The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis
By: Eric Shattuck
Tags: World War II, True Story, Military, History, War

The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

Sharks, secrets, and the story of the worst naval disaster in US history

USS Indianapolis docked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (1939) — Public Domain

A Secret Mission

On March 31st, 1945, the eve of the allied assault on Okinawa, a bomb loosed by a Japanese fighter plane plummeted through the deck of the Fifth Fleet flagship U.S.S. Indianapolis, rupturing fuel tanks, damaging propeller shafts, and killing nine crewmen.

The Indianapolis would spend the next three months undergoing extensive repairs at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California, and with Japanese forces on their last legs, many of the ship’s crew expected to sit out the remainder of the war. But on July 15th, Vice Admiral William Purnell summoned the Indianapolis’ skipper, Captain Charles B. McVay III, and surprised him with a new assignment: to transport top secret cargo to Tinian Island, a staging area for the Allied war effort and home to the largest airbase constructed during the war.

The next morning, the United States Army would conduct the first ever detonation of a nuclear device, code-named Trinity, in the Jornada del Muerto desert of New Mexico. Mere hours later, the Indianapolis departed the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard under a shroud of secrecy. Unbeknownst to the ship’s captain or crew, the classified cargo she carried in her belly contained half of the world’s supply of enriched uranium, along with components for the atomic bomb that only weeks later would devastate the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

After successfully delivering her cargo on July 26th, the Indianapolis made its way to Guam, and two days later, Captain McVay was ordered to set a course for the Leyte Gulf to join up with other Navy forces in preparation for the invasion of mainland Japan. Instead, the ship’s final voyage would culminate in the worst naval disaster in United States history.

Going Under

Before leaving Guam, Captain McVay inquired about the threat of Japanese resistance in the area and was told by superiors that the situation was quiet and that he had nothing to be concerned about. And so with no sonar systems and no destroyer escort, the Indianapolis set out for the Philippines on July 29th.

July 30th was a calm, moonlit night, and most of the Indianapolis’ crew slept soundly in their berths. But in the distance, the Japanese submarine I-58 had just surfaced to scout for enemy ships. A crewman almost immediately spotted the Indianapolis silhouetted against the sky, and her captain, Mochitsura Hashimoto, ordered the submarine to dive and follow a course to intercept the heavy cruiser, intent on taking one last prize for his country before the war’s end.

Japanese submarine I-58 during trial run in Tokyo Bay (1944) — Public Domain

Minutes after midnight, the first torpedo struck the Indianapolis, annihilating her starboard bow and killing dozens of sailors in an instant. The ship’s crew had no time to take stock of the situation before the second torpedo struck amidships, igniting the powder magazine in an explosion that split the ship to its keel and knocked out all power. As the ship began to roll, desperate sailors searched for life jackets and leapt into the sea. Just twelve minutes after the first impact, the Indianapolis slipped beneath the waves, taking nearly 300 of her crew down with her. But for the men who remained, the worst was yet to come.

No Sign of Rescue

The survivors of the Indianapolis sinking found themselves bobbing in the ink-black waters of the Philippine Sea, roughly 280 miles away from the nearest land. Many of them were wounded in the explosions, and their throats burned from the caustic fuel oil that coated their clothes and skin. Most of the crew formed into groups; the lucky ones had life jackets or found floater nets and small rafts, while others were forced to take life jackets from comrades who succumbed to their injuries. Some could do nothing but tread water until exhaustion overtook them and pulled them under.

Because The Indianapolis’ power had been cut, no S.O.S. signal ever reached Allied ships in the region, and as the sun began to rise the next morning, many of the crew realized that help was not coming.

Daylight brought new challenges for the survivors. The tropical sun reflecting off of the water created a hellish heat that couldn’t be escaped, and as lips cracked and tongues swelled with thirst, some of the men resorted to drinking seawater. Delirium quickly set in, causing some of the survivors to fight and even kill one another, while others swam off, chasing after hallucinations of food and cold drinks.

