A Review of What I Saw That Day by Phillip Francis Tourney and Mark Glenn
Available here via Amazon in print form
and here via Amazon as an audio book.
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Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?
(From Robert Browning’s poem: Andrea del Sarto)
I think we may be going a bridge too far.
(Attributed to British Lieutenant-General Frederick A.M. Browning)
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At 1:45 pm on June 8, 1967, 20 year-old Petty Officer 3rd Class Phillip Francis Tourney was just one of 294 mostly ordinary men on board the USS LIBERTY which was sailing all alone about twelve and one-half miles off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula. Tourney had just finished a horrible drill during which he nearly passed out from having to wear a hot and heavy “impregnated” suit as he practiced washing, in this case imaginary, chemicals from on board his ship. Just another grunt with a six-grade education on a boat far from home in a part of the world he knew nothing about. By 4:00 pm that same afternoon, Phillip Francis Tourney had become a real-life war hero whose courage under fire for close to two hours would lead to his receiving a Bronze Star With V for Valor and a Purple Heart. His life and the lives of the entire crew of his ship were changed forever, changed in ways none of them could possibly have known at 4:00 pm, June 8, 1967. His book removes the veil and allows us to see what happened to these men and why that day should always be remembered.
There were many heroes on board that ship that dreadful afternoon. What I Saw That Day is a first-hand account by one of them that is dedicated to Tourney’s shipmates, most especially the thirty four who were killed as a result of two hours of relentless assault by the air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Tourney, like virtually all of the crew, firmly believes that this assault was not only deliberate but that it was premeditated, conducted with malice aforethought. Read this gripping first-hand account and you will learn why.
This son of a full-blooded Cherokee mother and working class father had grown up believing that serving in the United States Navy was to be his destiny. When Tourney was at the tender age of 17 his father took him to the recruiting station so he could enlist. Tourney ended up in Damage Control aboard the LIBERTY and his job was to make sure his ship was secure and seaworthy at all times. What Tourney did not know at 1:45 pm on that fateful day was that he would be performing damage control in one way or another for the next 43 years.
What I Saw is not just a thrilling war story, which indeed it is, but it is something much more – something that the other fine books about Israel’s attack on the LIBERTY did not, could not, quite become. Tourney’s book is, and this may come as a surprise to many, in essence very much a “chick” book in that it is ultimately about relationships: relationships between men on a sinking ship, between officers and enlisted men, between countries, between men and their country, and relationships between these men and their families and with one another throughout the now almost 43-year aftermath of that terrible day.
It is also a story of betrayal. The betrayal is so shocking that even those who are extremely well versed in the USS LIBERTY story will be moved to outrage – and they should be. Tourney recounts betrayal after betrayal after betrayal of himself and his shipmates by not just the US government and its officials, civilian and military, which happened repeatedly for decades, but even by individuals who shared his fate on that awful day. You will gasp as you learn of each one.
It is also a story of redemption – Tourney’s for sure – but also of the likes of Captain Ward Boston who at the end of his life acknowledged what he had done to those ordinary men turned heroes who were on board that ship when it was attacked.
Tourney gives wonderful vignettes that are unforgettable. One is of “Doc” Richard Kiepfer – also immortalized in James Scott’s “The Attack on the USS LIBERTY.” Doc Kiepfer is indeed a true American hero. Tourney believes he deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor. Read this book to find out why this incredible man, the only doctor on board the entire ship, had even less morphine than he should have had to administer to the wounded and the dying during and after the assault.
Of the men in the ship’s boiler room, the most dangerous place in the ship to be when under torpedo attack, Tourney writes:
I sat and stared at them in awe. I knew that none of them, not even one, had abandoned their stations the whole time the ship was under attack. I learned later that during the worst part of the assault, Lt. Golden, fearing for the safety of his men, ordered everyone in the area to evacuate. Despite being given a direct order to leave the spaces, Benjamin Ash, a fireman, refused to obey and remained. In the boiler room one deck below, the other firemen had either not received the orders to evacuate or else had simply disregarded them as well. Knowing they were face to face with death and could be killed at any second, nevertheless they had continued their duties without consideration for the danger their own lives were in.
Tourney gives us their names, and makes a request of his readers:
The world owes a debt to these men it can never repay, and yet to this day these men have received nothing – officially or otherwise – for their bravery and their sacrifice.
