USS Indianapolis (CA-35) disaster

This last week, we passed a grim anniversary. On July 30 1945, 81 years ago, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was torpedoed and sunk in the Philippine Sea by a Japanese submarine. Although some 900 of her 1200 men survived the sinking, they were not discovered until nearly four days later, when they were spotted by accident on August 2 by a U.S. Navy seaplane. Only 316 men survived the ordeal in the ocean. The USS Indianapolis disaster is the largest wartime loss of life in a single event in United States Navy History.

USS Indianapolis pierside at Mare Island, California, loading a secret cargo later determined to be parts for the atomic bomb.

Indy had started her final wartime cruise in Mare Island, California. Following service as Admiral Raymond Spruance's flagship for the Marianas Campaign in the summer of 1944, she was laid up in overhaul for the first half of 1945. In July, she loaded a secret cargo bound for Tinian, in the Marianas, arriving there on the 26th. It was later revealed that she had transported parts for the atomic bomb that was later used in the attack on Hiroshima on 6 August. Following a brief stop on Guam for personnel transfers, the Indianapolis headed toward Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, in order to train for the planned invasion of Japan.

Shortly after midnight on 30 July, the Imperial Japanese Navy Submarine I-58 sighted Indianapolis and fired two torpedoes, striking the ship in the bow and amidships. Indy sank in 12 minutes. It was standard practice at the time to assume that large ships would make their movements on time, and if delayed, report the reason why. When Indianapolis failed to make her scheduled call at Leyte on 31 July, the naval HQ on Guam and the Philippine Sea Frontier both removed Indy from their boards, having assumed that she had completed her voyage. It must be said that the port operations staff at Tacloban knew that Indy had not made her scheduled call; however there was no mechanism or procedure at the time to report this.

It was only on August 2nd, when a PV-1 Ventura, doing a routine anti-submarine patrol out of Leyte noticed men in the water, that the U.S. Navy realized Indy had been lost. By that point, some 600 men had been killed either by exposure, drowning, shark attacks, or suicide. The United States didn’t publicly announce the loss of Indianapolis until August 15, when the news of Japan’s surrender drowned out any other headlines.

An example of the Indy's sinking being buried in the press; bottom right corner

The aftermath of this event saw the court-martial of the ship’s CO, Captain Charles McVay, for hazarding his vessel. The trial featured a star witness: the CO of I-58, Commander Hashimoto Mochitsura. In the trial, Captain McVay was found guilty of negligence for not zigzagging his ship to avoid torpedo attack, despite testimony from Hashimoto that such a maneuver would not have changed the outcome of his shots. Additionally, McVay had been directed to zigzag "at his discretion", and had not been informed of submarine activity between Guam and Leyte. He'd also been denied a destroyer escort for the voyage. McVay was the first and only Captain to be court-martialed for losing his ship due to enemy action in the Second World War. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay's sentence, and he was restored to active duty; he retired in 1949 as a Rear Admiral.

Despite the remission of McVay's sentence, his court-martial result did not sit well with the Indy’s survivors, who fought tooth and nail to have McVay exonerated (McVay himself committed suicide in 1968). They lobbied the Commanding Officer of USS Indianapolis (SSN-697), CAPT William Toti, to help them prove that zig-zagging would not have prevented both shots from hitting the ship. At the same time, A school project on the Indianapolis by a sixth grader in 1996 got the attention of a lobbyist in Washington DC, who began talking to friends about the scapegoating of McVay. Eventually, the matter was brought to the attention of the leadership of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and in 2000 the U.S. Congress formally exonerated Captain McVay and a memorandum was placed in his record absolving him of any blame for the ship’s loss.

MOVREP, or movement reporting requirements for all ships were put in place as a result of the failures surrounding the sinking of the Indy. Attempts to pin the blame on one individual for the loss or serious damage of a ship have not eased, as evident in the 1989 USS Iowa (BB-61) explosion and more recently, the loss of USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) in 2020. Then, as with Indy, systems and leadership failed to keep Sailors and equipment safe.

The Indianapolis was found in 2017 by the crew of RV Petrel, 3.4 miles below the surface of the ocean. The remains of her 884 Sailors who drowned, were taken by sharks, or committed suicide in their madness, are with her, and their spirit is with all of us.

Remember the Indy.

Tony