I
105TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 3710
To exonerate the late Rear Admiral Charles Butler McVay III, captain of
the U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS when it was sunk on July 30, 1945, from
responsibility for that sinking, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 22, 1998
Mr. SCARBOROUGH (for himself, Ms. CARSON, Mr. CUNNINGHAM, Mrs. MINK
of Hawaii, Mr. SAWYER, Mr. ABERCROMBIE, and Mr. FROST) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on National Secu-
rity
A BILL
To exonerate the late Rear Admiral Charles Butler McVay
III, captain of the U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS when it was
sunk on July 30, 1945, from responsibility for that sink-
ing, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Charles Butler McVay
and U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS Relief Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Shortly after midnight on the night of July
30, 1945, during the closing days of World War II,
the United States Navy heavy cruiser U.S.S. INDI-
ANAPOLIS (CA–35) was torpedoed and sunk by a
Japanese submarine.
(2) Of the 1,196 crew members, only 316 sur-
vived the attack and subsequent five-day ordeal
adrift at sea, the rest of the crew dying from battle
wounds, drowning, shark attacks, exposure, or lack
of food and water, making the sinking of the INDI-
ANAPOLIS the worst sea disaster in United States
naval history.
(3) Following the rescue of the surviving crew
members, the commanding officer of the INDIAN-
APOLIS, Captain Charles Butler McVay III, who
survived the sinking and the ordeal at sea, was
charged with ‘‘suffering a vessel to be hazarded
through negligence’’ and was convicted by a court-
martial of that charge, notwithstanding a great
many extenuating circumstances, some of which
were not presented at the court-martial trial.
(4) Captain McVay had an excellent record
throughout his naval career before the sinking of the
INDIANAPOLIS, beginning with his graduation
from the United States Naval Academy in 1919 and
including an excellent combat record throughout
World War II that included participation in the
landings in North Africa and award of the Silver
Star for courage under fire earned during the Solo-
mon Island campaign.
(5) Assuming command of the INDIANAP-
OLIS on November 18, 1944, Captain McVay led
the ship during her participation in the assaults on
Iwo Jima and Okinawa. During the latter assault,
the INDIANAPOLIS suffered a damaging kamikaze
attack, but was skillfully returned by Captain
McVay and her crew to San Francisco for repairs.
(6) Following completion of those repairs, the
INDIANAPOLIS was given the mission of trans-
porting to the island of Tinian the vital parts for the
two atomic bombs used in ending the war against
Japan, a mission which was completed successfully
on July 26, 1945, at a record average speed of 29
knots.
(7) Following the accomplishment of that mis-
sion, the INDIANAPOLIS sailed from Tinian to
Guam and from there embarked for Leyte Gulf in
the Philippines, to join with the fleet assembling for
the assault on Japan.
(8) Before that last voyage, the headquarters of
the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet (CINCPAC),
failed to inform Captain McVay of intelligence in its
possession concerning the activities of four Japanese
submarines sighted along the route the INDIANAP-
OLIS would be sailing and where a Japanese sub-
marine had sunk the U.S.S. UNDERHILL just
days earlier. Nevertheless, Captain McVay was in-
structed to sail a direct route from Guam to Leyte,
although this route brought the ship to the cross-
roads of the Guam-Leyte and Palau-Okinawa routes,
an area that Japanese submarines would likely have
heavily targeted due to the greater chance of spot-
ting United States naval traffic there.
(9) Because the INDIANAPOLIS did not have
the capabilities to detect enemy submarines, Captain
McVay in Guam requested a destroyer escort for the
voyage to Leyte Gulf, a request which was denied,
making the INDIANAPOLIS the first United States
heavy warship to make that crossing unescorted dur-
ing World War II.
(10) After the INDIANAPOLIS was sunk, var-
ious Navy shore offices compounded the previous er-
rors which had led to the ship being placed in jeop-
ardy by failing to report the ship’s overdue arrival,
thus leaving the approximately 950 members of the
crew who survived the sinking of the ship adrift for
four days and five nights until by chance the sur-
vivors were spotted by a routine air patrol.
