Rota, Liberty was attacked by Israeli forces and suffered heavy damages, with 34 crew members killed and 171 injured (see USS Liberty incident). Private Jose F. Valdez arrived in Bayonne, New Jersey in June 1967. Final deployments After repair and overhaul, Private Jose F. Valdez departed for her second extended tour in the African region on 18 September 1967. She returned to the USA unexpectedly early in September 1968 for installation of Technical Research Ship Special COMMunications (TRSSCOMM), a system that could relay messages directly to Washington by bouncing a microwave signal off the moon. This was not a new system; it had already been used on Liberty and Oxford. This system consisted of a sixteen-foot, dish shaped antenna mounted on a movable platform and capable of bouncing a 10,000 watt microwave signal off a particular spot on the moon and down either to the receiving station at Cheltenham, Maryland, or to one of the other Navy SIGINT ships. The TRSSCOMM had the advantage of being able to transmit large quantities of intelligence information very rapidly without giving away the ship's location to hostile direction finding equipment or interfering with incoming signals. But its major disadvantage is that it could only work if the moon was visible and the stabilization system worked properly. The third extended deployment commenced on 22 January 1969 when Private Jose F. Valdez transited to Africa via Recife, Brazil. Private Jose F. Valdez was ordered home later that year to prematurely end her final deployment. All the vessels in the Technical Research Fleet were inactive by 1970. Final fate The Maritime Administration assumed custody of Private Jose F. Valdez on 7 November 1969. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, 15 August 1976 and transferred for disposal. She, and three other ships, were sold on 27 July 1977 to Consolidated-Andy Inc., Brownsville, Texas for $309,999 and scrapped by that company later that year. References Bibliography External links DANFS: Pvt. Jose F. Valdez Website of the Worldwide CT Community A complete listing of the Technical Research Ships Type C1-M ships Ships built in Duluth, Minnesota 1944 ships Type C1-M ships of the United States Army Type C1-M ships of the United States Navy Cold War auxiliary ships of the United States