59th anniversary of the vicious Israeli attack on USAs USS Liberty. A virtually unarmed ship which went to observe the 6 Day War.
Not only did Israel seek to destroy the ship, they sought to kill everyone onboard with no survivors. They machine gunned the firefighters onboard. They machine gunned the lifeboats. They jammed all radio communication.
Despite being jammed, the nearby USS Saratoga and USS America got word and dispatched planes to assist. Something unprecedented occured though, the planes were recalled. The ship survived and sat there for 17 hours. 34 dead 174 wounded of a 293 man crew. A 70% casualty rate. For context, a surface vessel during WWII has a much lower casualty rate, 5%-20%, per typical wartime/maritime 'rules'.
This post was edited by RedFromWinter on Jun 9 2026 06:44am