Alright everybody, welcome back to the show, it's Anti-War Radio, I'm Scott Wharton and our next guest on the show is Joe Meadors, he's a retired U.S. Navy signalman and a survivor of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and the Gaza Flotilla.
Welcome to the show Joe, how are you?
Thanks, I'm really great, thanks a lot.
Well I really appreciate you joining us on the show today.
Oh no problem, just one clarification, I'm retired but I didn't retire from the military.
You were kicked out or sank or what happened?
No, I served my hitch and I got out.
Oh I got it, I see, and then you had a whole regular life as a regular person.
Yeah, I was a regular person after that.
I see, okay, well I can see why you would want to get out of the military after what happened to you, but why don't you tell the good people what happened to you.
Many people have never heard of the USS Liberty, Lord knows it happened long before I was born.
Oh thanks for reminding me.
Well I'll tell you what, I've got more gray hairs on my chin now than I'd like to brag about, a couple on the side of my head too.
Oh so do I, well the USS Liberty was in fact a spy ship, what we did was we went around normally up and down the west coast of Africa, just monitoring all sorts of radio traffic and sending all that information back to the U.S. to the NSA.
We were ordered on to the eastern Mediterranean as a result of the conflict in the Middle East at the time.
We arrived on station on June 8th at 9 o'clock in the morning, it was the fourth day of the Six Day War.
Right after we had arrived on station, we were circled in total about 13 times by Israeli aircraft that we listened to and we could hear them radioing back to their headquarters for the proper identification of the ship.
About 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we detected two high-speed jet aircraft flying up our starboard side.
They started to circle what we thought would be another circling of the ship, so we just ran up to the signal bridge and I was one of the signalmen, so that was my workstation.
When we got up there, we saw the aircraft directly ahead of us and they peeled off immediately to the left and began strafing the ship.
They continued strafing, we had men in all the gun mounts, we had 450 caliber machine guns with men inside of them, they put rockets inside each gun tub, at least one, and rockets inside each of the many antenna mounts that we had.
Those initial strafings continued for about 10 or 15 minutes, then the slower, mysterious aircraft came in with cannons, rockets, napalm, and machine guns and they dropped at least one napalm canister on our ship and it struck the bridge.
Those were followed by three torpedo boats who had two torpedoes each, they dropped five and five torpedoes in the water.
One of them struck our starboard side, killing 25 people below decks.
Then came the helicopter-borne assault troops that I saw, they tried to land, but they couldn't land because of the antennas that were blowing around in the breeze, the helicopters couldn't get low enough.
Then that was followed up by a helicopter that came out, bearing on board the U.S. military naval attache, and he dropped the message on the foc'sle and he simply asked, do you have any casualties, and he couldn't see all the blood and the guts on the foc'sle, I guess.
The thing that makes us most angry about the attack itself is just a few minutes after we had the attack started, our antennas were all knocked out, but one of our electronics technicians found an antenna that he had put out of commission because it wasn't working.
He got that antenna back up and working within a few minutes of the beginning of the attack.
We got a message off to the 6th Fleet, steaming 450 miles away, in convoy with the USS America and USS Saratoga, two aircraft carriers.
The USS Saratoga turned into the wind and immediately launched its ready strike force, and before those aircraft reached the horizon, they were recalled on orders from the White House, and about an hour later they launched again, and again those aircraft were recalled on orders from the White House, and all the while we were continuing under attack, calling for help, and the radio men on those 6th Fleet ships were listening to us, knowing that the aircraft that had been launched to come to our assistance had been recalled on orders from the White House.
That, in a nutshell, is basically what happened.
They had a court of inquiry, they took four days of testimony, and according to the participants in the court, they were ordered to come to the conclusion that the attack was not deliberate.
Right, now okay, so there's a bunch to go over there, including the cover-up at the end there, and I think actually that's the first thing I ever heard about the Liberty was flipping through the channels and I saw some admiral or something say, hey, the President told me to lie, and when you have my job, you do what the President says, it's not a question of being truthful or not, it's a question of obeying orders, and we were ordered to pretend that the whole thing was an accident.
That's the first I ever heard of it, so cover-up blown.
But now, okay, so everybody, we're talking about Joe Meadors, he was a signalman on the USS Liberty attacked in 1967 by the Israelis, but so I'm curious, because you talk about they attacked you with napalm, and I guess I don't know all that much about it, but I thought my understanding was that that's not so much, you know, made for explosive power, but for spreading jellied gasoline all over people and burning them to death, is that right?
That is correct.
I mean, that's not how you destroy, if you're trying to sink a ship, I don't understand, I mean, on one hand, there's the whole, they were trying to kill y'all aspect, which I'm interested in, but there's also the question of, why weren't they dropping bombs from above?
