Today in History: The Sinking of the Indianapolis
On this day (July 30) in 1945, the USS Indianapolis was shot by a torpedo while returning to the Philippines after delivering parts of “Little Boy”, in preparation for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Indianapolis had been sent without a destroyer escort despite the fact that the navy knew that enemy submarines were patrolling the oceans they were transiting. Because of the secret nature of their mission, the crew was not missed immediately, and it was not discovered that the cruiser had sunk until a PV-1 Ventura discovered it 4 days later. Of the 1,195 crew members, approximately 300 drowned when the ship sank. The others faced exposure, salt-water poisoning, and dehydration while they waited for rescue in the water. Then the sharks came, at times killing as many as one man every ten minutes. Only 316 people ultimately survived.
In November 1945, Captain Charles McVay was court-martialed and convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag.” The conviction was controversial. McVay’s orders were to “zigzag at his discretion, weather permitting” but he had not been told that the navy knew an enemy submarine was patrolling the water he was crossing. Furthermore, the commander of the submarine who sank him testified that zigzagging would not have saved the Indianapolis. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay’s sentence and permitted him to retire as a rear admiral. The families of the crew were divided on the subject of the court martial. One piece of hate mail that McVay received read, “Merry Christmas! Our family’s holiday would be a lot merrier if you hadn’t killed our son.” McVay committed suicide in 1968 at the age of 70.
In 1997, twelve year old student, Scott Hunter, became interested in the Indianapolis after learning about it in the movie, Jaws. He interviewed 150 survivors, read 800 documents concerning the sinking, and became convinced that Captain McVay had been unjustly convicted. He then convinced his congressman of the same and got a Congressional Investigation started. As a result, Congress passed a resolution (signed by Bill Clinton) clearing McVay’s name and the Navy soon did likewise. In all of World War II, McVay had been the only U.S. naval captain court-martialed for his ship being sunk.