But perhaps worst of all were the sharks. Drawn from miles around by the scent of blood, aggressive oceanic whitetip and tiger sharks converged on the huddled sailors. At first, content to feed on the dead, they soon realized that the weakened crew could do little to fight back, and many survivors looked on in horror as their shipmates were dragged under the surface and torn apart. All the men could do was stick together, organizing around-the-clock “shark watches” to kick and beat at any sharks that came near.

The remaining crew of the Indianapolis would spend four days in these unimaginable conditions before a stroke of pure luck led to their rescue.

Sailors pose with the body of a tiger shark (Date and location unknown) — Public Domain

A Lucky Break

On the morning of August 2nd, a Navy bomber piloted by Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn was flying over the Philippine Sea on a routine patrol. The plane was testing a new trailing antenna that had just become tangled, and Gwinn passed the controls over to his co-pilot to go help his crew sort out the problem. By chance, he glanced out of the window and saw something completely unexpected: men in the water, shouting and waving their arms at the passing bomber.

Unsure of whether the men were even American or Japanese, Gwinn alerted his squadron commander, who immediately dispatched all units capable of rescue operations to the area.

The first to reach the stranded crew was an amphibious patrol plane piloted by Robert Adrian Marks. Though there were standing orders against making sea landings, Marks saw the condition of the sailors and the circling sharks and knew that waiting for a ship would likely cost some of the men their lives. Defying regulations, he executed a power-on stall and brought his seaplane into the water, fighting against twelve-foot swells that bounced the small craft into the air.

Marks and his crew managed to pluck 56 men out of the water, lashing some to the wings with parachute cord when there was no more space inside the plane. With the craft so loaded down that it could no longer fly, they could do nothing but wait for the other rescuers to arrive.

Just after nightfall, the searchlight of the destroyer escort USS Cecil J. Doyle illuminated the water, and along with six other ships, began picking up the remaining survivors. All in all, only 316 of the 900 men who made it off of the Indianapolis survived long enough to be rescued.

USS Indianapolis survivors being treated on Pelelieu (1945) — Public Domain Photo

Aftermath

By sheer chance, one of the survivors of the Indianapolis was its captain, Charles B. McVay. But in an unprecedented decision, the military court-martialed him on two charges: failing to order his men to abandon ship, and hazarding the ship. Though the first charge was thrown out, McVay was convicted of the hazarding charge for his failure to use “zigzag” evasive maneuvers, despite testimony from several witnesses, including the captain of the Japanese submarine responsible for the sinking, that it would have made no difference.

Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz would later remit McVay’s sentence and restore him to active duty, but the grief, guilt, and humiliation of his experiences would not fade. Many of the families of sailors who lost their lives in the sinking and the days that followed held McVay personally responsible for the deaths, and for 23 years letters arrived in his mailbox to blame him for the loss of their loved ones. Finally, on November 6th, 1968, McVay put on his Navy uniform, stepped out into his front yard, pressed the barrel of his military-issue revolver to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

It would be another 31 years before McVay’s name was officially cleared.

In 1999, New Jersey Senator Bob Smith spied a strange item on his daily agenda: a meeting with survivors of the USS Indianapolis, organized by an eighth-grader named Hunter Scott who had read about the disaster and realized that almost unanimously, the survivors were still outraged over McVay’s trial and treatment by the military.

After an uphill battle to convince other senators and committee chairmen to address the issue, Smith finally secured a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing. Survivors and Navy officials went on the record to defend McVay, but the man whose testimony finally convinced the committee was, almost unbelievably, Mochitsura Hashimoto — the very same man who sank the Indianapolis. Calling McVay’s conviction unjust, Hashimoto urged the committee to clear his name.

The exoneration resolution was brought before Congress, and on October 12th, 2000, the measure passed. 55 years after the sinking of the Indianapolis, the congressional decision was added to McVay’s official Navy service record, finally clearing him of all wrongdoing.