It seems like if any air force against a ship like the Liberty, as you said, armed with .50 calibers that were taken out almost immediately and so forth, how come they were unable to sink it?
Right?
Where's the big bombs?
Well, exactly.
Well, if you look at the tactics they used, they used unmarked aircraft, jammed our radios on both U.S. Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies, destroyed our defenses and our communications capabilities, then brought in three torpedo boats, dropped five of the six torpedoes available, luckily four of them missed, and then the torpedo boats, the one part I failed to mention, as the torpedo boats circled the ship and they deliberately machine gunned the LACRAS, we had dropped over the side in anticipation of a manning ship, then brought in the Hilo-borne assault troops.
The theory that I'm, you know, I've been trying to deny it all these years, but that only points to me that they were trying to sink the ship and kill all the survivors.
The purpose for the NAPALM was to drive the crew below decks to keep them off the top decks so they would sink with the ship and drown with the ship.
I see.
So it was a tactical thing, basically.
The NAPALM.
Exactly.
But now, so you're saying that, oh, they were certainly trying to sink it, but four out of their six torpedoes missed, but then what?
They were out of torpedoes?
I mean, I thought this thing went on all afternoon.
The theory that we have, of course, the U.S. government has never conducted an investigation and the Israelis have issued a report, but we're trying to get a copy of the evidence that they used to support that report.
And of course, they found that report said the Israelis didn't do anything wrong.
But the U.S. government's never conducted an investigation.
So we really don't know exactly what their motives were.
Right.
Now, well, there are some theories, and I guess, you know, it's OK for you to speculate.
You're the victim of it.
And they refuse to, you know, as you just said, have any kind of process for justice.
So, you know, I hear some say that, well, they were going to what they want to do was sink the ship and then blame it on the Egyptians and get America into the 67 war full scale on their side.
I've also heard speculation that there was a massacre of Egyptian prisoners of war on the Sinai Peninsula, and they were trying to block out knowledge of that or something.
Do you have a favorite of these theories or one you lean toward or?
Well, I've been leaning toward two, actually, the one I just described.
But plus, there was one that that suggests that the Israelis wanted to invade the Golan Heights, but all their troops were massed in the Sinai Peninsula.
And we were close in order to move their troops to such a mass movement.
They would have to have a lot of radio traffic and we could detect increases in radio traffic.
We couldn't hear the actual words that were being spoken because we're too far away.
We could detect the increase in the radio traffic, so they probably wanted to have the invasion of the Golan Heights accomplished before the U.S. government found out about it.
But then again, the U.S. embassy was right there and they could probably look for that as well.
So I don't know how much credence that theory would support.
All right, everybody, we're talking with Joe Meadors.
He survived the Israeli attack on the U.S.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show, Santa War Radio, I'm Scott, can't even say my own name.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Joe Meadors.
He survived the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and the raid on the Gaza Peace Flotilla.
Now I want to wrap up here real quick, Joe, on the Liberty with some quotes from USS Liberty.org.
It'll forward you on to the page we're looking at here anyway.
And there are quotes here from Lyndon Johnson, from Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State Clark M. Clifford, then Presidential Advisor and Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, George Ball, Undersecretary of State, intelligence officials, member of Congress, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Captain Ward Boston, Commander Ernest Castle and Commander William McGonigal, all of the U.S. Navy, Richard Helms, the director of the CIA, all of them say that this was not an accident.
They knew what they were doing.
They were trying to sink your ship.
That is correct.
And all we're trying to do is get the attack investigated.
It's the only attack on the U.S. Navy ship in the history of the U.S. that's never been investigated by the U.S. government.
Well, it really is just amazing.
It's a story almost as amazing as the story itself.
The fact that most Americans have never even heard of this, never will.
And I think that's by design.
They're kind of hoping we'll just shrivel up and blow away.
But we're not going to.
We were ordered after the attack, we were ordered not to talk about the attack.
And I understand that order is still in effect.
So they could throw us in jail.
But I'm kind of hoping they would give it a try.
Yeah, it would be fun to watch your trial anyway, you know, although hopefully you'd come out the other end a free man.
But it'd be nice to see the discovery process, really, I guess is what I'm getting at.
That's true.
Now, it says in your bio that you, because you climbed up to the top of the ship up at the bridge during the whole attack, that you had the bird's eye view and watched them deliberately strafing the life rafts with your own eyes.
Joe Meadors, is that correct?
I didn't witness that myself.
But Lloyd Payer, one of the officers on the ship, did witness that with his own eyes.