I ask the reader to memorize the names of these men and always pay them the respect they deserve when recounting this story to others:
-Lt. George Golden
-Chief Richard Brooks
-Fireman Benjamin Ash
-Petty Officer Gene Owens
-Petty Officer Gary W. Brummett
-Petty Officer JP Newell
-Damage Controlman James Smith
-Petty Officer Robert C. Kidd
-Ensign Malcom Watson
-Petty Officer Rick Aimetti
-Albert Brammelsburg
-Steven J. Krasnasky
-Richard Munford
-Jim Kelly
Tourney manages somehow to downplay his own courageous role throughout this attack, but there is one vignette of himself that he gives at the end of his account of the assault that will forever stay in my mind. I will not reveal it here.
But I will take a moment to mention another hero. This one was never a sailor, was never aboard the USS LIBERTY, was never shot at. Lisa Tourney, Phillip Tourney’s second wife, whom he married years after the events that gave Tourney a permanent case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. This woman, in my estimation, made it possible for Tourney to do so much of the work he has done on the issue of the USS LIBERTY for the past decades. No doubt this book does not quite tell you everything that she has done and endured, but it tells you enough.
There are a host of other good and bad souls to whom Tourney will introduce you as he recounts the stories of betrayal alluded to above. One of the most humorous and most important is the story of “the nerdy guy with glasses.”
What I Saw is a book of thirty chapters. The first four deal with the attack itself, the other 26 deal with the aftermath. The first four chapters are so gripping you will not be able to put the book down.
But the greatest fact about “What I Saw That Day” is that the other 26 are equally gripping – spanning the time between 4:00 pm June 8th, 1967 to the year 2009. Surprise after surprise appears the more deeply one reads into the book. The final chapter will make you . . . well you will see. This book would make a great movie.
I’ve mentioned some of the heroes you’ll read about. But there is a host of villains too and Tourney wrote this book to name names. And he does. Some people are going to be squirming.
You will also see Tourney’s first marriage crumble to pieces and how hard he had to work to put his life back together, how he became reunited with his shipmates and became a leader among them.
Oh, and if you are thinking of enlisting in the United States Navy, when you find out what the United States Navy did to Phillip Francis Tourney, you may change your mind.
What I Saw also recounts the efforts over decades by USS LIBERTY survivors to not let what happened to them be forgotten as well as their efforts to demand a true investigation into the reasons for what happened. No true investigation has ever taken place and that is because the perpetrator of the attack was the holy state of Israel – a country with a death grip on the throats of virtually all US politicians. Tourney has had it with this situation and his book documents his heroic efforts to never let this country forget what happened on June 8, 1967. I believe that thanks to his book, more so than to any of the others written about the event, the USS LIBERTY will not only be forever remembered, but also that many Americans who have never heard of that ill-fated ship will learn of the USS LIBERTY story and the relevance of that story to certain critical world events happening today; and when they do, they will be pissed.
Fine accounts of the USS LIBERTY attack have been done by James Ennes, James Scott, John Edgar Borne and Peter Hounam. James Bamford also included a powerful chapter of the LIBERTY in one of his books. Plus the BBC documentary based on Hounam’s book is very informative and free on the Internet. LIBERTY buffs should study them all, many have.
But if you are going to read just one book on the USS LIBERTY, What I Saw That Day is the one to read.
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By 4:00 pm on June 8th, 1967, the USS LIBERTY was lying virtually dead in the water and listing badly. 34 men were dead or about to be, over 170 others wounded. The ship had a huge torpedo hole near its boiler room, hundreds if not thousands of rocket and bullet holes, blood was everywhere, so was the napalm the Israelis used. No help from the United States would arrive for at least 16 hours. In fact, twice planes that had been sent from the Sixth Fleet had already been called back. USS LIBERTY Captain William McGonagle, who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, tried to move his crippled ship into deeper waters in case it were to sink so that classified equipment and information would be harder to find.
James Scott reported in his book that there was actual discussion in Washington DC of not coming to the LIBERTY to save it, but to sink it – apparently with the men on board, by the way.
4:00 pm, on June 8th, 1967, just a few miles off the shores of Israel, but 500 miles removed from the Sixth Fleet, the bloody, battered, but unsinkable USS LIBERTY and its crew, both dead and alive, stood on the waters of the Mediterranean defiantly flying the flag of the United States of America. Israel’s reach had exceeded its grasp. And thanks to men like Phillip Francis Tourney, the USS LIBERTY remained a ship too far.
