The Tucker Carlson Show - USS Liberty Survivor Reveals What Really Happened the Day Israel Attacked & the Lies Covering It Up

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

USS Liberty deniers will say Israel’s 1967 attack on the U.S. spy ship was a total accident. Marine Staff Sergeant Bryce Lockwood was on the Liberty and says there’s no doubt Israel meant to kill every American on board. (00:00) The Story of the USS Liberty (11:14) What Really Happened During the Attack? (29:14) How Many Americans Were Killed in the Attack? (32:51) When Did Lockwood Realize the Attack Came From the Israelis? (47:25) The People Dismissing the Attack as a Mistake Sgt. Bryce Lockwood is a retired United States Marine Corps veteran and one of the last surviving crew members of the USS Liberty. A Russian linguist and intelligence specialist, he was aboard the virtually unarmed intelligence ship when it was attacked by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War. Despite suffering severe burns, he displayed extraordinary heroism by rescuing three trapped sailors from flooded compartments below deck, earning the Silver Star for gallantry and the Purple Heart for his wounds. He later served in Vietnam and retired as a Gunnery Sergeant. Paid partnerships with:Defend: Enter code "Tucker" for 20% off your purchase at https://defendcellcam.com Preborn: America celebrates its 250th birthday, help provide ultrasounds dial #250 and say keyword "BABY" or visit https://preborn.com/TUCKER American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-685-5696 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/Tucker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mr. Lockwood, thank you very much for joining us. My pleasure. Tell us the USS Liberty. Many people have heard the name. They're aware there's a controversy about what happened to the ship in 1967. If you wouldn't mind starting at the beginning and telling us the story of the USS Liberty. USS Liberty was a spy ship back in the 1960s. Several of the sets of African countries had just won their independence from Great Britain

Germany, Belgium, France. There was a heavy influence, both from a Soviet Union and from Cuba. Cubans had a lot of troops around the area. That entire area is very wealthy and natural resources, precious metals. And the United States wanted to keep track of what was going on over there. Mind you, this is when satellites were pretty rudimentalty. So the best way to gather that information is get close. The USS Liberty was a World War II victory class freighter.

She was originally commissioned as the SS Simmons Victory. She saw service as a cargo carrier during a Second World War. Mothballed brought back out of Mothballs for the Korean War, ammunition carrier for the Korean War back into Mothballs. and in 1965, when the National Security Agency decided they needed vessels of that type, her hull was probably in the best condition of almost any of them that were in the ghost fleet or the mothball fleet. She was brought out of commission. The U.S. government spent $26 million in 1965 money,

out clipping her with the latest in intelligence collection we could suck up literally every frequency that was being used we had aboard her the world's largest mobile computer the UNIVAC 500 at that time the world's largest

you could likely do about as much with their cell phone now but technology has come a long ways in the last 60 years. She was equipped with linguists, cruised up and down the west coast of Africa, listening in onto whatever was going on.

As war appeared to be imminent between Israel and her neighbors in 1967, the neighbors included what was then called the United Arab Republic, primarily Egypt, Syria, to a lesser extent, some influence from Jordan

in Libya. The administration set some F4 photograph planes, high performance photo intelligence planes to a Toron Air Base in Spain. Those markings were obliterated. The pilots were given neutral uniforms

the neutral identification and set to overfly Israel's neighbors. When hostilities broke out June of 1967, the Israelis had intelligence courtesy of the U.S. administration, locating every aircraft, preventment, every tank location of personnel where they were riveted, where they were based, and so forth. Hostilities broke out on the 5th of June, 1967, the National Security agents had ordered the USS Liberty proceed from her proves up and down to west coast of Africa with all due speed to road to Spain, take on stores, refuel, pick up six additional linguists, and proceed with haste to the eastern Mediterranean where they could monitor what was going on.

She was stacked with linguists out of a crew of 2994 board the ship, roughly 190 were intelligence personnel. Linguists, codebreakers, manuals, operators, voice intercept operators, so forth. The Soviets had a group of TU95 long-range bombers equipped for intelligence collection. at Alexandria, Egypt, they told the world that they'd given those planes to Egypt and that they're manned by Egyptian troops. Such was not the case. They were Soviet troops wearing Egyptian uniforms. The task that we were given is linguists.

