I have been reading Taking Mines Seriously: Mine Warfare in China's Near Seas from the U.S. Navy War College. The article goes into the ways various ships have been damaged/sunk:
since the end of World War II mines have seriously damaged or sunk almost four times more U.S. Navy ships than all other means of attack combined (my notes in parenthesis):
• Mines, fifteen ships (USS Roberts, USS Princeton, USS Tripoli, etc.)
• Missiles, one ship (USS Stark)
• Torpedoes/aircraft, two ships (??)
• Small-boat terrorist attack, one ship (USS Cole)
It's fairly easy to find info on the other incidents, but can anyone please describe the incidents and the general atmosphere in which they occurred or point me to reading on the two incidents involving torpedoes/aircraft?
Of course if the incidents fall within the last twenty years I can delete my post and take it on over to /r/WarshipPorn (which is more about the photos than discussion).
Hey there!
One if the ships you are looking for is the technical research ship USS Liberty, a vessel that came under controversial attack by Israeli aircrcaft and torpedo boats in 1967. My fellow flaired user /u/tayaravaknin has made an excellent, multi-part post on the incident and the resulting controversy.
The two ships would be the aforementioned USS Liberty (AGTR-5) and the USS Higbee (DD-806) which was bombed by a MiG-17 on 19 April 1972 with minor damage (a five inch gun mount destroyed and four sailors wounded). One MiG-17 was shot down with Terrier missiles by the cruiser USS Sterett (CG-31).
This is about mine warfare, but if you scroll down to figure 3 on page 12 (which is sourced from "Commander, Mine Warfare Command briefing slide"), you can see a breakdown of US ship casualties by weapon type, 1950-2001 complete with a listing of which ships were so damaged and by whom. Note that the Liberty is counted twice since it was damaged both by surface attack and by aerial bombing.