Indianapolis' last Commanding Officer, Captain Charles B. McVay, III, tells War Correspondents about the sinking of his ship. But that morning, things changed as a Navy PV-1 Ventura piloted by Wilbur "Chuck" Gwinn flew over the disaster area on a routine patrol. Charles B. McVay III. When the sun went down it was a relief. It was only when the ship arrived at Tinian and a small boat came alongside and the first thing offloaded were the two cylindrical containers that I immediately knew what it wasthat those had to hold the two pieces of an atomic, or uranium, bomb. Captain Mcvey and the first pilot of the Larchmont were ultimately cleared over time and the blame landed on the Captain of the Harry Knowlton, Frank Haley, and his crew. 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. Hashimoto launched six torpedoes and hit Indianapolis twice, the first removing over forty feet of her bow, the second hitting the starboard side at frame forty (below the bridge). In a court martial that became controversial years later, the captain of the Indianapolis, Charles B. McVay III, was found guilty of not running a "zig-zag" course to evade Japanese submarines. While McVays conviction was legally correct, the standard of accountability applied to him was never applied with the same rigor to anyone else, and was not, therefore, a standard.. Felton Outland, Seaman First Class: I asked my friend George Abbott, after the ship got hit, I says, Go get us some life jackets. The USS Indianapolis, with 1,196 sailors and Marines aboard, was hit by two of six torpedoes fired by a Japanese submarine. "[15], On November 6, 1968, McVay took his own life by shooting himself at his home in Litchfield, Connecticut. We had a cargo net that had Styrofoam things attached to keep it afloat. Some 900 other men, including the captain, Charles B. McVay III, leaped into the sea. The majority of surviving sailors from the Indy regarded McVay as innocent of his conviction, saying he was not guilty of anything except the fortune or misfortune of war. McVay received hate mail every Christmas for the rest of his life, from the families of sailors who had died on board the Indy. The cause of death for Fleetwood Mac star Christine McVie has been . The Indianapolis sank about 12 minutes after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on the night of July 29, 1945. According to Captain McVay III's father, Admiral Charles B. McVay Jr., "'King never forgot a grudge". "On behalf of Christine McVie's . He lost a chunk of his seniority, which was later restored by Navy Secretary James Forrestal. In February 1946 McVay was found guilty of negligence At night especially, life was slowly sucked away as crew succumbed to hypothermia. McVays case is unique: it is a rare case in which the leader actually had no causal role in the harm whatsoever. This conclusion finally raises the question of whether the court-martial properly held him accountable. Admiral Chester Nimitz, then-commander of CINCPAC, recommended a letter of reprimand, calling his failure to zigzag, an error in judgment. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and Admiral Ernest King disagreed, and brought McVay to court-martial, where he was acquitted of failing to abandon ship quickly enough, but was convicted for his failure to zigzag. But it became apparent that they were swimming in a nightmare of epic proportions. Another shattering concussion rocked Indy amidships. On 6 November 1968, McVay put on his uniform, walked onto his front porch, and shot himself in the head, a toy sailor in his hand. Needless to say, nobody ever collected a nickel on that bet. This court-martial occurred before the conclusion of the inspector generals investigation, raising the question of motives for the court-martial. 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. Causes of death included dehydration, starvation, salt poisoning, and drowning. The lid of the bucket-like container was bolted down and out of the top protruded two eye bolts through which we ran a pipe whenever we carried it over long distances. If the survivors of the USSIndianapolis knew that naval headquarters were not aware of their disappearance, they may have lost hope then and there. The nearly 900 men who made it into the water alive found themselves swimming in a vast, gooey slab of fuel oil that had been released from the ship. George Horvath, Fireman First Class: Rescue planes dropped this one survival craft close to where I was and I thought, Geez, theres gotta be water on that! After four and a half days you get pretty thirsty. In May 2001, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England ordered Captain William Toti, former commanding officer of USSIndianapolis(SSN-697), to enter the Sense of Congress resolution into McVay's official Navy personnel record.[24][25]. The ship took damage and withdrew to the Naval Yard at Mare's Island near San Francisco. Those who were injured with open wounds drew the sharks first because of the scent of blood. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/14/us/captain-once-a-scapegoat-is-absolved.html. The USSIndianapolis was a battle-scarred veteran of World War II's Pacific front. With his nation on the verge of defeat, he hoped to take one more prize for his emperor. Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing and sentenced to death (AFP via Getty Images) The authorities had been preparing for thousands of protesters, both for and again the death penalty. As of 2020, there are ten men left, according to the Reporter-Times, and the living memory of one of America's greatest naval tragedies will not last much longer. [11] It was widely felt that he had been a fall guy for the Navy. Those in the center of a group fared best. They prayed for rescue. This week, Navy Secretary Gordon R. England ordered that a memorandum reflecting the Congressional resolution be put into Captain McVay's file. Before sailing, McVay, who had not been in the active war zones since Okinawa in March, inquired about the tactical situation. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man. McVeigh's 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people in all, including 19 . I decided when I got there, I was going to have one. 