And he testified to that effect during the Court of Inquiry, which should have been on the record, or was on the record.
But if you get a copy of the Court of Inquiry report today, his testimony does not appear.
It's just totally, it's not blacked out like a redacted state, but normally would be from the U.S. government document.
But the quote never, never appears at all in the record.
All right.
Now, before we move on to the Gods of Flotilla, is there anything left about the USS Liberty that I should have asked here, or you want to make sure and point out before we change subject here?
Well, any listeners who want to help us, just go to USSLibertyVeterans.org, and there's a few places you can go to get the suggested letters or get in contact with us to find out what we would like you to do.
So, if you're as outraged as we are at the U.S. government's willingness to allow war crimes to be committed by and against the United States, please drop by our website and give us your shout-out.
All right.
And again, that's USSLibertyVeterans.org.
That is correct.
All right.
Thanks very much for that.
All right.
So now, I guess this is part of what motivated you to go and help to join the peace efforts to break the Gaza blockade, huh?
That's right.
Well, if you're already a survivor, you become, by default, a student of what's happening in the Middle East, and you learn to sort out the wheat from the chaff and know what questions to ask and what questions aren't going to be answered.
So when I was given the opportunity of being a member of the flotilla, I jumped at the chance, even given my history.
I guess you knew you were sort of taking a risk that you might not make it out alive this time or that you might end up being a survivor of another attack by the Israeli military, huh?
Well, I knew that they couldn't kill me the first time, so I thought maybe God was on my side.
Well, yeah.
Everybody in the Middle East thinks God is on their side.
I think that might be part of the problem.
But anyway, at least you were unarmed.
You were going to deliver tricycles and wheelchairs and food and medicine to civilians, victims of a blockade.
That's exactly right.
And all of the ships were inspected by inspectors before we left, so the claim that they were afraid that we were carrying arms and ammunition to the radical elements in Gaza is just a smokescreen.
Well, now, I guess you were lucky enough that the raid on your ship did not turn into a bloodbath like the raid on the Mavi Mamara, right?
That is correct.
However, the Israelis tried to give the impression that everything was just this peace and love when they came on board, and it wasn't.
They used their concussion grenades, they used their batons, kicked people, tied people up and all that stuff.
So it wasn't flowers and honey when they arrived either.
Yeah, well, and you know, I think that is a pretty underreported part of this story, is exactly how the raids went down on the other ships.
I think you weren't on the same ship as former Ambassador Anne Rice, right?
No, she was on the, I believe, the Challenger One, and I was on the Svendony with former Ambassador Ed Peck and three other Americans.
And now, you know, when I talked with Kenneth O'Keefe, and he was on the Mavi Mamara, he said that once in custody that he was beaten, and of course when he was released, there were pictures of him with his head all bloodied.
Were you guys mistreated in Israeli custody at all after they finished kidnapping you off of the high seas?
I wasn't, but one of our, the leader of the American group, Paula Rudy, he was very severely beaten by the Israelis when he was in prison.
He said he had his joints moving in directions that he didn't know they would move before.
But he was very, very severely beaten.
Amazing.
And of course, one American citizen was included with the nine who were murdered by the IDF.
Farouk Dogan, I believe is how you say his name.
But in American media, well, he wasn't really an American citizen, and after all, what kind of funny name is that?
And his skin was a little bit darker than yours and mine, I suppose.
And so who cares about him?
He was described as a, repeatedly, as a Turkish American.
In fact, he wasn't.
He was an American citizen.
He wasn't a Turkish citizen.
And he was, I guess, accidentally killed with four bullets in the brain.
Amazing that they just, well, I guess, you know, it's really no big deal compared to what happened to the Liberty, right?
If Lyndon Johnson can order everybody to just be silent about the Liberty, then obviously it's not a big deal for Barack Obama to just remain silent about what everybody knows happened to you guys.
Oh, and I don't think he really cares.
And my congressman doesn't either.
We had a, Anne Wright and I just completed a 10-day tour of Texas talking to, in six different cities, and one was down here in Corpus Christi, where I live, and invited my congressman to send somebody to the presentation just to listen to first-person accounts of what has happened.
And it's about a 10-minute drive from his office, but he wouldn't send anybody.
But if you write him a letter about the Liberty or the Freedom Flotilla, he'll have his boilerplate response that totally ignores the issues.
And he had an opportunity to get first-person accounts, and he refused to, but he has a history of ignoring USS Liberty.
He was invited to a dedication of a memorial plaque on the USS Lexington Museum down here, and he refused to send anybody there either.
All right, everybody, that's Joe Meadors.
The website is USSLibertyVeterans.org.
Thanks very much for your time on the show today.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks.
