USS Liberty AGTR-5 Patch

LIBERTAS PER SCIENTIAM, stitched on the red ribbon of this patch, means liberty through knowledge, and the knowledge USS Liberty AGTR-5 gathered was signals intelligence. Technical research ship was the Navy's name for a ship fitted out to collect it. Liberty began as the Victory cargo ship Simmons Victory, laid down at Oregon Shipbuilding in Portland on 23 February 1945. The Navy acquired her in 1963, converted her at Willamette Iron and Steel, and named her Liberty on 8 June 1963. She was reclassified AGTR-5 on 1 April 1964 as one of the Belmont-class technical research ships.

On 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, Liberty was in international waters about 25 nautical miles northwest of El Arish, off the Sinai Peninsula, when Israeli Air Force jets and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats attacked her. Thirty-four of her crew were killed, one of them a civilian NSA employee, and 171 were wounded. A torpedo opened a hole about 39 feet wide in her hull. Her crew kept her afloat and under her own power, and she reached Malta on 14 June for repairs. William L. McGonagle, her commanding officer, received the Medal of Honor, and the ship received the Presidential Unit Citation.

The patch is a 4.5 by 4.5 inch circle with a gold merrowed edge. USS LIBERTY arches across the top of a navy blue ring in white, with gold stars set around the sides and bottom. In the white center, AGTR-5 sits above a gold and brown eagle with its wings spread wide, holding the red motto ribbon. Its talons grip the Liberty Bell, stitched in tan with the black crack running down its side, a direct play on the ship's name. The back is iron-on.

Her crew's awards from that day included two Navy Crosses, eleven Silver Stars, the Combat Action Ribbon for 8 and 9 June 1967, and Purple Hearts for the 34 killed and 171 wounded. Those numbers belong to a crew of technicians, deck sailors and engineers aboard a research ship armed with four .50 caliber machine guns. They fought fires, plugged holes and kept the engineering plant running long enough to get her out. Liberty was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 28 June 1968, transferred to the Maritime Administration in December 1970 and sold for scrap in 1973. The 34 names are the reason this patch exists.

Mount it in a shadow box next to a Purple Heart or a photograph of the ship, or sew it on a vest worn on 8 June each year. It is also a good gift for the family of a man who served aboard her. Iron it on, or stitch it down for good. A small ship with a long memory.