Station HYPO

The Helicopter Assault

When the torpedo boats finally left the scene, helicopters were observed overhead with Israeli commandos at the ready. Despite his impaired hearing, Phil Tourney could hear the unmistakable “whomp whomp” sound of troop-carrying helicopters approaching from the starboard side. When he saw them, he felt they were looming like birds of prey.

The Torpedo Attack

When the jets realized they couldn’t sink Liberty, they called off the attack and left. Before the crew could breathe a sigh of relief, Captain McGonagle came over the intercom, ordering the crew to prepare for a torpedo hit, starboard side.

On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty was attacked without warning, resulting in the deaths of 34 American sailors and the wounding of 174 others. The scale of the loss was staggering—nearly seven out of every ten crew members were killed or injured—marking the highest casualty rate ever suffered by a U.S. Navy vessel. In solemn remembrance of this tragedy and the men who endured it, Station HYPO begins a five-part series today to honor their sacrifice and ensure their story is never forgotten.

Twenty thousand feet above Germany, Charles Brown was dying. His B-17 bomber looked like it had been chewed through a meat grinder—bullet holes riddled the fuselage, half his crew lay dead or bleeding out, and the tail gunner slumped lifeless, blood frozen to the metal. Charles could barely see through his cracked goggles, his hands trembling on the controls. One more hit and they would all be gone.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was created with a national sense of urgency in February 1958 amidst one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Cold War and the already-accelerating pace of technology. In the months preceding the official authorization for the agency’s creation, Department of Defense Directive Number 5105.15, the Soviet Union had launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, and the world’s second satellite, Sputnik II.

On January 18, 1918 the German spy Lothar Witzke was arrested carrying a codebook and an encrypted message. The message was signed by the German minister in Mexico City and was studied by Herbert Yardley and Dr. John Manly of MI8 in Washington, DC. The message proved to be a transposition cipher. At the end of three days, Manly had transcribed the message, which was damning in that it identified the bearer as a secret agent.