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. This was presumably lost in translation. He was far too high and at too odd an angle to see the macabre drama unfolding below him. Everything was very hush-hush and secret. [4][5], McVay was wounded but survived, and was among those rescued. Just twelve minutes later the vessel,along with three hundred of its men, sank to the oceanfloor. Contrary to what many may believe, McVay used a Colt pistol, an Officer's Model Target 38 Special. Most people tend to focus on the case and court martial of Captain McVay instead of the tragedy itself. One might consider an alternate chain of events: That Indy had made it to Leyte unimpeded, but had failed to zigzag nonetheless. The [heavy cruiser USS] Indianapolis [CA-35] had come to the Navy Yard, Mare Island [in San Francisco Bay] in early May 1945, to get heavy underwater damage repaired from a Kamikaze [Japanese suicide aircraft] hit that she took in [the Battle of] Okinawa on 30 March . He is survived by his beloved wife of 42 years, Nancy McVay . Captain McVay, the captain of the Indianapolis, was charged with negligence. Indianapolis immediately took a fifteen degree list, capsized and sank within 12 minutes. Major Robert Furman, Chief Intelligence Officer, Manhattan Project: The shipment was no bigger than two old-fashioned ice cream freezers, cylindrical and of shiny aluminum. 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. Later that year, Indianapolis received orders to carry parts and nuclear material to Tinian to be used in the atomic bombs which were soon to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After refitting in Mare Island, California, Indianapolis delivered the components of the atomic bomb to Tinian. He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took five days to rescue his men, and he never received an answer. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. We left thinking everything was fine. Here we were going from Guam to the Philippines without a destroyer escort. Men continued to expire so quickly that it became almost impossible to move around without having to shoulder through shoals of corpses. After tracing it, he found the survivors and radioed for help. The most terrifying were the shark attacks, which came frequently and without warning. In 1999, the veterans of the Indy pressed for and received a hearing with the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, where they shared Scott's considerable research. However, Lieutenant Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, captain of the Japanese submarine I-58, had other ideas. On July 26, 1945, the sea breeze brought the welcome smell of tropical land, signaling that Indianapolis was approaching the 40-square-mile coral lozenge referred to by Manhattan Project insiders simply as Destination. A miniature armada of motor whaleboats and other small vessels streamed toward the ship, all of them containing a lopsided number of high-ranking brass. In 1978, the events surrounding McVay's court-martial were dramatized in The Failure to ZigZag by playwright John B. Ferzacca. 1. It would be fair to say, however, that Capt. But a combination of incompetence, bureaucratic malaise and the crushing pace of operations as the Pacific war neared its climax would doom many men: The sun would rise four times before the Navy realized Indianapolis was missing. In 2018, NOAA listed the species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Survivors of the. President Clinton also signed the resolution. Nonetheless, the Navy must maintain a nonselective standard and link causes and effects. Captain McVay was court-martialed as responsible for the sinking, in which almost almost 900 men were killed. Of the crew of 1,195 men, 879 men died. What failed in this instance is that the naval officers who knew the ship was overdue did not investigate why. Charles B. McVay, III, bore the brunt of it. About 300 of the 1,196 men on board either died in the initial attack or were trapped belowdecks and drowned when compartments were sealed in an effort to prevent sinking. Secretary of the Navy Gordon England entered a letter in McVays service record on 11 July 2001, affirming his lack of culpability for the tragic loss of the USS Indianapolis.. Indianapolis National Memorial Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, USA Show Map * A structure erected in honor of someone whose remains lie elsewhere. Only 316 men would survive. But in fact, it was only the beginning. George Cadogan Gardner McKay (June 10, 1932 - November 21, 2001) was an American actor, artist, and author. In November 1968, unhappy in his third marriage and depressed, having lost his devoted wife Louise and his beloved 9-year-old grandson Mark, both to cancer,. In 2019, PBS released a 90-minute documentary titled USS Indianapolis: The Final Chapter. In the summer of 1945, the Indy had been tasked with delivering the components of the Little Boy atomic bomb to the island of Tinian. The story is so remarkable, entwined with so many iconic events, that it evokes Greek tragedy rather than western history: Captain Charles B. McVay III commanded Indianapolis on the final voyage. His breathing shallows and tears stream down his tortured face. So many friends, he finally says. These may have been the lucky ones. A graduate of Tottenville High School, Mr. McVay went. Hallucinating men attacked each other or drank salt water and died. Survivors of the sinking drifted unknown in the Philippine Sea for four days and 880 sailors out of a crew of 1,196 were lost. ''Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction. Then it would get cold and you would start to shiver, and you couldnt wait for the sun to come back up. [2] His father, Charles Butler McVay Jr. (18681949), commanded the tender Yankton during the cruise of the Great White Fleet (19071909), was an admiral in the United States Navy during World War I, and served as Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic Fleet in the early 1930s. Timothy McVeigh chose the poem Invictus, which means "Unconquerable" in Latin, to be his final statement. In this case, the vast majority of Indy sailors believed McVay innocent of any wrongdoing in the ships sinking. Survivor Edgar Harrell recalled, "You see maybe a body up on an eight foot swell and all of a sudden