Indianapolis Quotes

“In the cosmos of a tragedy, even one or two mitigating moments can turn aside an unqualified disaster. But sometimes disaster is without defect, and every one of the thousand instants on which destinies turn goes terribly and perfectly wrong.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“At the secret desert lab, scientists had devised two atomic bomb designs: an implosion type using plutonium, and a gun type using uranium. Parsons’s primary assignment was the assembly of the gun-type uranium bomb. He would actually complete that job inside the belly of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that would deliver the bomb to its target. Because B-29s had a proclivity for crashing on takeoff, and because the uranium bomb was so dangerous, Groves decided that the “gadget,” as they called it, must be assembled in the air.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“In Arizona, being Mexican hadn’t been a big deal. In fact, it was a Mexican kid who had given Celaya his nickname, “Harpo.” The kid said Celaya’s puffy hair looked like Harpo Marx’s, and Celaya had decided to embrace it. But in the Navy, Harpo’s brown skin was a problem. From boot camp on, it seemed to Harpo that Navy recruiters had stacked the ranks with corn-fed rednecks from the middle and southern states. They called him “Pancho” and “wetback” and wanted to know when he was going to crawl back into that hole in Mexico he’d crawled out of. The rednecks didn’t care that Celaya’s family had been in America for four generations.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“For many of the men, returning home meant reaching for some kind of “normal” that remained stubbornly out of reach. There wasn’t any notion of “post-traumatic stress” or counseling. Doctors admonished the survivors to just forget about the experience and move on. A good fraction did just that, starting careers as firemen, policemen, salesmen, and engineers. Despite the ministrations of parents and wives, others faltered and stumbled.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“The admiral was famously unflappable, but found the attack on Pearl Harbor a shattering experience. Spruance revealed this only to his wife and daughter, then waited anxiously for Admiral Chester Nimitz to take over as CincPac—Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet. After the obscenity at Pearl, America’s Pacific Fleet leadership was demoralized. Spruance sensed that Nimitz would inject some sorely needed fighting spirit, and he was right. Nimitz proved bold, aggressive, confident. Energized, the Pacific fleet began to sortie out and fight back. Spruance was elated.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“It was only that his intellect was in such a constant state of multitasking that he seemed to orbit at altitude, separated from those who operated on a more ordinary plane.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“a war maxim attributed to Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“I have met many of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain’s name. Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“After half a lifetime in the service, McVay was shocked to learn that the business world was different—that corporate integrity had gradations, “degrees” of honesty. Despite permission from colleagues to cut corners, he never did. There was right and there was wrong, and that was that.”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“Toti knew, someone with a strong sense”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“wrote the Green Bay, Wisconsin,”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“covered with gold braid. Mary Lou saw”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“out over the sea,” he said. When it”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“one hundred miles. Ryan: And having made that estimate, did you take into consideration a submarine on the surface at night proceeding on an opposite course from that steered”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“action. Even now, though, there”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

“written by reporters on the scene?”
― Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man