July 13, 1943 — June 8, 1967
Jerry Smith recalls the day his brother John was killed aboard the USS Liberty in the eastern Mediterranean. He says he’ll never forget June 8, 1967.
“I still get upset and choked up about it,” Smith said Tuesday by telephone from Rochester.
Smith’s brother, 24-year-old John C. Smith Jr., a graduate of Ithaca High School, was killed along with 33 other U.S. seamen on the Liberty when Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the Navy surveillance vessel at the height of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states.
“I was in Rochester with my wife and four children,” said Smith who was three years older than John. “We heard about the attack on television, then John’s wife got a telegram from the Navy. We got into our car and drove down to Ithaca to be with the family. But we didn’t know the whole story until we returned to Rochester several days later because the ship had to go to dry dock before they could extricate the bodies from the compartment.”
The History Channel is screening at 8 p.m. Thursday a one-hour, British-made documentary about the attack that ultimately became an embarrassing “incident” for both Israel and the United States. Israel claimed the Liberty was not flying a U.S. flag at the time and its pilots mistook it for an Arab vessel.
The crew denies it to this day. The U.S. Navy has officially remained quiet for 34 years. The survivors have remained hurt and angry that no investigation was ever undertaken by Congress.
“When John’s body was returned, it came back with a Navy guard with instructions that the casket not be opened,” Jerry Smith said.
John Smith was born July 13, 1943, the son of John and Rita Smith, and one of seven children. He had three brothers — Jerry, Joe and David — and three sisters — Peggy, Mary and Karen. Peggy Smith and Mary (Smith) Pace still work in Ithaca. Their mother died in 1992.
“She was cremated and her urn is on top of where John’s body is buried down on Floral Avenue,” said Jerry Smith, who talked about growing up in the full but happy house at 203 Wood St.
“We were all very close,” Smith said. “That’s bound to happen when there are seven kids in the family. The boys slept in the same room.”
All but Mary went to Immaculate Conception School before moving on to graduate from Ithaca High School.
Thomas Fauls, 58, a quality assurance manager at Evaporated Metal Films in Ithaca, was John’s closest friend when they were growing up. He had gotten out of the Air Force and was working in Michigan at the time John was killed. The family called him to come back to Ithaca to be a pallbearer at John’s funeral.
“They were inseparable,” Jerry Smith said.
“I knew John well,” Fauls said on Tuesday. “We’d gone to grade school together and then Ithaca High. After that, we stayed in touch over the years. I remember when he returned to Ithaca on leave in the winter of ’66 with his wife and young daughter. He was still up in the air about whether to make the Navy his career. He told me the Navy would be giving him extensive training before sending him back to sea for a new assignment.”
The extensive training was communications school, the assignment the USS Liberty.
Smith’s wife, Sandra Ann, and daughter, Stephanie, returned to Sandra’s native England after his death.
Mary Pace, who lives in Fall Creek and works in information services at Cornell University, was 13 when her brother John was killed.
“I was at a friend’s house when mother heard the news,” Mary said. “She called me to come home, and when I got there, all the cousins from Syracuse were at the house. Everybody was watching television. They didn’t know whether John was dead or alive. On Friday, my mom received a telegram saying John was missing in action. Then, on Sunday morning, Navy personnel drove up to our house to tell us he was dead.”
Like Fauls, Mary remembered John’s leave Thanksgiving of 1966.
“Johnny came home and that’s the first time I met his daughter, Stephanie,” said Mary Pace. “He came back again for Christmas before leaving for his new assignment in Norfolk, Va.
By STEPHEN LANDESMAN
Ithica Journal Staff, 2001
Source: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/john-caleb-smith.html
CT1 John Caleb Smith, Jr., USN, 237 77 94
Born 13 July 1943, Ithaca, New York
Active duty since 30 June 1961
Wife: Sandra Ann Smith, Ithica, NY
Parents: Mr. & Mrs. John Caleb Smith, Sr., Ithica, NY
Died in Naval Security Group (intelligence) Department spaces
13 July 2018 at 13:30
I was stationed with a seaman later from that ship and he had refused his medals because as he said “We didn’t fight back”. A couple of jets could have made a big difference– remember who was POTUS (Johnson) and SEC DEF (MacNamara) gutless wonders both!
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13 July 2018 at 16:08
I knew John in London UK. We were both watch section supervisors in the NSGEUR commcen and when John and his family were transferred back stateside, my wife and son and I moved into the semi-basement apartment they had lived in (in the Irish {Kilburn} section of London). I was on duty when the LIBERTY was attacked and our flash traffic workload immediately went ‘into orbit’. We normally had connection to 10 outlying stations (including 3801 NE Ave) and protected NSGEUR, CINCUSNAVEUR, CINCEUR, COMNAVACTSUK over-the-counter and Genser refile with NAVCOMMU London (on the deck below our commcen) and we immediately activated overload circuits to nearly all our connections including ASC Chicksands. When relieved I went home but couldn’t say anything to my wife until the BBC reporters came and wanted to speak with Sandy (who no longer lived there of course!) and I called CAPT Skinner and got permission to tell my wife who also knew John and Sandy and was very PG with our second baby (also a son) born the following month. We then turned on the TV and watched the BBC news reports on what had happened. It was extremely upsetting to my wife and I particularly since we also knew Warren Hersey (who we also knew from London) and I also knew CTOC Ray Lynn from a TAD assignment to CINCLANTFLT SPINTCOMM in Norfolk while I was assigned to USS OXFORD (which was in drydock at Portsmouth) at the time — all 3 of whom died on the LIBERTY attack.//CTOC James R King, Retired
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