March 9, 1999
William McGonagle, 73, Hero of Israel Attack on the Liberty
By ERIC PACE

William L. McGonagle, who as a Navy captain won a
Medal of Honor for maintaining control of the
technical  research ship Liberty although wounded
when the ship was attacked by Israel in the 1967
Arab-Israeli war,  died on Wednesday in his home
in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 73.

Donald Pageler, editor of The Liberty News, a
newsletter published by the survivors of what is
sometimes called the  Liberty incident, said he
did not know the cause of death.

Captain McGonagle was a commander then, and badly
wounded in the attack by military aircraft and
torpedo boats using  rockets, napalm and other
weaponry. Afterward Israel apologized, saying the
Liberty had been mistaken for an Egyptian  ship.
Israel also contended that the markings on Liberty
had been insufficient, but it paid compensation of
more than $12  million.

The attack left 34 of the ship's occupants dead
and 171 wounded. The Liberty was in the
Mediterranean off the Sinai  Peninsula, in
international waters, when the Israeli forces
struck.

Despite his wounds, Commander McGonagle, who had
served in the Korean War, stayed on the Liberty's
bridge  commanding his crew and later navigating
his crippled vessel to safety. In 1968, having
been promoted to captain, he  wept when awarded
the Medal of Honor for keeping the ship under
control for 17 hours after the attack. At times
during  that period, the citation said, he had
been forced to command his ship while lying on the
deck to keep from fainting.

He stayed in the Navy for almost three decades
after the Liberty incident and then retired.

In the years after the attack on the ship, there
were charges of a Government cover-up. At a
gathering of survivors of the  attack in 1997 in
Washington, Captain McGonagle said, "I think it's
about time that the state of Israel and the United
States Government provide the crew members of the
Liberty and the rest of the American people the
facts of what  happened, and why the Liberty was
attacked 30 years ago today."

"For many years I have wanted to believe that the
attack on the Liberty was pure error," he went on,
adding: "It appears  to me that it was not a pure
case of mistaken identity. It was, on the other
hand, gross incompetence and aggravated
dereliction of duty on the part of many officers
and men of the state of Israel."

William McGonagle was born in Wichita, Kan. He
enlisted in the Navy in 1944. Three years later,
after finishing a Navy  training program at the
University of Southern California, he became a
Navy ensign. He rose through the ranks and was
given command of the Liberty in April 1966.

In an interview last year, he said that recently,
while taking a shower, he noticed that an old
piece of shrapnel had come  loose and was sticking
through his ribs. He pulled it out and fell in
pain to the shower-stall floor. "I asked my wife
for a  Band-Aid," he recalled, "and she said,
'What do you need it for? You just took a shower.'"

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company