USS Indianapolis

The USS Indianapolis was a US Navy heavy cruiser ship that launched for the first time in November of 1931. The ship had a distinguished career that included earning ten battle star awards, serving as a presidential Ship of State, and led several key attacks during World War II (1939–1945). The ship is best known, however, for the events of its last voyage. In late July of 1945, the Indianapolis delivered several key components for the first atomic bomb. By the time the bomb was dropped, the Indianapolis had been sunk by a Japanese torpedo in what has been called one of the worst maritime disasters in US history.

Background

Construction on the Indianapolis began on March 31, 1931, in a shipyard in Camden, New Jersey. Completed and launched in November of 1931, the ship was commissioned as a US Navy vessel in November of 1932. Its first voyage began when the Indianapolis sailed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January of 1933.

Later that year, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the ship his Ship of State, or personal transport vessel for transoceanic travel. The Indianapolis hosted a number of US and foreign dignitaries. It carried Roosevelt on a trip to South America in November of 1936 for the first trip outside of North America ever made by an incumbent US president.

In 1940, the Indianapolis moved to Hawaii with the US fleet to guard against the growing threat from the Japanese. The ship was away from the naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked. By the next month, the ship was in the South Pacific as part of the US fighting force.

Throughout 1942 through 1944, the Indianapolis took part in defending the Aleutian Islands and providing support for the invasions of the Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands. The ship also underwent several overhauls and had sailed well over two hundred thousand miles. In 1943, the Navy chose the Indianapolis to serve as the flagship for the Fifth Fleet and its commander, Admiral Raymond Spruance.

In 1945, the Indianapolis was part of the support force for the invasion of Iwo Jima and participated in the bombing of Okinawa prior to the land invasion there. By this time, the ship was credited with taking down at least eight enemy aircraft and sinking at least one Japanese vessel. However, on March 31, 1945, a Japanese kamikaze plane struck and severely damaged the Indianapolis. Nine crew members lost their lives and another twenty-six were injured. The ship made its way to the US base at Mare Island for repairs.

During this time, the Navy decided to give the Indianapolis the crucial mission of transporting the firing mechanism and most of the uranium core of the atomic bomb that was known as Little Boy. This cargo was picked up on July 16, 1945; ten days later, the bomb components were unloaded from the Indianapolis at Tinian, a land area in the Mariana Islands. After a short stop in Guam, the ship set sail to rendezvous with other US vessels to prepare for an invasion of Japan.

Final Voyage

On July 28, 1945, with a crew of 1,196 aboard, the Indianapolis sailed from Guam with orders to meet up with the USS Idaho. The Indianapolis sailed unescorted, and there were no ships close enough to see when two torpedoes from the Japanese submarine designated I-58 hit the ship on July 30. One severed the bow from the rest of the ship. The other hit an area near a fuel tank and powder magazine, causing a massive explosion that split that portion of the ship in two. Now in three pieces, the Indianapolis sank within twelve minutes.

About 900 members of the crew escaped the initial explosion and were left floating in the sea after the ship sank. Due to the suddenness of the sinking, the crew had almost no time to gather supplies or launch lifeboats. Some sailors were able to don lifejackets, but the type of lifejacket available at the time became saturated during long periods in the water. This was a problem for the men who would not be rescued for days. Because of a garbled communication, the Idaho did not realize the Indianapolis was coming to rendezvous. No one even realized the ship was missing until four days later when it was spotted by a plane on a routine search for Japanese submarines.

The crew of the Indianapolis was in the water for those four days, battling hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and sharks. The men endured terrible conditions and watched as many of their crewmates died from injuries, became disoriented from thirst and drank seawater that caused them to die of salt poisoning, or were attacked by sharks. After spotting the wreckage in the water, a US seaplane and the destroyer the USS Cecil J. Doyle pulled the survivors from the water. Of the original 1,196 aboard, only 317 were saved. The remains of the ship were never recovered.

Legacy

The news of the sinking was withheld until after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August and the Japanese surrendered. The captain of the Indianapolis, Charles Butler McVay, was court-martialed and blamed for the sinking. Officials said he had not used a zigzag course to avoid submarine attacks.

It later became known that his request for an escort through the dangerous area had been ignored and that naval officials were aware there was a Japanese submarine in the area but failed to notify McVay. A message from the submarine to its home base notifying them of the sinking was intercepted by American forces but considered to be a ruse and ignored; had the message been taken seriously, the men of the Indianapolis could have been rescued sooner. In response to an effort begun by a schoolchild and taken up by the survivors of the Indianapolis, US president Bill Clinton exonerated McVay of any wrongdoing in 2000. However, the captain had taken his own life in 1968, shortly after he retired from the navy.

The final days of the crew of the Indianapolis have been the subject of several movies. These include a made-for-television movie in the 1990s and a 2016 feature film entitled The USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage. The story of the sinking of the Indianapolis was also featured in the 1975 movie Jaws, during a monologue where shark boat captain Quint reveals that he is a survivor of the Indianapolis and shares his unnerving account of being in the water with hundreds of sharks.

Bibliography

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Murphy, Matt. "Is the USS Indianapolis' Final Resting Place about to Be Revealed? Fresh Eyewitness Account Could Lead to Location of WWII Ship That Was Sunk by Japanese Torpedoes and Left 500 Crew to Be Eaten by Sharks." Daily Mail, 27 July 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3710219/Is-USS-Indianapolis-final-resting-place-revealed-Fresh-eyewitness-account-lead-location-WWII-ship-sunk-Japanese-torpedoes-left-500-crew-eaten-sharks.html. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

Penner, Diana. "USS Indianapolis Survivor: 'That First Morning, We Had Sharks.'" IndyStar, 26 July 2014, www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/07/26/uss-indianapolis-survivor-first-morning-sharks/13207061/. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

"Rare Photos from the USS Indianapolis and WWII, Including the Alfred J. Sedivi Collection." US Naval Institute, www.usni.org/ussindianapolis. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

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"USS Indianapolis Operational History." USS Indianapolis Museum, www.ussindianapolis.us. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.