Joe Meadors is an American former U.S. Navy signalman, who survived Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967. In 2010, he was a passenger on the Sfedoni, in the Gaza flotilla. He is married to Jean Meadors;[1] they live in Corpus Christi, Texas.[2]
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Joe He and Francis Brown hoisted a second American Flag, after the first was shot down. He was on the bridge throughout the attack, and was an eyewitness to the machine-gunning of liferafts.[3]
I watched some jets pass us, then turn left after they passed our ship, then they started strafing us. The attack lasted 90 minutes, during which we got a message off to the Sixth Fleet asking for assistance. We learned later that Joe Tully, commanding officer of the USS Saratoga, launched aircraft within minutes of the attack, but he told us later they were recalled before they reached the horizon. We found this out 20 years after the attack.
The most frustrating thing has been a lack of reaction from the U.S. government. On June 8, 2005, we filed a war crimes report, and they are required to investigate these allegations. They've created reports about our mission, but they never did conduct an actual investigation of the attack itself. [4]
He is president of the USS Liberty Veterans Association.[5]
In 2010, he was a part of the Gaza flotilla.[6]
He was on the Sfedoni, with Ambassador Edward Peck, captured by the Israelis, and released.[7]
They [Israeli military] are very inept, to tell you the truth,
It was an illegal attack. We were on the high seas conducting legal activities. They admitted that they closed the area for military purposes but they, we tried to find out the boundaries of that area and they wouldn’t tell us,[8]
They’re just a bunch of rag-tag people who think they can do no wrong. Every time they speak they say they don’t break any laws, they always abide by international laws. But, they break them with impunity and the US Government is not going to hold them accountable, nobody is [9]
There is no doubt that the Israelis were committing piracy on the high seas against the Freedom Flotilla and used deadly force against unarmed humanitarians whose only crime was defending themselves against a sea and airborne invasion by heavily armed aggressors.[10]