What a great day. When I read the history of this ship back in school it stuck with me. Not just that so many lives were lost, but the fact that it took four days for the men to be found. And it was an accident that they were found. My gawd picture it, you survive the sinking (it went down in about 12 minutes) only to be in the SHARK INFESTED waters for days. Geezus.
It’s so cool it’s been found and will be a war memorial. 
Very cool indeed. I had forgotten it was still among the lost ships until I saw your title/thread. So much has been found that we forget how much is still awaiting discovery.
Just an all-around depressing story. I wish they never found this bitch. 
Well more depressing news, another US Navy ship (the USS John McCain) has struck a tanker. That’s the 2nd ship to have a “crash” and I think the 4th serious problem for the navy in a year.
Why? Not being snarky, just curious.
“Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
Truth be told, this is the only reason that ship was in my consciousness. I had forgotten it had been lost all these years, but glad it was found.
I don’t understand why was it so hard to find in the first place? Didn’t they have a good idea where it went down?
From what I gather they did not know where it was sunk, and the water is like 18K feet deep. What led to the recent breakthru was sleuthing thru records from other ships, who had recorded it’s location around the time it disappeared. This greatly narrowed the search area. NYT article:
A naval historian, Richard Hulver, came across a blog post that led him last year to a ship’s log recording a sighting of the Indianapolis. Calculations using that record showed that the cruiser was west of where it had long been assumed to be. Using a ship equipped with advanced undersea search equipment, Mr. Allen’s team began combing the newly identified area.
Tragic all the way around. No Mayday, Not listed overdue, no search, guys getting eaten by sharks, and then, the biggest cherry on the Turd Sundae, the Navy goes after the captain, smears his name, ruins his career, even has the Japanese sub commander testify at his court-martial. He ends up killing himself.
A disgrace from start to finish.
I guess I need to read up on this. But I have to wonder why there was no Mayday, and wasn’t that on the Captain?
I believe it was due to the fact that it was returning from a super secret mission to deliver the A-Bomb.
I think they were on Radio Silence, and it sunk so fast they might not have gotten one off (been years since I read the book).
They Scape-goated the Captain for “failure to Zig-Zag” or some utter bullshit to cover up the fact that the Navy screwed the pooch and essentially forgot about them when they didn’t report in on schedule.
From what I recall reading, Capt. McVay was an outstanding captain. But someone had to take the fall.
As I recall the Captain was subject to afamous court martial. It took decades to clear his name.
Prior Thread on the Indianapolis: I just found out my Grandmother’s third husband was one of the survivors of the sinking.
There WAS a distress call and it was ignored by multiple people.
from Wiki:
In the first official statement, the Navy said that distress calls “were keyed by radio operators and possibly were actually transmitted” but that “no evidence has been developed that any distress message from the ship was received by any ship, aircraft or shore station.”[23] Declassified records later showed that three stations received the signals but none acted upon the call. One commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him and a third thought it was a Japanese trap
I’d be surprised if Captain McVay’s suicide was the result of the court martial.
from the same cite:
There was evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm’s way, in that McVay’s orders were to “zigzag at his discretion, weather permitting”. Further, Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of I-58, testified that zigzagging would have made no difference.[25] Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay’s sentence and restored him to active duty. McVay retired in 1949 as a rear admiral.[26]
From the Wikipedia article:
[Quote=Wikipedia]
In the first official statement, the Navy said that distress calls “were keyed by radio operators and possibly were actually transmitted” but that “no evidence has been developed that any distress message from the ship was received by any ship, aircraft or shore station.” Declassified records later showed that three stations received the signals but none acted upon the call. One commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him and a third thought it was a Japanese trap.
[/quote]
So, there was a mayday. And it was received. But not by anyone who could be troubled to act on it. :mad:
Add that to the rather extensive list of failures that contributed to the horrifying outcome.
ETA: As Magiver pointed out seconds before me.
well I should have read the next paragraph about his suicide:
“The guilt that was placed on his shoulders mounted until he committed suicide in 1968, using his Navy-issued revolver. McVay was discovered on his front lawn with a toy sailor in one hand.[27] He was 70 years old.”
I wonder if any of the survivors were interviewed soon after rescue because that would coincide with Japan’s surrender. It would have been quite a revelation to learn the war was over and it was directly due to their secret mission to deliver components of the first atomic bomb. Their ship sank July 30th. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th. Fat man was dropped August 9th. Japan surrendered August 15th.
My fitst job of X-ray career involved working closely with a survior of the USS Indy, and he told me a lot about what it was like floating for days on end awaiting rescue. He told me that all that were in water after sinking of ship knew/believed there had been distress calls put out out and confirmed before sinking. Most of surviros were severly disapointed as a summation 
What made my mentor/buddy-of-great-respect so emotional every time we talked about it was that he was only one the 12 people that were ‘circled up’ while in the water…he saw most of his buddies in the ‘grouping’ eaten alive. A true horror story and I belived every word he said. The details of what he told me are a bit murky as it was about 30 years ago he confided with me.
Probably known to my generation mostly through Quint in Jaws,and it still gives me goosebumps.
Many thanks to guest Magiver for his followups on this tragedy.
Ordinarily the skipper is the last one to leave a sinking ship.
But 12 minutes is not much time to get dressed and get up on
deck. I attended a lecture by a marine archaeologist. She said
that in deep water most sinking ships will upright before hitting the
ocean floor. In shallow waters this is not usually the case.
David H Singanas
I was unaware his name/record was cleared. This happened well after I read the book.
Glad to hear it.