There were three of us Russian linguists aboard her. We had three-watt sections rotating eight hours each. The three of us Russian linguists that were assigned as voice interception of supervisors, our primary task was catching those Soviet 2.95 and intelligence aircraft at Alexandria. The aircraft would communicate in plain language Egyptian until they were airborne and over the Mediterranean Sea, change frequencies, and go to plain language Russian. It was ironic that while we were under attack, my relief came into the processing and reporting room where I was and said, hey, Sarge, I got him, I got him.

So you got who, Jim? The Ruski's. Really? He said, yeah, a plane language is Russian. He went back into the room where he was copying the intercept and torpedoes. I killed him. Hostilities broke out on the 5th of June, 1966. we arrived on station on the 7th of June.

Throughout the day of the 7th and in the early morning hours of the 8th of June, we were overflown by several different Israeli aircraft. They flew very close to us. We could plainly see the pilots. We, fellas that were off-duty and sunning themselves on the decks would waive to the pilots. It pilots way back. We had a drill general quarters at noon on the. the morning of the 8th.

The captain came on the address system aboard the ship, the 1MC, and told us that there were a few things he wanted to improve, get to our general quarter stations a little more rapidly,

get the watertight doors, close a little more rapidly, secured from the general quarters. I was at my birthing spaces in the after part of the ship. I heard a tremendous noise roughly 2 o'clock local time. I had never been under hostile fire before, but I knew that we were in trouble immediately dropped where I was doing

headed for my general court station, which is below decks. Mind you, the cargo spaces in the forward part of the ship was where all of our intelligence people were, roughly 190 men. The only way out was a narrow, steep, lightweight about two feet wide with a railing. The ship would ring whenever a projectile struck it.

There were 826 large caliber strikes from aircraft aboard her. 40-millimeter cannon fire, 30-millimeter cannon fire, heat-seeking rockets napalm on either side of the ship or starboard there were racks that contained

life rafts with a charge you jerk on a cord and charge of go off and fire these life rafts into the sea both of those were napalmed the captain's gig was riddled with rocket fire the Liberty launch was riddled with rocket fire

basically no means of getting any survivors off the Israelis were jamming our distress frequencies which was a violation of international law they were using unmarched aircraft which is a violation of international law during the Court of Inquiry which was conducted after the attack

was over with, ordered by the Joss administration, conducted by three-star Admiral Isaac Kidd. The Israelis said that they had mistaken us for an Egyptian ship. The El Khazir was a World War I horse transport. Her only armament was a four-inch muzzle-loading cannon. The Israelis claimed that they were being shelled from the sea. We were the only ship in the vicinity. We had no capacity of shelling anything. The bottom line was the Israelis had captured an entire Egyptian brigade.

They were blowing up the captured ammunition, and that's what the explosions were that they claimed was fire from the sea. Quite obviously that was not possible from the El Casier or from us. What can you do to monitor important parts of your life that you can't always keep your eyes on? Things like the far corners of a job site or ranch, or let's see, you've got a boat dock somewhere and you can't check on it every day. Cellular security cameras from Defend are the answer. These cameras are very easy to install. No Wi-Fi required, no complex setup process.

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for an honest price. Defendcellcam.com is the address. Go there. See for yourself. Defendcelcam.com. If you've got a signal, you've got 24-hour security. Let me ask you, let me ask you when you come under fire around 2 o'clock, how long does it last? There are various testimonies about that. The claimed air attack lasted about 25 minutes. But, of course, when you're under fire and try to survive, it seems a lot longer. And as I mentioned earlier, the entire ship would ring with each shell of struck her.

The captain came on to one MC and said, Brace yourselves, torpedo attack, starboard side. Well, that's where I was located. My friend Ronnie Campbell was sitting there at a desk, and he said, well, they hit us with everything else. What else can they head us with? The division officer, Lieutenant Bennett, stuck his head in the hatchway, and he said,

Sergeant Lock, would you currant it, please? I stepped out into the passageway. I ran down the center of the ship, and he got me in the conversation with Lieutenant Commander David Lewis, who was a senior research officer board a ship, about getting these ditching bags, top side, pitched over in the sea. We had large canvas bags, brass furrows and the sides, lead weight in the bottom. The idea was all the classified information that we had, get them into these ditching bags, the top side, pitch into the sea, should they be recovered by the time they could be

any information in them would be useless. When there was a sudden blinding, flash of flame, tremendous loud noise, not me to the deck, I was kind of semi-conscious on thinking of myself, well, Lord, I guess this is it. I guess I'm coming home at least the lowest my kids are taking care of our goals just my life. I felt something cold. I looked down and the water was gushing in. I didn't find out what had actually taken place so many years later.

Some of the sailors told me that when the torpedo struck, it literally lifted the ship out of the water and set her back down. When she came down and rolled towards the starboard side, There was a roughly 40-foot hole on the side. That water was gushing in. I heard him moaned behind me, struggling my feet. There was a sailor trap there in the wreckage. His name was Joe Lentina.

I didn't know who that was until 25 years later. Joe was one of the communicators that worked with a teletype equipment. We weren't getting anything out. Couldn't understand why we weren't getting a main. day out and we're getting any aid. And he's a stratro from a rocket had penetrated the ship and struck him in a left-by. Joe was bleeding profusely. He sat down on the deck and leaned up against the lighter way, the only way out.

I was putting a tourniquet on that wound when the torpedo struck. Our office spaces were separated by sheet steel bulkheads. That bulkhead just mushroomed out. caught him in his left knee upturned and literally made toothpicks out of femur bone. And I'm trying to pull him loose. The water was coming up pretty rapidly. And I said, come on, you got help me. I can't do it by myself.

Come on, get your legs on. He'd push. Well, I didn't realize his left leg was mad. But I felt to get his right leg out of him. He pushed just enough for I could free him, though he was still partially. angle up in that wreckage. By that time, the water was within a foot and a half of the overhead. There were some pipes that carried cabling and power and so forth.

It was hanging from the overhead. I said, here, get a hold of these pipes. About that time, I saw a body floating out towards a hole. I reached down with my right arm and got an arm around him, tried to hold us head above water. I heard the division officer Lieutenant at the top of the latter way say this Mr. Bennett opened this hatch. There was a lot of confusion. You can imagine roughly 190 people crammed into that space in fear of their lives.

A lot of shouting, a how as long as I could knock it off if y'all will settle down. None of us to get out of your life. that was the last thing I remember I apparently passed out the next thing I recall was being along with the unconscious sailor and nobody there but being the sea and him

the ship was rolling the torpedo had ruptured one of the fuel tanks which they're on the starboard side that was the heavy oil that powered the ship it's a staking

oil that oil was everywhere and oil watered up mix of course you can imagine just about everything was coated with it I try to start up the ladder way

with this unconscious sailor slipped dropped him he's going back out the whole way got him started back up the ladder way about half or two-thirds away up the ladderway.

A piece of shrapnel from the torpedo had bent in the railing, so there's only a space, a whole roughly a foot wide. Got to that point, slit, dropped him again, going back out the hole, and that got him. Back up the ladderway again, got up to the top, and the hatch was sealed shut.

Trying to hold his head above water, pounded on the hatch, and the sailing in Bobby Schnell, there were a dogs that held the hatch seal or shut around the rubber gasket and about an eight-inch high metal seal. Oh, I'm guessing probably a dozen large bolts that bolted it down. He got a wrench, knocked those nuts loose, and opened the hatch, let me out.

I tried to drag his sailor out, dropped him, tried to drag him again, can't quite get him out, trying to turn him over. His foot caught in the chain that was holding the prop or the hatch open and literally

I was trying to drag his leg off. Phil Turney was one of the damage control people who was standing here. He said, wait a minute, he got his foot caught. He freed his foot. He said the captain is ordered to prepare to abandon ship. He said, you need to get a life

Fest on. There's been there to have a life vest. And I said, get a life vest on, put one on him. And they're doing triage at the message. And after part of the ship, said, need to get him back there at triage on. I tried to pick him up. Pretty weak, dropped him, tried to pick him up again, dropped him again. Years later, when I found out who he was, it was some 30 years before he even found out

who he was, we were sitting in his life. kitchen Sunday morning in Chicago and his family is gathered I don't want to know what

it happened to dad I'm trying to tell him and his name was Dave McFagan and he kind of blurted out

and he said I wouldn't be hurt nearly as bad you want to drop me so many times he had

been topside in the rocket from one of the air attacks that exploded very close to him and flying you

back into the bulkhead he's wounded from that he's in a lot of pain. You're thinking,

I've got to get to my GQ station. The GQ station was down below decks. He gets down there just as they slammed the hat shut and bolt it down. He's sitting on the ladderway with his head in his hands, hurting badly when the torpedo struck. Slammed me back into the ladder way and made a mess out of his spine. He's still alive, but barely and can find a wheelchair now.

Joe Lentini passed away from a heart attack some three years ago the book Assault on the Liberty credits me with diving underwater and freeing Joe Lentini's leg that was actually a sailor named Bobby Snell that did that

Freed his leg carried him topside there's some conversation that I carried a man out went back down senior listed man Stan White that's hard you can't go back down there

Stan has since passed away too but he told me he said you gave me a kind of a blank stair and went back down I don't recall any of that I think there's a good possibility I was confused as someone else but the Navy Marine Corps uniforms are different color

um we were told to go to the radio room on the port side of the ship. I was lying on the deck in a radio room and I couldn't understand why we weren't getting any, hey, there was machine gunning going on.

The motor torpedo boats were circling a ship, riddling us with heavy machine gun fire. There were 3,100 heavy caliber machine and strikes on the ship. one of the radio men

figured out that when they were shooting rockets at us they couldn't jam our distress frequencies because the family would have screwed up the flight of the rockets in a brief period when those rockets were being fired this Mayday went out.

Firefox, Firefox, this is Rockstar, Rockstar, under attack by on an idea. identified surface and air units require immediate assistance. As soon as that made it was acknowledged, the shooting stop. I saw some sailors carry free inflatable life rats through the radio room. Heard them fall into the sea.

There were lines attached to keep them from floating away. I heard a revving of engines and were machine gun fire. One of those sailors came back through their radio. room and he said, I don't know what we're going to do now. They've riddled what we had left. It is my understanding. It's that machine gun fire severed the line that was holding one of those life rafts. The torpedo boat came in and picked it a plane labeled U.S. Navy. Can't be proven. I'd have no idea, but I heard a rumor that that life raft and the ship's wheel from the torpedo boat that fired the fatal torpedo are in the Israeli Naval War Museum at Haifa as trophies of war.

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I did not see them myself, but the deck crew told me that two large armored helicopters came over, fully loaded with armed troops, automatic weapons, hand grenades. It seems fairly obvious. The idea was, shake the ship, kill everyone aboard it, no survivors. We think there's a very good possibility that we were set up by our own government. the president, Lyndon Bage Johnson, was very friendly towards Israel. His predecessor, John F. Kennedy, had actually given a speech about the necessity for discourse between the Palestinians and Israelis about getting some 700,000 refugees from the so-called War of Independence,

Israel in 1947, 48, they were driven from their homes. The Israelis said they were voluntarily left. My personal opinion is there was nothing voluntary about it. They were told to leave or be destroyed. Kennedy conversation was to have at least a portion of those refugees be allowed to return to their ancestral homes. as a result of our Congress and our president doing nothing about the attack on the OSS liberty. The court of inquiry accepted the Israeli's excuse that there's a case of mistaken identity. Case was closed as a result of our doing nothing.

Israel realized they could do whatever they wanted, the United States Congress, United States administration, would say nothing, do nothing. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to go back to what you said about your belief that the Johnson administration knew that this attack was coming on the Liberty. Why do you think they would have allowed that? Commander Lewis, who was a senior in Texas officer board a ship, and I both had pretty much the same wounds. My glasses protected my face from debris. His eyes were sealed shut. We were both medevacked off to the carrier America.

Admiral Lawrence Larry Geis, who was the task force, 6th commanding officer, included the carriers USS Saratoba, USS America, and the guided missile cruiser, the USS Little Rock, asked for Commander Lewis to come to his stateroom. This is several days after the attack had taken place. He swore Mr. Lewis to secrecy until after his death. told him that he had ordered aircraft to come to our aid. Planes were launched from the USS Saratoga.

They had nuclear weapons aboard them. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered them returned. Both Admiral Geis and Skipper of the Saratoga, Captain Joseph Tully, figured out that that was probably because there were nuclear weapons aboard them. They were recovered. conventional aircraft with conventional weapons were relaunched to come to R.A., Captain Tully, re-notified Washington. Secretary of Defense McNamara came on the circuit again and ordered those aircraft returned.

Admiral Guys said, I want to exercise my authority and hear that from higher authority. Well, the only higher authority was the president. This is the conversation that was related to David Lerner. us from Admiral Geis. The President said, get those aircraft back. I will not have my allies embarrassed. They were using unmarked aircraft, and we did not know who was attacking us. How did the President know?

The number two man in the U.S. CIA at the time was a gentleman named James Angleton. James Angleton was not only the number two man in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. U.S. AA2. It was really mosa. many of us survivors believe that we were set up by our own government, false flag operation, sink the ship, no survivors, blame it on Egypt, get the United States involved on the side of Israel against her neighbors.

And excuse me, Tucker, what's happening now? the head of counterintelligence that you mentioned James Jesus Angleton was also clearly involved in the Kennedy assassination the beneficiary of which was of course Lyndon Johnson and Israel I That's by my comprehension Tucker

I don't doubt that Yeah well it's pretty it's pretty clear I think from documents that have subsequently been released So how many, just to end the, to wrap up the story of what actually happened that day, how many Americans were killed in the attack? There were 34 Americans killed. One civilian, Alan Blue, he was Arabic clinguish from National Security Agency. Other two Marines were both killed, Sergeant Jack Raper, Corporal Ed Raymire, they were both Arabic linguists. and the mounts of the 31 were all sailors. They were all linguists,

Mania Morse intercept operators. How many killed? There were 208 Purple Hearts awarded, 174 wounded. Several of the crewmen that were wounded were never awarded Purple Hearts. Jack Beattie he was machinist mate was working on the he was changing oil on the liberty launch

the enlisted watch when the air attack took place he had a strap on the back and he didn't find out about too many years later what veterans administration performed the x-ray on a skull um there is another

Navy chief Joe last name is my mind right now he had one of those heavy caliber strikes in his left calf. He was the Boy Scout instructor, new first aid, took that projectile out of his leg himself, wrapped himself up. He was never awarded a purple heart.

There were others. Cost of living is already making it hard to live here and it's not getting any better. Unfortunately, it's likely to get worse. And a lot of Americans fill the gap with credit cards, not just for fancy dinners, but to cover things like groceries and bills. That is a disaster.

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I understand he broke out in tears. The torpedo boats that fired machine guns at the Liberty, I mean, they must have been close enough to see the American flag flying over the ship. Yes. Our initial flight was flying from Flagstaff to the back of the main mast. that was knocked down in one of the first air attacks. Our Sigelman ran that back up again. It was knocked down again. And then he ran up the holiday flag,

which is five feet by eight feet. It's the largest flag we had aboard ship. That flag was literally riddled with trotnil. He ran that up on the one of the port of single arms, which is on a port of side. But we had a good breeze blowing that day. The flag was out there, pretty obvious. Egyptian ships are painted black with hallmarkings in Arabic script.

Every highway sign in Israel is in Hebrew, Arabic script, and English lettering. So that excuse falls away. U.S. ships are painted gray with hallmarkings and English lettering. Our hallmarking was GTR5, which stands for general tactical research, the fifth, the newest of her class. Chattical research means that she's a non-combatant to violation of international law to fire on non-combatants. The Israelis were wriggling our life rass with machine gun fire. That's a violation of international law. the irony of that is that came about as a result of refugee ships being machine gun by Nazi wolfbacks during World War II.

What did your commanding officers tell you about the motive for this attack? So you're lying, recovering, you've got wounds to your face and your hands. and someone at some point explains to you why this happened. What did that person say? Honestly, I didn't hear anything. Years later when I reconnected with some of the crew, and it was well over 20 years later before I reconnected with any of the crew. I say it was 1982 before I reconnected with any of the crew,

so this is, what, 15 years afterwards. I honestly didn't know. Most of us were pro-Israel that were bored to ship. It's kind of ironic at one of our analysts. He was processing the United Arab Republic traffic that we were getting. He made a small UAR flag and had that stuck in his outbasket. Most of the crew were smoking back then. They'd walk by and say, hey,

Mitch, your herbs aren't doing so well. And they sat far to his flag. He said, no, cut that out, put it out. One of the sailors had made a huge Star David out of Teletype paper. That was pasted up on the Starboard bulkhead. That is really torpedo struck with a few feet of that Star David flag. Did you talk about this after? Did you do interviews with the media?

Did you tell your friends, your family? How did you respond to this once you recover? My situation was a little different. I was on temporary assignment from my home base in Birmingham, in Germany. It's 10 days aboard the carrier America flown back to Lucca Malta, where the ship was dry docked. I was one more day aboard her there.

This guy of Aronica, didn't have a place to sleep, and one of the sailors said, I'll go up to Sidbay and talk to Dr. Van Lane, he'll find you a place to sleep up there. We're kind of chatting. It was getting along late in the afternoon. And he said, you welcome. There were three bunks there.

He said, you welcome sleep in whichever one you want. I said, I hope that doesn't get to stink in the night. What's that time? There was a box in the corner roughly 18 inches square. It was labeled on identified human body. parts. That's what's buried in the mass grave in Arlington National Cemetery, and I slept over that night.

Two of the men that worked for me were in that box. What was left of that? Were you told by the U.S. military, by the Marine Corps, by the Navy, not to talk about this? Well, mind you worrying, intelligence and business and just don't talk about it.

There's old saying, What you see here, what you say here, when you leave here, leave it here. I did not talk about it outside of secure spaces. When I got back to my home base in Bremerhaven, I was put on 12 on, 12 off watch. I talked about it rather freely in the secure spaces. My wife didn't know what happened to me. I was not supposed to tell him when I was aboard this ship, but no one bothered to tell me I wasn't. when I first got aboard her,

the petty officer of the deck was a long-time friend of mine, Ronnie Campbell. I said, Ronnie, I need to let Lois know where I'm at. Can you give me the address? Well, he gave me the FBI address.

I got a postcard, wrote it on, told my wife, I'd be aboard her, don't know how long, I'll let you know sometime in the future, dropped it in the mail. She'd received that card,

and I was aboard it. on the 9th of June a dear friend of hers that lived across the street in Bremerhaven and waved to her to come over she went over and said do you hear about that U.S. ship being attacked? Oh.

She said, yeah, the U.S.S. Liberty. Well, I said, I think Bryce is aboard that ship. Well, that said a panic button. When I got back, home.

I was a mess. I had to borrow a uniform from one of the Marines aboard the carrier America. There happened to be an African-American Marine. Same bill that I was. Real gentleman, same rank as I was, loaned me a khaki uniform. I had to wear that uniform the next five days. Part of that was when I got back to the ship, that oil was everywhere. Where you went, you get drops that oil all over.

bit. So I stunk from that. I had fever blisters in my face and this yellowish pus was oozing out, dripping over the front of me. The morning I got back, couldn't get in the apartment, a second floor apartment. The neighbor, Betty Bryant came to the door. Said, old Brian said, the lowest went out to the base to get to mail, said, come on in, I'll get you a cup of coffee. She set me around behind the door, gave me a cup of coffee. A while later, She said, oh, here she is now. She'd just gotten a mail, and she'd just gotten a letter from her mother that her grandfather passed away. My wife didn't get along very well with her mother, but she was her grandfather's pride and joy.

She's all broken up about that. Betty, he says, Lord, you need to come in here. Three kids are there. See, Marsh, our oldest one was six. Dorothy was four, John was three. And I was the ugliest mess, stumped to high heavens. Kids are screaming, my wife crying. The Marine commander calls me to his office the next day.

He says, best thing for you to do to forget about this is go to work. Put me on 12 hours on, 12 hours off, watch stand. I had to go to the doctor on the time. off. Yeah, but wounds taken care of. The Navy

set a JAG officer, Lieutenant Commander all the way from Washington with a sheaf at papers form an assigned.

He never bothered to tell me personally, you are not to talk about this. I talked about

it freely in secure spaces because these fells, many of them had been aboard the liberty or ships

of her class doing the same task. If they weren't, they would be in the near future, likelihood. So they all were aware of that.

So I talked freely about it, but I did not tell my wife anything. She had no idea what was wrong with me. I'd wake up screaming and crying. And she had no idea. And it wasn't until, I think it was January of 1981. I was in Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. class was broken up

over the Christmas holidays on sitting in homiletics class waiting for the class to start on Monday morning and one of my

classmates comes in and he says Bryce were you bored a ship with torpedo I said how did you know about that? Well he had been in Texas

over Christmas holiday he was on his way back late in the evening listening in National Public Radio program used to run called Radio Reader. They were reading a book by James M. Ennis Jr.

Salt on the Liberty. It was on page 86, the narration about what I had done that day, and my name was there. And it wasn't until, I think, the following year, I'd taken a position as an assistant pastor at church in Key West, and the city library librarian was a member of the church. And I asked her if she had a copy of that book. She said, yeah, but there's a six months long waiting list for us. Well, put me on the list. When it became available, I immediately wrote a letter to random house publishers

and said, I'd like to get a whole of the author, James Ennis. They said, well, we can't give you his information, but we'll forward your letter to it. Just a few days after that, I got a thick packet of mail from Mr. Ennis, had copies of the the ship had a newsletter that they put out and mailed to all the crew but they didn't know where I was until then that issues

a list of survivors their contact information immediately started calling the crew but that wasn't until I think 1986 we had a reunion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was the first one that I went to. There was a library in Grafton, Wisconsin,

about 30 miles north of Milwaukee. The town had built a new high school. The old high school was old building, roughly a century old, but perfectly serviceable. And the town wanted to make that a public library. So they had a committee to raise funds. there are a couple of industrial donors that grow brothers Tech Group was one of them gave a six-figure donation mind you 40 years ago

was pretty high sum of money so the committee said well we'll give you the privilege of naming the library and he said well I'd like that to be named the USS Liberty Memorial Library well during World War II

not far from Grafton, Wisconsin, Johnson was a Nazi youth camp. Could you imagine what that implied for the Jewish population of the city, Milwaukee? That raised a firestorm. But it went forward, and to the best of my knowledge, there was no violence. And to this day, it's still the USS Liberty. So that was 19 years after the attack, and I remember 1986, seven. At that time, the consensus was that this was an accident.

Like if you learned about the USS Liberty at school, which you probably didn't, but if you did, you would be taught that this was a case of mistaken identity, that the Israelis thought it was an Egyptian ship. Well, I suppose you could claim that the Israeli pilots were colorblind. The Egyptians are painted black, and ours are painted gray. You can't jam the structure frequencies by accident. you must know your target. So that falls by the wayside. The machine going to take the life rafts,

that's pretty obvious. That's a violation of accepted law. How did it make you feel as a survivor of the attack to hear people dismiss it as a case of mistaken identity? Well, at that time, I had a small trucking company, and it was that you pretty well had to work around the clock if I had a grain hauling business, two trucks, three trailers. When I wasn't booking loads, I was hauling loads. I wasn't booking or hauling loads. I was under it changing

to oil or fixing this or fix of that. I barely had time to think. It really wasn't until sometime after that or I happened to get a job with a union company had a little more income coming in. we were able to attend a reunion in Washington, D.C., and that's where I began to really find out about what all had taken place. That was later in the 1980s, early 1990s. And what did you find out? I didn't know the names of any of the fells that I pulled out or was credited with saving their lives.

Joe Lentini, even though I kept him from Browning, I didn't actually get him out of there. Dave McFaghan, it was not until 1997, a reunion in 1997, I found out if that was. It was pretty ironic. He was in the hospital at Naples, Italy. He'd taken some shrapnel in his privates. Doctors told him he'd probably never have any more children. Well, he did have, he had a boy and a girl.

at that reunion One of the other fellows that I thought that I had brought out of there was a Harold 6, Gene 6, Gene was his nickname, and he and I were having a beer, kind of joking around, and someone else came in. The tubbed in the bathroom was full of ice water and beer. We were in there yakking, and somebody came in and said, hey, Sarge, there's another guy here to save his lives.

