palestine and Egypt had such extensive navies) -- did they?
Does anyone really believe that Egypt built a ship to look like an American ship then painted it; marked it with identifiers; then hoisted an American flag? If the Israelis didn't believe it to be an American ship then who's ship did they believe it belonged to?
Nevertheless, one of the first rules a boy in gun safety training learns is that he should NEVER point a gun unless he intends to fire and another important rule is to know EXACTLY what you're shooting at. No guessing allowed.
Picture of the USS Liberty before the deadly attack:
After that fateful day:
Most vessels were built along similar lines in the worlds shipyards, any new innovation was soon picked up and incorporated into other vessels. So in the main even 100 years ago all nations naval vessels looked very similar, and it was known that many ships flew another nations flag for convenience. My friend worked on merchant ships that had 5 or 6 different flags depending on which part of the world they were sailing in, and saw many naval vessels doing the same thing.
How about what the pilots would have seen a silhouette for a split second of a vessel that should not have been there