Concerning the USS Liberty the Israelis asserted, unpersuasively, that their firing on it was an alleged case --- a repeated case, unbelievably --- of mistaken identity.
The Israelis claimed that the pilots and PT boat commanders and lookouts could not see the Stars and Stripes and the US Jack, or that Liberty was not flying its colors.
This is not credible.
As any amatuer navalist can tell you, warships have distinctive national styles. You can tell an American from a Russian from a French from a British Commonwealth vessel just a glance.
US men-of-war are painted battleship grey. In the 1960's, they were almost all flush deck vessels. They had hurricane bows, on which were painted white numbers.
In 1939, Captain Hans Langsdorff reportedly painted white numbers on the bow of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, so unsuspecting Allied merchantmen would assume, from a distance, that the German raider was a big American heavy cruiser.
All military and naval personnel are trained in identification friend or foe. Whether it was flying the flag or the jack or neither, you could tell, from miles away, that the Liberty was an American warship.
~Posted by Stop Voris
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