Phil Tourney is one of America’s greatest national treasures amidst these dark days at the very end of the American Republic. His role is reminiscent of Jeremiah’s pleadings and warnings before the Babylonian exile. His personal journey is living testimony of the truth of Luther’s theology of the cross. I am proud to call him my friend.
Phil’s book should be required reading in sixth grade instead of stupid moronic, degenerate books like “catcher in the rye”.
Ignorance and mind control are the reasons this country is in the sad shape it it is.
Another book that should be required reading in the sixth grade is : Henry Ford’s first autobiography “My Life and My Work”. He had the answers for material prosperity in this country and most major libraries in the country are lucky to have one copy. His story has been suppressed just like the story of the Liberty and don’t expect NPR (neocon propaganda radio ) or the History (fabrication) Channel to tell you about it correctly.
The bloodsuckers of this world are having a field day sucking the standard of living out of each and every American and have been doing so forever.
WAKE UP AMERICA !
Mike
And I had little confidence in the leaders of the USA while my son was on the Carrier Constellation in 2003 as I was already aware of the fact that our country had been hijacked by a foreign government long ago. A former F-14 pilot who flew off the Constellation told me that in his day the super carriers were not considered safe in the Persian Gulf but no problem in 2003.
One person on the internet said a while back that the Constellation was chosen in 2003 because it was non nuclear and was a good false flag target for our best friends, you know who; and I believe that.
My uncle George A Carroll, CIA Station Chief would probably be mad at me for writing this: Who at the CIA told him he could not publish two books he had written? (and why?). Our “best friends”? Uncle George was the paramilitary planner of the installation of the Shah, Bronze and Silver Star Recipient, Europe, WW2 and CIA Station Chief, Frankfort, Germany in the sixties according to some sources. I would like to see his books published. After seeing what I have seen in recent years I have to wonder how he really died in 1971. He was writing books somebody didn’t like and the “leaders” of our country apparently didn’t like his books!
Hubert Humphrey said he was part of a generation of unsung heroes but how will I ever know the truth when it is in such short supply and there are so many “smart” and “good” reasons for keeping American citizens in the dark.
Tired of being treated like a mushroom ,
Mike
PS I’m sure OUR “BEST FRIENDS” and USA traitors would kill me in a heartbeat too!
“There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. None so deaf as those who refuse to hear…”
Some Palestinian named Jesus said that. While traitors are at the controls of government, treason will be the rule of law.
A few have courage but not brains enough to point their rage in the proper direction, (Renfield Class in D.C./Talmudic, Ashkenazi Israel), many have brains but no back-bone to begin the task of cleanup. There’s only one way left to bring down the murderous beast, secession from the hole that the U.S. of Israel has become.
http://www.davidduke.com/
We send them top war weapons. Israel, becomes so grateful that it kills us with those same weapons. The “miracle” is, we continue to send them even more and deadlier weapons. Somethings cotta give. Aipac and all traitors in our country must be stopped dead. Our government works for US not for any one else, and we believe in peaceful ways and justice
Any country tha allows and encourages its citizens to have dual loyalties can be likened to a whorehouse.
Thats why the elite see to it that you get a volunteer army and/or hire private companies to do their work for them.
In his book n his book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in Christian America, Elliott Abrams who worked for GWB, says “Outside the land of Israel, there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand APARTt from the nations in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be APART — except in Israel — from the rest of the population.” Judaism and the Jewish way of life,” writes Abrams, is not “entirely voluntary, for the Jew is born into a covenantal community with obligations to God.” Jews, he goes on, “are in a permanent covenant with God and with the land of Israel and its people. Their commitment (NO MATTER WHERE THEY LIVE) IS TO ISRAEL
Thats the defense Jonathan Pollard took and thats why there is a square in Tel Aviv named after him.
It astounds me that with all the macho posturing which passes for patriotism in the USA, that nobody is doing anything except talk and protest a bit.
If the sort of evil had been perpetrated against my country by israel, I’d be doing the occassional mission against their interests and actively seeking to find a group to combine resources with for the purpose. I think the USA is already dead in the water.
