I didnt even have a life jacket, so I was swimming from midnight to 5:30 in the morning. He was far too high and at too odd an angle to see the macabre drama unfolding below him. At first, the fuel oil from the wreck acted as a crude sunscreen, but the survivors soon drifted into clear waters that provided no shelter from the sun. Dick Thelen, Seaman Second Class: I was 17 when my dad signed the paperwork for me to join the Navy. Only 316 men would survive. McVay retired in 1949 as a rear admiral. He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took five days to rescue his men, and he never received an answer. By Thursday morning, August 2, the dead outnumbered the living. She also wrote many of the Once-sane crew pulled off life vests and immersed themselves in the water, never to surface again. American submarine experts testified that "zigzagging" was a technique of negligible value in eluding enemy submarines. Though Tony King is sharp and alert at the age of 94, a part of him is trapped forever in the summer of 1945. "On behalf of Christine McVie's . This grew worse as hours stretched to days. RADM Charles Butler McVay III Birth 31 Aug 1898 Ephrata, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA Death 6 Nov 1968 (aged 70) Litchfield, Litchfield County, Connecticut, USA Memorial Site* U.S.S. There were a lot of sharks, he says, his voice nearly a whisper. They say that just before it was torpedoed, the cruiser had carried a top-secret cargo -- the final components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. "Men Desert Women and Fill Boats." Los Angeles Herald, February 14, 1907. In fact, on July 31, 1945, the naval staff at Leyte removed the USSIndianapolis from its arrival board. By the morning of Aug. 3, 1945, there were a little over 300 crew of the USSIndianapolis left. INDIANAPOLIS and the lives of the men who died as a result of her sinking.". Anyone can read what you share. They were wagering it was anything from a new type of airplane engine to scented toilet paper for General MacArthur. Still, the 900 men clung to the thought of imminent rescue. Among the survivors was the captain of the Indianapolis, Charles B. McVay III. An additional point of controversy is evidence that the admirals in the United States Navy were primarily responsible for placing the ship in harm's way. History Reads features the work of prominent authors and historians. He hung around a minute or two and he said, I think Ill go get another one, I said, I think you better. He did, but I didnt ever see him again. Captain McVay led the ship through the invasion of Iwo Jima, then the bombardment of Okinawa in the spring of 1945, during which Indianapolis anti-aircraft guns shot down seven enemy planes before the ship was struck by a kamikaze on March 31, inflicting heavy casualties, including 13 dead, and penetrating the ship's hull. Others flopped into the water, face first. . . Hashimoto commanded in a loud voice. King, overruled him and ordered a court-martial. By that evening, rescue craft had arrived in full force and evacuated the victims. I mean stone black, and its midnight. It felt like my legs were going down and my top was going up. The intelligence was shared with top brass, but they chose to disregard it. This conclusion finally raises the question of whether the court-martial properly held him accountable. With hardly any freshwater to speak of, the men were sorely tempted to drink the seawater. That might have been the end of the story of the Indianapolis. Id see them swimming below me.. This court-martial occurred before the conclusion of the inspector generals investigation, raising the question of motives for the court-martial. From May 43-October 44, McVay chaired the Joint Intelligence Staff in Washington DC. Christine McVie's cause of death has finally been revealed. If zigzagging had been the standard which McVay fell short of, then the Navy would have court-martialed every captain who failed to zigzag, which it did not. The great white shark, the shark from Jaws, is according toNational Geographic, statistically the most dangerous shark, along with bull and tiger sharks. Of all captains in the history of the United States Navy, he is the only one to have been subjected to court-martial for losing a ship sunk by an act of war, despite the fact that he was on a top secret mission maintaining radio silence. Kelly, Charles B. McVay III: Accountability, 115. His description of how his friend was bitten in half by a shark bite chills the heart. Following McVay's conviction for hazarding Indianapolis by failing to zigzag, Admiral King recommended setting aside the punishment. Needless to say, nobody ever collected a nickel on that bet. This standard can and should be properly applied today; to hold commanders accountable for effects they cause, rather than to respond to public outcry in the wake of crisis and challenge. Some historians, citing documents declassified years later, have attributed the slowness of the rescue to the secrecy surrounding the atomic bomb mission. Also, naval command assumed McVay's route would be safe at that point in the war. No one dreamed that Indianapolis would be at sea at all, the war being almost over. The Tragic Deaths Of The Crew Of The USS Indianapolis, Naval History and Heritage Command / Wikimedia Commons, U.S. National Park Service / Wikimedia Commons, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Naval Academy. Harold Bray, Seaman Second Class, Repair Division: The ship was looking goodnew paint, some new guns. It wasnt hard to be talked into things out there. One of Captain McVay's defenders was Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of the Japanese submarine that attacked the