Loss of the Indianapolis
[edit]A secret mission, and destruction
After repairs and overhaul, The Indianapolis received orders to proceed to Tinian island, carrying necessary parts and the uranium projectile of the atomic bomb "Little Boy" which was going to be dropped on Hiroshima. Due to the importance of her mission, The Indianapolis departed San Francisco on July 16. Arriving at Pearl Harbor July 19, she raced on unaccompanied and arrived in Tinian on July 26. After delivering hertop secret cargo to Tinian, The Indianapolis was sent to Guam where she let soldiers off. From Guam she set sail to Leyte. From there she was to report to Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf. Leaving Guam on July 28, Indianapolis continued on a direct route, unaccompanied. Early in the morning, at 12:14 on July 30, 1945, two heavy explosions (some say three) occurred against her starboard side, and she sank in twelve minutes. The Indianapolis was hit by two torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58, commanded by Mochitsura Hashimoto.
[edit]Delayed rescue: Four days in the water
At the Headquarters of Commander Marianas on Guam and of the Commander Philippine Sea Frontier on Leyte, operations plotting boards were kept. On these boards was kept a graphic plot of the positions at sea of all vessels in which the headquarters concerned was interested. In the case of the Indianapolis, the departure of the vessel from Guam on July 28 was recorded on the plotting boards in each of these headquarters. Her estimated position was plotted on each board daily. On July 31, the date on which the vessel was scheduled to have arrived at Leyte, the Indianapolis was removed from the board in the headquarters of Commander Marianas and was recorded on the board at the headquarters of Commander Philippine Sea Frontier as having arrived at Leyte. This was the routine method of handling the plot of combatant vessels. Since, in accordance with orders standard throughout the Southwest Pacific Area, the Pacific Ocean Areas, and the Atlantic, the arrival of combatant vessels was not reported, vessels of this class were assumed to have arrived at their destinations on the date and at approximately the time scheduled in the absence of information to the contrary. Lieutenant Stuart B. Gibson, U.S.N.R., the Operations Officer under the Port Director, Tacloban, was the officer who was immediately concerned with the movements of the Indianapolis. The non-arrival of that vessel on schedule was known at once to Lieutenant Gibson who not only failed to investigate the matter but made no immediate report of the fact to his superiors.[2]
While the Indianapolis sent distress calls before sinking, the Navy long claimed that they were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because one commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him and a third thought it was a Japanese prank.[3] (no longer available)
The subsequent delay of the rescue mission led to the loss of hundreds of sailors. About 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the attack. The rest of the crew, 880 men, floated in the water without lifeboats until the rescue was completed four days later. Three hundred and twenty-one crew came out of the water alive, with 317 ultimately surviving. They suffered from lack of food and water, exposure to the elements, severe desquamation, and shark attacks. The Discovery Channel has stated that the Indianapolis sinking resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history, and attributes the attacks to the oceanic whitetip shark species. The same show attributed most of the deaths on the Indianapolis to exposure, salt poisoning and thirst, with the dead being dragged off by sharks.
Immediately prior to the attack, the seas had been moderate; the visibility fluctuating but poor in general; Indianapolis had been steaming at 17 knots (31 km/h). When the ship did not reach Leyte on the 31st, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. This omission was due to a misunderstanding of the Movement Report System. Thus it was not until 10:25 onAugust 2 that the survivors were accidentally sighted by pilot Lieutenant Wilber (Chuck) Gwinn and copilot Lieutenant Warren Colwell on a routine patrol flight. The survivors were mostly held afloat by life jackets, although there were a few rafts which had been cut loose before the ship went down. Gwinn immediately dropped a life raft and a radio transmitter. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once.
A PBY seaplane under the command of LT. R. Adrian Marks was dispatched to lend assistance and report. Enroute to the scene, Marks overflew the destroyer escort USS Cecil J. Doyle (DE-368) and alerted her captain, future U.S. Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor, Jr., of the emergency. On his own authority, Claytor decided to divert to the scene.
Arriving hours ahead of the Doyle, Marks' crew began dropping rubber rafts and supplies. While so engaged, they observed men being attacked by sharks. Disregarding standing orders not to land at sea, Marks landed and began taxiing to pick up the stragglers and lone swimmers who were at greatest risk of shark attack. Learning the men were the crew of the Indianapolis, he radioed the news, requesting immediate assistance. The Doyle responded she was enroute. When the plane's fuselage was full, survivors were tied to the wings with parachute cord, damaging the wings so that the plane would never fly again and had to be sunk. Marks and his crew rescued 56 men that day.
The Cecil Doyle was the first vessel on the scene. Homing on Marks' PBY in total darkness, the Doyle halted to avoid killing or further injuring survivors, and began taking Marks' survivors aboard. Disregarding the safety of his own vessel, the Doyle's captain pointed his largest searchlight into the night sky to serve as a beacon for other rescue vessels. This beacon was the first indication to most survivors that their prayers had been answered.
Destroyers USS Helm (DD-388), USS Madison (DD-425) and USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) were ordered from Ulithi, and the destroyer escort USS Dufilho (DE-423) with attack transports USS Bassett (APD-73) and USS Ringness (LPR-100) from the Philippine Frontier to the rescue scene, searching thoroughly for any survivors. On August 8 the search for survivors ended. Of the 900 who made it into the water, only 317 were pulled out alive. After almost five days of constant shark attacks, starvation, terrible thirst, suffering from exposure and their wounds, the men of the Indianapolis were at last rescued from the sea.
[edit]Captain Charles Butler McVay III
Captain Charles Butler McVay III, who had commanded Indianapolis since November 1944, survived the sinking, and was with those rescued days later. In November 1945, he was court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." Several things about the court-martial were controversial. There was evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm's way, in that McVay's orders were to "zigzag at his discretion, weather permitting." Further, Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of I-58, testified that zigzagging would have made no difference.[4]
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to active duty. McVay retired in 1949.[5] While many of the Indianapolis survivors said McVay was not to blame for the sinking, the families of some of the men who died did. The guilt that was placed on his shoulders mounted until he committed suicide in 1968.[6]
In October 2000, the United States Congress passed a resolution that Captain McVay's record should state that "he is exonerated for the loss of the USS Indianapolis." President Bill Clintonsigned the resolution.[7]
Of the 700 ships of the U.S. Navy that were lost in combat in World War II, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed.
[edit]The wreck
The exact location of the Indianapolis is unknown. In July and August 2001 an expedition sought to find the wreckage through the use of side-scan sonar and underwater cameras mounted on a remotely operated vehicle; four Indianapolis survivors accompanied the expedition, which was not successful. In June 2005, a second expedition was led to find the wreck; National Geographic covered the story and released it in July. Submersibles were launched to find any sign of wreckage. The only things ever found—which have not been confirmed to have belonged to the Indianapolis—were many chunks of metal found in the area of the reported sinking position (this was included in the National Geographic program Finding of the USS Indianapolis).
Many have claimed that the Indianapolis cannot be found. She was carrying quite a few explosives on board and was reported to have gone down burning. Many believe that she perhaps exploded after sinking beneath the waves. On top of this, the area in which she sank has some of the deepest spots in the world. The expedition led in 2005 found no actual bulk of the wreck, no deckhouses, turrets, or hull. This has not discouraged some shipwreck hunters who are bent on finding one of World War II's most famous ships.
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