(11) Because the news of the sinking of the IN-
DIANAPOLIS, coinciding with the end of the war
in the Pacific, threatened to detract from the Navy’s
role in that victory and from its desire for prominent
status in the post-war military establishment, the
Department of the Navy court-martialed Captain
McVay, who thus became the first United States
Navy commanding officer brought to trial for losing
his ship in combat in World War II, despite the fact
that over 700 ships were lost during World War II,
including some under questionable circumstances.
(12) A court of inquiry to investigate the sink-
ing, convened on August 13, 1945, just two weeks
after the sinking and 9 days after the survivors were
rescued (a date so soon after the sinking that Cap-
tain William Hillbert, the Navy judge advocate for
the inquiry, admitted that the inquiry was so rushed
that they were ‘‘. . . starting the proceedings with-
out having available all the necessary data’’), rec-
ommended that Captain McVay be issued a Letter
of Reprimand and that he be court-martialed.
(13) The court-martial charge against Captain
McVay was entirely predicated upon his failure to
order that the ship maintain a zigzag course even
though (A) standing orders stated that zigzagging
was not necessary during poor visibility (reported to
have been at best ‘‘patchy’’ that night), (B)
Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese submarine
commander who sank the ship, testified at the in-
quiry that it would not have made any difference if
the ship were zigzagging or not, and (C) the head-
quarters staff of CINCPAC concluded that the rule
requiring zigzagging would not have applied in any
event since Captain McVay’s routine orders gave
him discretion on the matter and took precedence
over all other orders (a point that was never made
by Captain McVay’s attorney).
(14) The headquarters staff of CINCPAC dis-
agreed with the recommendation of the court of in-
quiry that Captain McVay receive a Letter of Rep-
rimand and that he be court-martialed, stating that
in not maintaining a zigzag course Captain McVay
at worst was guilty only of an error in judgment and
not gross negligence.
(15) Captain McVay was convicted on February
23, 1946, of the charge of ‘‘suffering a vessel to be
hazarded through negligence’’.
(16) Following his court-martial conviction,
Captain McVay remained on active duty until man-
datory retirement on June 30, 1949, upon comple-
tion of 30 years of active naval service, with a final
promotion, in accordance with then-applicable law,
to the grade of rear admiral, effective upon the date
of his retirement.
(17) Rear Admiral Charles Butler McVay III
(retired), died on November 6, 1968, without having
been exonerated from responsibility for the sinking
of the INDIANAPOLIS.
(18) Since the late 1980s, Navy documents
have been declassified that show that Captain
McVay was not given intelligence information in the
possession of the Navy that would have been instru-
mental in avoiding the disaster and that that infor-
mation, which was considered to be Top Secret, was
not made available for use in Captain McVay’s
court-martial, where it would have been critical to
his defense in showing that he was court-martialed
on ‘‘super-technical’’ charges which nevertheless
were unfounded.
from responsibility for the sinking of the U.S.S. IN-
DIANAPOLIS (CA–35) on July 30, 1945, while
under his command;
(2) expresses the sense of the Congress that the
subsequent court-martial conviction of Rear Admiral
McVay (while in the grade of captain) for ‘‘suffering
a vessel to be hazarded through negligence’’ was a
grave injustice; and
(3) urges the President to grant a posthumous
pardon to Rear Admiral McVay.
SEC. 4. PRESIDENTIAL UNIT CITATION.
(a) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of the Con-
gress that the President should award a Presidential Unit
Citation to the final crew of the U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS
(CA–35) in recognition of the courage and fortitude dis-
played by the members of that crew in the face of tremen-
dous hardship and adversity after their ship was torpedoed
and sunk on July 30, 1945.
(b) WAIVER OF TIME LIMITATION.—A citation de-
scribed in subsection (a) may be made without regard to
any provision of law or regulation prescribing a time limi-
tation that is otherwise applicable with respect to rec-
ommendation for, or the award of, such a citation.
Æ