Israel Defense Force's Liberty Attack Story in a Nutshell

In a nutshell, below is the IDF's (Israel Defense Force) sequence of events during its attack on USS Liberty, as presented in its 1982 History Report about the attack and chronologically correlated with available direct evidence:

• Early morning hours of June 8, 1967 (fourth day of the "Six Day War", and the last day of war in the Sinai), U.S. Navy signal intelligence and research ship USS Liberty approachs her patrol area, north of the northern coast of Egypt's Sinai peninsula.  At this time, a reconnaissance aircraft from IDF Air Force sees and reports the ship; by mid-morning it is established, by an IDF naval liason officer at IDF Air Force headquarters, that the ship is USS Liberty.  This information is passed to IDF Navy headquarters.
• Morning and early afternoon hours, USS Liberty is steaming peacefully and slowly (5 knots speed) westward, in international waters, along the northern coast of Egypt's Sinai peninsula. 
• Late morning, at near noon-time, IDF Army reports an unidentified ship seen on the sea's distant horizon may be responsible for apparent medium-range shelling of the north Sinai shoreline near El Arish, Egypt.

• IDF Navy sends three high-speed motor torpedo boats (MTBs) to investigate the reported shelling, with simultaneous agreement from the IDF Air Force that fighter aircraft will be dispatched when the MTBs locate the unidentified ship. 
• Navy MTB radar detects -- at a self-admitted usually extreme range of 22 nautical miles -- an unidentified ship, in international waters, headed westward at a manually computed speed of 28 knots. 
• Navy MTBs' captains assume the unidentified ship is an enemy (Egyptian) combat ship ship due to its computed high-speed and westward heading toward Port Said, Egypt.
• Navy MTBs' Division Commander calls for air support.
• IDF Air Force jet fighters arrive quickly and can not identify the ship, but pilots believe the ship appears like some type of a non-Israeli combat ship -- perhaps a destroyer.
• Air Force repeatedly attacks the unidentified ship with rapid-fire cannons, rockets, and napalm bombs.
• The unidentified ship changes course quickly from westward to northward (toward the open sea) and increases speed soon after the air attack begins.
• Air Force eventually realizes the unidentified ship may not be an enemy combat ship and stops attack.
• Communication foul-up results in stand-down message not being received by MTBs' Division Commander.
• Navy MTBs arrive and their captains realize the unidentifed ship is not a high-speed combat ship; instead the extensively damaged ship is identified as an Egyptian ship named El Quseir, a slow-speed cargo ship almost one-half the length and width of USS Liberty, and differently configured.
• Navy MTBs chase and attack the ship -- as it heads northward toward the open sea -- with cannons, machine guns and torpedoes after failing to establish signal light communication and seeing a few machine gun rounds fired from the ship.
• One torpedo hits the ship.  The ship does not sink, but it stops and lists toward its starboard side.
• Air Force helicopters are dispatched to the attack-damaged ship to conduct rescue operations.
• Navy MTBs eventually realize the ship is not El Quseir and stop attacking.
• Air Force helicopters arrive about one hour after the attack began.  The pilots see and report an American flag flying on the ship's central mast and her large identification marking, GTR5, painted on the bow.  A search for survivors or bodies in the water is conducted.  Nobody is found.  The helicopters leave.
• Government of Israel communicates to United States Government, about two hours after the attack began, that its armed forces mistakenly attacked a US Navy ship, and requests information about any other US Navy ships in the area.
• Navy MTB Division Commander's boat closely approaches the ship, establishes her name by reading the ship's name, Liberty, painted on the stern, and then issues an offer of assistance -- about two hours after the torpedo hit.  The offer is declined.
• Government of Israel officially declares the attack was due to mistaken identity and apologizes.  (The IDF acknowledges that USS Liberty was in the area during morning hours, understood that she was a signal intelligence type ship, but stopped tracking her position on the assumption that she had departed the area.)