Indianapolis. There were hardly enough life rafts. [1] Many ships, including most destroyers, were equipped with submarine detection equipment, but the Indianapolis was not so equipped, which casts the decision to deny McVay's request for an escort as military incompetence. Naval Institute, the chief of naval operations, Adm. Ernest J. And you knew someone had been hit, usually on the outer edge of the group.". Men continued to expire so quickly that it became almost impossible to move around without having to shoulder through shoals of corpses. Charles Butler McVay III (August 31, 1898 - November 6, 1968) was an American naval officer and the commanding officer of the cruiser USS Indianapolis which was lost in action in 1945, resulting in a significant loss of life. McVay remained at sea in a life raft with a group of nine sailors until 2 August. I had no time to get off the deck before I heard the second explosion. Most people tend to focus on the case and court martial of Captain McVay instead of the tragedy itself. Called affectionately,Indy, the heavy cruiser had seen action from New Guinea to the Aleutian Islands. In February 1946 McVay was found guilty of negligence Charles McVay is most known in U.S. naval history for captaining USS Indianapolis (CA-35) when two Japanese torpedoes from submarine I-58 struck and sunk her on 30 July 1945. The USS Indianapolis, with 1,196 sailors and Marines aboard, was hit by two of six torpedoes fired by a Japanese submarine. He remained close to Prince David. I looked over [at the ships rail] and there was too many guys who didnt have a life jacket. Congress passed a resolution absolving him last fall. Yet the effort to exonerate McVay really began when Hunter Scott, a middle school student, interviewed survivors of the disaster in the 1990s for a class project. So they gathered in large groups. Paul McGinnis, Signalman Third Class: While I was completely coherent, this was my thought: Keep struggling and stay alive. Under his command, Indianapolis participated in attacks on Iwo Jima, Tokyo, and was critically damaged by a kamikaze in the pre-invasion of Okinawa. Lyle Umenhoffer, Seaman First Class: When I looked down at myself, I noticed I was covered in this oil and the first instinct is to get away from it, you know, because if it catches on fire then you are really in trouble. Following the conclusion of his studies, he will proceed to flight school in Pensacola, FL. Naval Institute Press, 2013), 113. "Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war. [23] Commander Hashimoto died five days before the exoneration (on 25 October). He made a dive. McVay was in a court martial from Dec. 3 to 19, 1945, the only time during World War II that a skipper was tried for losing his vessel. USS Indianapolis WWII Battle Stars Extracted from the book, A Grave Misfortune: The USS Indianapolis Tragedy. One ensign, Harlan Twible, organized shark watches when they noticed that the animals tended to attack those survivors who floated alone. McVay died on 6November 1968. U.S. Navy Captain Charles B. McVay of the U.S.S. They [both Carter and the Guam routing] assured the captain everything was all right. She declared dead as soon as paramedics arrived on the scene. Of the 1,194 crew, only 316 survived. Santos Pena, Seaman First Class: I heard an explosion which knocked me off the ready box, knocking me on the deck. Accountability is a critical standard for the Navy; it ensures public trust and reminds commanders that they are responsible for readiness, safety, and sailors wellbeing; however, accountability must be applied non-selectively, as a standard that links causes and effects. Eugene Morgan, Boatswains Mate Second Class: All the time, the sharks never let up. 1. Photographed on Guam in August 1945, following the rescue of her survivors. After all the unnecessary death that the US Navy caused with its string of continuous blunders they would go that extra mile and kill one more man, Captain McVay. Gwinn turned over the controls to investigate, which brought him to the bottom of the plane. '', See the article in its original context from. Charls B. McVay, III, the survivors of the USSIndianapolis wanted justice and exoneration for their skipper. Uranium being the heaviest of natural elements, the weight of this object was considerable, and it moved about as easily as a lump of lead Actually, what we were transporting was one-half the essence of the [atomic] bomb with all the fusing, firing mechanism and casements removed It seems unbelievable now that we did all we did, knowing as little as we knew of what the bomb, in that form, could do. So, I left the big group I was in and headed to the craft. CNN . There has been speculation that King railroaded McVay in order to shift blame from the failures of the upper echelons of the Navy. When a shipmate pulled them out, they did it again. Source: Charles B. McVay, III, interview in box 21 of World War II Interviews, Archives, Naval History and Heritage Command. Even though McVay pleaded not guilty, the evidence said otherwise . McVay then proceeded to the radio room to get out a distress call, and was swept overboard as the Indy listed to 60 degrees and sank 12 minutes after the first torpedo struck. . Adapted from "Rear Admiral Charles B. McVay III., United States Navy, Retired" [biography, 13 July 1954] in Modern Officer Biographies Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command Archives, Washington Navy Yard. His breathing shallows and tears stream down his tortured face. So what species of shark attacked the crew of the USSIndianapolis? Here we were going from Guam to the Philippines without a destroyer escort.
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