To Omop,
very eye-openig comment! That will give you some idea of the size of the Renfield Class in D.C. The maggots squeel with joy over being allowed to lick the feet of the parasites in New Khazaria. McCain, Admiral McCain, Biden, et al, treasonous “Renfields” that have sold their fellows to the Vampyres for a handful of bugs to eat and a pat on the head from their masters. SECEDE FROM THE U.S. of ISRAEL!!
JEWS ARE THE CHILDREN OF SATAN,BIBLE,REVELATION 2:9,3:9,THEY SHOULD BE DEPORTED BACK TO KHAZARIA,AMERICA IS THE NEW JERUSALEM,ZECHARIAH 2:1,,2:2,,2:3,,2:4
I REPEAT,JEWS HAVE ADOPTED THIS SATANIC RELIGION IN 740,KHAZARIA,,,WWW.REALZIONISTNEWS.COM
Its obvious.
It’s now official – there’s no actual shortage of Holocaust survivors:
‘The Israeli Prime Minister’s office recently put the number of “living Holocaust survivors” at nearly a million’ (extract from The Holocaust Industry by Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York, published by Verso, London and New York, 2000, p.83).
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Statement by Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus , University of Ulster, December 5, 2005:
“I’ve checked out the six volumes of Churchill’s Second World War and the statement is quite correct – not a single mention of Nazi ‘gas chambers,’ a ‘genocide’ of the Jews, or of ‘six million’ Jewish victims of the war.
Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe is a book of 559 pages; Churchill’s Second World War totals 4,448 pages; and De Gaulle’s three-volume Mémoires de guerre is 2,054 pages.
In this mass of writing, which altogether totals 7,061 pages (not including the introductory parts), published from 1948 to 1959, one will find no mention either of Nazi ‘gas chambers,’ a ‘genocide’ of the Jews, or of ‘six million’ Jewish victims of the war.”
Interesting arithmetic – the incredible numbers
Have a look at a typical account by one of the seemingly endless number of survivors: Olga Lengyel’s Five Chimneys: a woman survivor’s true story of Auschwitz (Granada/ Ziff-Davis, 1947, 1972).
According to Lengyel, ‘After June, 1943, the gas chamber was reserved exclusively for Jews and Gypsies.. Three hundred and sixty corpses every half-hour, which was all the time it took to reduce human flesh to ashes, made 720 per hour, or 17,280 corpses per twenty-four hour shift. And the ovens, with murderous efficiency, functioned day and night. However, one must also reckon the death pits, which could destroy another 8,000 cadavers a day. In round numbers, about 24,000 corpses were handled each day. An admirable production record, one that speaks well for German industry.’ (Paperback edition, pp80-81). [No trace of any remains of or in ‘death pits’ has been found.]
This implies almost 100,000 corpses per four working days, or a million in 40 days, or six million in 240 days (eight months). Notice the bald precision of the figures without any explanation, the utter confidence in the reader’s credulity.
The blurb on the cover of the book quotes the New York Herald-Tribune: “Passionate, tormenting”. Albert Einstein, the promoter of the US construction of the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is quoted as offering “You have done a real service by letting the ones who are now silent and most forgotten speak.”
Could this claim be a misprint?
Kitty Hart, in spite of her name a Jewish survivor born in Poland, fully confirms these figures:
‘Working around the clock, the four units together could dispose of about 18,000 bodies every twenty-four hours, while the open pits coped with a further 8,000 in the same period.’ (p 118; Return to Auschwitz – paperback edition by Granada (1981, 1983).
According to the cover blurb, ‘The subject of the award-winning Yorkshire television documentary of the same name.’ ‘Both engaging and harrowing…an important addition to the growing holocaust literature, very little of which conveys so courageously both the daily torment and the will to survive’ – Martin Gilbert, The Times.
‘Sir’ Martin Gilbert, indefatigable Jewish campaigner on behalf of the ‘Holocaust’ and biographer of Winston Churchill, adds to the rich flavour and makes his own numerical claims, certainly not without chutzpah:
In his book Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) he states
‘The deliberate attempt to destroy systematically all of Europe’s Jews was unsuspected in the spring and early summer of 1942: the very period during which it was at its most intense, and during which hundreds of thousands of Jews were being gassed every day at Belzec, Chelmo, Sobibor and Treblinka.’ (p.26). [This statement, first noticed by Professor Robert Faurisson, was then deleted (not corrected) from the next edition - no simple typo, no simple error with omission or spelling or grammar, just a case of being caught red-handed in blatant chutzpah deluxe.]
If we assume a minimum figure of 200,000 per day, this amounts to say a million a five-day working week, or 6 million in six weeks, and this does not include the awe-inspiring claims for Auschwitz put forward by Hart and Lengyel with Gilbert’s blessing.
So, now we must decide.
Whom is the more repulsive, cowardly, devoid of the ability for objective thought?
The parasites slaughtering the Palestinians, selling organs, (ghouls), leading the world into WW3 with the help of the Renfield Class or the pathetic drones who, w/o question goble this holocaust feces down as fast as the Zhid controlled media can serve it up?
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n3p20_radar.html
What do you think would have happened next if the Israelis had succeeded in sinking the USS Liberty?
Painfully obvious Mr. Sullivan.
The sheeple of the United Satates of Israel would have began fighting and dying for the swine over a quarter century sooner. Because the world knows;
EVERYTHING FOR ISRAEL!! (NOT).
In his book “operation cyanide” Peter Hounam reveals that at the moment the attack on the USS Liberty was underway, 2 US Navy planes were sent aloft equipped with one nuclear bomb each, headed to drop these on Cairo Egypt.
So instead of 25 years of wars for the finance crowd, is there something else that may have developed much sooner?
In addition to the Renfield class annihilating millions, (had the wind direction been just right), we’d have a nasty little terrorist nation filled with two-headed vampyres?
Was there a leak re; a stolen Nuclear missile/bomb from a Jet last year in the United States of Israel or was it all just a nightmare?
Some of the ships in this convoy are from Turkey which is a NATO ally. Under the NATO treaty we are obligated to protect those ships from an attack.
I would love to see someone ask Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Obama) or Robert Gibbs if they will honor our NATO treaty obligations.
I sense a lot of frustration here with our apparent inability to penetrate the armor of the Zionist Beast. I have been attacking this Beast for years, with every available weapon, trying to hit the “Achilles’ Heel”. Then Dr. Alan Sabrosky came along and gave us all an infusion of hope – only to be (apparently) dashed when he stopped talking. Will he ever open his mouth again – and what will he say?
Perhaps Chinese water torture will eventually do the trick. Keep dropping truth on the Beast in cyberspace – drop by drop by drop – until we wear a hole in his brain. Help from “Above” would be most welcome, right about NOW!
What a riveting synopsis. This book is on my reading list. Sounds like another case of our servicemen being head and shoulders above thhose who are responsible for their well-being. I’m fed up with hearing about how our best and finest are being sacrificed for the good of politicians and career-minded superiors.
I haven’t checked the veracity of this, but recall the swine kidnapped a former U.S. of Israel senator and the Ashkenazi controlled media kept it from the sheeple.
Just recieved this re; the human rights flotilla,
Israel to hijack humanitarian aid ships headed to Gaza A very high drama is presently developing on the high seas near Gaza that may end in tragic consequences. The Israeli Navy has launched an undetermined number of gunboats to confront a flotilla of approximately 9 international ships carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza strip. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has given orders to board the ships by force if necessary and to take the approximately 750 humanitarian volunteers as prisoners The group of aid ships named “The Freedom Flotilla” is carrying approximately 10,000 tons of aid which consists of cement, iron, generators, prefabricated homes, construction materials, medical equipment and educational supplies.The ships originated in Turkey, Ireland, England, Greece Italy and Cyprus. The ships were scheduled to arrive in Gaza between May 26-28. Three of the aid ships have the backing of the Turkish government and are flying the country’s flag. These three ships departed Turkey on Saturday during a send off ceremony with thousands of supporters. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog had requested that Israel allow them to reach Gaza and if Israel does “pirate” the ships, it could spark the entire Arabic and Muslim world to attack the criminal Zionist state. To add to the explosiveness of the situation, a group of hard core Zionist criminal settlers have vowed to organize a flotilla of their own to meet the “The Freedom Flotilla” on the high seas. If these Zionists become physically confrontational, the Israeli Navy may use it as an excuse to fire upon the “The Freedom Flotilla.”
So tell me, how much longer are we going to allow the Renfields in D.C. to serve us up to the Israeli Vampyres?