 In 1999, he assisted the surviving crew of the Indianapolis in attempting to exonerate McVay of blame for the ship's sinking, writing a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in which he stated, just as he had more than five decades earlier, that even if the Indianapolis had been zigzaging, it would have made no difference: "I would have been able to launch a successful torpedo attack against his ship whether it had been zigzagging or not." Regarding McVay's conviction, Hashimoto wrote:
