Thomas Massie

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie on Monday honored the crew members of the USS Liberty on the House floor.

“It’s a great honor, maybe one of the biggest honors of my lifetime, to stand here on the floor and do something that’s 59 years overdue: to recognize the survivors and those who gave their lives on the USS Liberty 59 years ago today,” Massie said at the start of his remarks.

The USS Liberty was a U.S. ship that was attacked by Israeli jet fighters and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967. The attack happened off the coast of Egypt, resulting in 34 service members being killed and over 170 injured.

Twelve surviving members of the attack watched Massie’s speech from the House gallery.

Massie said he spoke to the survivors before coming out to speak. He said that the ship was unarmed and sent to observe a six-day war going on in the Middle East and the U.S. flag was very visibly waving on the ship.

“But what happened next surprised them all,” Massie said. “French mirage jets showed and for 25 minutes strafed and attacked the USS Liberty. They shot rockets, they shot 30 millimeter cannons into the hull and into the ship. They even dropped napalm on the bridge of the ship.”

He said this was an effort to kill everybody on board.

“According to eyewitness accounts, the Israelis machine gunned the lifeboats that they put down,” Massie said. “They machine gunned the firefighters who were on the deck.”

U.S. officials and Israeli officials have described the incident as a tragic mistake of mistaken identity.

Massie said that there were ships sent to help the USS Liberty, but they were recalled. He later added that officials such as former Secretary of State Richard Helm and former CIA Director Bobby Ray Inman don’t think the attack was an accident.

“None of these distinguished men think this was an accident,” he said. “They think it was intentional murder by the country of Israel, either as a false flag operation or because they simply didn’t want anybody observing what they were doing that day.”

He concluded his speech by calling for an investigation into what happened.