Really? Went out into the other room. There's Dave McFagan in a wheelchair was daughter born later after the attack. Was him in a wheelchair? Now the anniversary, the 59th anniversary of the attack on the liberty was just the other day within the last week.

And it was a topic that was discussed in public. And you heard people defend the Israeli government by saying they didn't know it was an American ship, and anyone who says otherwise is an anti-Semite hates Jews. How would you respond to that? Anyone who knows anything about international recognition of ships at sea would conclude differently, would have to conclude differently. It's very obvious that it was Dulaverna at a time.

Dave Lewis, prior to his death, was giving an interview, and he said, if it was an attack, it was the best planned attack in military. The ammunition that they were using, targets that they were doing, heat-seeking missiles designed to knock out all of our transmitting antennas.

It had to all be planned in advance. The upshot, in my opinion, the whole thing, Israel is grabbing Palestinian lands, Gaza Strip in total rubble. 70,000 documented killed, probably twice that many, buried in the rubble that could never be recovered for the tide, it's elapsed.

United States supplying the bombs, Israel invading their neighbors to the north, Lebanon. There are a million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip homeless as a result of Israel's actions. Lebanon, southern Lebanon, whole towns destroyed and leveled a million Lebanese refugees without a home. Where is a humanity? Shouldn't that be on the conscience of every American

that we're supplying the bonds, that we're supplying Israel with 3.8 billion dollars a year in foreign aid? Shouldn't that shake our conscience? Well, if our leaders were able to ignore an attack on an American vessel, the liberty, almost 60 years ago, clearly this is not a normal relationship between the United States and Israel. What country ignores an attack on its own Navy?

Tucker in 2005, Stephen Rosen, who was then a senior official with the American-Israeli Political Affairs Committee, was dying with Jeffrey Goldberg. At that time, he was with a New Yorker magazine. I believe he's with Atlantic Magazine now. He said to Jeffrey, you see this napkin in 24 hours, I can have the signature of seven. senators on this neck hit. Does that tell you something about who runs America? How does that make you feel as someone who is wounded in the service of the U.S. military, in the service of the United States?

Disgusted. Why is he thinking about this now? Yeah. His political career was over the president and his political affairs, supporters literally through millions of dollars at Thomas Massey's primary campaign

and got him pitched off the ballot. And Congress of Nassie stuck his neck out by speaking publicly from the floor of the United States Congress. There were roughly 15, perhaps 17 of us survivors that were

there, family members sitting in the gallery when he gave his five-plus-minute speech on the OSS Liberty, urging the Congress to take action. Article 1, Section 8, U.S. Constitution, to, this is not exact wording, investigate acts of piracy on the high seas and offenses against the law of nations. And Congress has ignored that for the past 59 years. Now here, Thomas Massey sticks his neck out.

The gentleman took us all to lunch afterwards at the Bull Feather Restaurant there in Washington. I think that name is rather ironic. Borship Bull Feathers. Treated us to lunch. Personally met each one of us. While we were there, that day's Speaker Pro Tem of the Congress, Daryl Issa. came in, personally should cancel every crew member, introduced himself around, made a few jokes about that jarhead

that was of order. Another congressman also came in, Congressman McGuire, same thing, introduced themselves around. It left me with a wonderful feeling. Perhaps something can be done after 59 years to wait Congress up. to their obligation, to humanity, to do the right thing. What would you like to see Congress do?

An open investigation. While some of us are still alive to testify, let all the dirty laundry hang out there. If there are charges to be charged, bring them forward, just air it out and let the American people, the world's public at large. make up their own when they see the facts laid bare. It's the same thing with the Epstein files.

Hiding them. Let it hang out. Let us all look at it. If someone's guilty, fine, charge them. Sure there's going to be some big time name. Sure there's going to be some billionaires involved. I'm just a little guy. I'm not even a millionaire.

Fine, come get me. Do you think that'll happen? I don't know. Don't care. Well, I'm grateful you did this interview, Mr. Lockwood. Oh, Tucker. This is such an honor. It's an honor for me.