I saw this on this blog, as well as in an email that was sent to me:

Rabbi Frand, at his weekly shiur (broadcast via satellite from Baltimore), told over the following incredible story. He related how he had received a letter this past week from a person involved in rabbanut in Israel. The Rabbi wrote that he had been sitting on a train in Israel with a Gemarah out, and a sailor from the Israeli navy came and sat next to him. He asked him if he was a rabbi, and when the Rabbi answered that he was, he told him the following:

The sailor related that he had been stationed on a ship called the INS Hanit (spear) during the recent war with Lebanon. On July 14^th , a Friday night, the ship was stationed off the coast of Lebanon. The typical routine was for the sailors to eat the Friday night Shabbat dinner in two shifts, so that there would always be a full crew on duty. One of the religious sailors went to the captain and requested that due to the war and the need for God’s help, could they possibly all pray and eat together. Miraculously, the captain agreed to this crazy idea. The entire ship went down to the chapel and dining area leaving just four sailors on the bridge of the ship.

The sailor explained that the whole ship prayed mincha, kabbalot Shabbat, and maariv. Then they had a festive Shabbat meal, which lasted late into the evening. Fifteen sailors each said Kiddush in the manner that their fathers had, although none of them where religious. This sailor related that he had wanted to leave because he was on duty at midnight and wanted to sleep a bit before then. However, for some reason he decided to stay even as the meal dragged on and on.

Just as they where reciting the grace after meals, there was a loud boom. The ship had been hit by a missile from Lebanon. The sailors rushed out to survey the damage. Miraculously, the boat did not sink. There was a tank of fuel for the helicopters right where the missile had hit, and though that entire portion of the ship was badly burnt the fuel did not explode. The presence of a crane over the landing pad where the missile hit kept the boat from sinking.

If there had been a regular crew on duty, over twenty people would have been certainly killed. Instead, only the four men that where manning the bridge at the time where killed and the rest of the crew was spared as they where on the other side of the boat for the Shabbat meal. This sailor then went to his bunk, where he would have been sleeping at that time. His bunk was directly under the missile attack site, and everything inside was ashes! even the steel was all melted down to unrecognizable shapes.

The most incredible part was what they found in the Boiler room when they made it down there. There was a Tehillim, open to Psalm 124. The Psalm reads as follows:

“Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

“If it had not been the lord who was for us then they would have swallowed us up alive? then the waters would have overwhelmed us then the proud waters would have gone over our soul”