that swell breaks and that body comes down and he hits you and he leaves parts and residue on you. He looks down at his lap, clearly reliving the nightmare as though it happened just moments before. Of the original crew, 316 out of 1,195 survived; McVay estimates that about 500800 men successfully abandoned ship, and about 200 were victims of shark attacks; the rest died from exposure and injuries. Based on the evidence collected by the investigators, Tim McVay was arrested. Earlier in World War II, he was awarded the Silver Star for displaying courage under fire. Autopsy . Though in each of these cases the commanders were not directly responsible, their failure to prepare the crew, ensure the safety of the ship, and to properly respond to operational demands made them accountable for those incidents. USS. Accountability, especially applied to captains of ships, is nearly absolute; commanders are responsible for everything that happens within their command, even if the commander played no direct causal role. Admiral Nimitz later told Indianapolis survivors that McVeys court-martial was a mistake. Commander Hashimoto, in a letter to Senator Warner in 1999, said, Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war, perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction. At the decommissioning of the USS Indianapolis (SSN-697) in February 1998, an Indy survivor asked Captain William Toti to help exonerate his former captain and, a few years later, Congress passed a resolution exonerating McVay, signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000. Greetings, explorer! Persuasive Essay: In Harm's Way The sinking of the USS Indianapolis was a horrible event, which killed hundreds of soldiers, and left hundreds floating adrift in the sea with swarms of sharks circling around them. Captain Harris spent over ten days in the Intensive Care Unit before he died on the 9 th of February 2010. You couldnt wait for the sun to go down. Warner introduced a resolution in 2000 to exonerate McVay. Captain McVay made every effort to send a distress call on the radio. 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. "On behalf of Christine McVie's family, it is with a heavy heart we are informing you of Christine's death. On July 15, we were out of Mare Island and into Hunters Point in San Francisco. Mary Kelly, Charles B. McVay III: Accountability, in Leadership Embodied, ed. Captain McVay was stripped of some seniority, although Navy Secretary James Forrestal lifted the sentence because of Captain McVay's bravery in combat before the sinking. It was there that the Capt. His description of how his friend was bitten in half by a shark bite chills the heart. He made a dive. Kings eyes mist over as he tells his story, and with his arms swimming in the sleeves of an old blue bathrobe, his hands draw pictures in the air. Some were left floating in the water, many without lifeboats, until the rescue of 316 survivors was completed four days (100 hours) later. Still, the 900 men clung to the thought of imminent rescue. Eugene Morgan, Boatswains Mate Second Class: All the time, the sharks never let up. Now, among those still living, many are losing their minds. When we were in Mare Island, a very large box was put into the port hangar and thats where everybodys attention, including mine, was put. What very few knew at that time, "Indie" was delivering "Little Boy" to the Pacific island of Tinian, the atomic bomb later dropped on Hiroshima. Those that lived clawed for Kapok life vests and cut out as many of the ship's life rafts as possible. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. It is difficult to say that no one was responsible for the sinking of the Indy; indeed, probably even harder for the families of those lost in her sinking. Additionally, in June, McVie disclosed to Rolling Stone that she had scoliosis and was trying to "repair my back and get myself back into respectable shape.". He became the only ship's captain in the U.S. Navy to be court-martialed in connection with the loss of his ship in combat in World War II. Also, it has been asserted that King, who was known as being a tempestuous and vindictive man, had a personal grudge against McVay's father from his days at the U.S. He is best known for the lead role in the TV series Adventures in Paradise, based loosely on the writings of James Michener. After delivering her top secret cargo, the ship was en route to report for further duty off Okinawa. Indianapolis sank in just 12 minutes, 280 miles from the nearest land. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors, tells of how men's thoughts turned to suicide. He was 33. You see that and you wonder, 'Is that going to me tomorrow or yet today? They were wagering it was anything from a new type of airplane engine to scented toilet paper for General MacArthur. Japanese Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto testifying at the McVay trial in 1945, Survivors of USS Indianapolis en route to the hospital following their rescue, Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Marie Hansen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images, https://www.history.com/news/uss-indianapolis-sinking-survivor-stories-sharks, USS Indianapolis: Survivor Accounts From the Worst Sea Disaster in US Naval History. The cruiser left its cargo on Tinian, an island in the Western Pacific, and was on its way to the Philippines when it was attacked. Combat ships were assumed to have arrived on time unless other information became available. Charles B. McVay, III, received secret orders to carry a small load of cargo to the island of Tinian. So many. This was reasonably explained by the Navy since through the course of the war there had been hyperbolized claims or fake intelligence promulgated by Japanese forces. 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. McVie was 79 years old and had been dealing with an illness. "Now," he raged, "King's used [my son] to get back at me. 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. July 30 was a black, dark night and that submarine skipper, he looked towards the east and here was a little speck that he recognized as a ship. The singer-songwriter and keyboardist died on Nov. 30 at age 79 "following a short illness," her family said at the time.