By Paul Brockman, IHS manuscripts archivist
The year 1995 is filled with many memories regarding the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. To most it was a time of rejoicing and liberation. To some it marked the beginning of the atomic age with the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Often lost among these remembrances, as it was at the time, was the fate of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA 35). On Sunday, 29 July 1945, the Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine 600 miles west of Guam on its way to Leyte. Of the 1,196 crew members, only 316 survived. It was estimated that as many as 850 of the crew were able to abandon ship; however, most perished while awaiting rescue. The ship's captain, Charles Butler McVay, III, was the first officer in the history of the United States Navy to be court martialled for losing his ship to the enemy in time of war. McVay was found guilty of negligence in failing to issue the order to "zig zag" in hostile waters.
Both McVay and the Indianapolis had exemplary war records, not indicative of incompetence or negligence. The Indianapolis was the flag ship of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and saw extensive combat duty in the South Pacific earning ten battle stars for action in numerous engagements including "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," the covering of the Iwo Jima landings, and the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa. On 16 July 1945 the ship departed the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret cargo mission to Tinian Island in the Marianas. The mission entailed carrying several parts for the assemblage of the atomic bombs used to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including uranium. The ship delivered its cargo on 26 July and was returning to Leyte after successfully completing this mission when it was torpedoed.
Charles Butler McVay's credentials are equally impressive. The son of an admiral, McVay was a 1920 graduate of the Naval Academy. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, he served as senior naval aide to President Roosevelt. During the war, McVay was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart. McVay had been in command of the Indianapolis since November, 1944.
The IHS recently received a complete copy of the official investigations and court martial proceedings as well as many other related items pertaining to McVay and the Indianapolis. The collection was the gift of author John Ferzacca who used it in writing his play The Failure to Zig Zag. In the early 1990s, this play was made into a motion picture by Allan Sharp titled The Mission of the Shark, which may still be seen on television from time to time.
In his narrative recorded on 27 September 1945, McVay described his recollections of the events surrounding the sinking as follows:
"On Sunday night, the 29th of July, we had been zig zagging up until dark. We did not zig zag thereafter. We had intermittent moonlight, so I am told, but it was dark from about 2330 until sometime earlier the next morning.
At approximately five minutes after midnight, I was thrown from my bunk on the emergency cabin bridge by a violent explosion followed shortly thereafter by another explosion. I went to the bridge and noticed, in my emergency cabin and the charthouse, that there was quite a bit of acrid white smoke. I couldn't see anything.
I got out on the bridge. The same conditions existed out there. It was dark, it was this whitish smoke. I asked the Officer of the Deck if he had had any reports. He said 'No, Sir, I have lost all communications, I have tried to stop the engines. I don't know whether the order has ever gotten through to the engine room.'
So we had no communications whatsoever. Our engine room telegraph was electrical, that was out; sound powered phones were out, all communications were out forward. As I went back to the cabin to get my shoes and some clothes, I ran into the damage control officer, Lieutenant Commander Casey Moore, who had the midwatch on the bridge as a supervisory watch.
He had gone down at the first hit and came back up to the bridge and told me that we were going down rapidly by the head, and wanted to know if I desired to pass the word to abandon ship. I told him 'No.'
We had only about a three degree list. We had been through a hit before, we were able to control it quite easily and in my own mind I was not at all perturbed. Within another two or three minutes the executive officers came up, Commander Flynn, and said, 'We are definitely going down and I suggest that we abandon ship.'
Well knowing Flynn and having utter regard for his ability, I then said, 'pass the word to abandon ship.'"
McVay was tried on 3 December 1945 by a Naval Court Martial composed of seven members. His trial was based on two charges: First, inefficiency in failing to issue and insure the execution of orders for the abandonment of the USS Indianapolis; Second, negligence in "Suffering a Vessel of the Navy to be Hazarded" by neglecting and failing to cause a zig zag course to be steered when visibility conditions and information concerning enemy submarines required him under the danger from submarine attack. McVay was acquitted of the first charge, but convicted of the second charge. He was neither charged with, nor tried for, losing the Indianapolis. The court sentence against McVay decreed loss of one hundred numbers in his temporary grade of Captain and one hundred numbers in his permanent grade of Commander. In view of his outstanding previous record, the court unanimously recommended clemency. Taking the recommendations of Admirals King and Nimitz, Secretary of the Navy Forrestal remitted the sentence. McVay retired from the Navy in 1949 as a Rear Admiral, although he never again commanded a ship. He also was never able to recover from the emotional loss of the Indianapolis and in 1968 he died from a self inflicted pistol wound to the head.
The court martial produced one controversial witness. Summoned from Japan by the prosecution was Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, the officer in charge of the submarine that torpedoed the Indianapolis. In his testimony, Hashimoto stated that he would have been able to sink the cruiser regardless of the zig zagging. This claim was substantiated by an American submarine commander, Captain Glynn Donaho, who confirmed that the maneuver was of "no value to surface ships."
McVay's supporters claimed that he was serving as a scapegoat for the Navy's not sending out search planes when the cruiser's arrival was four days overdue. In all, the crew spent five days in shark infested waters before a Navy seaplane accidentally spotted them on 3 August. At the same time that McVay's sentence was being announced, the Navy issued its "Narrative of the Circumstances of the Loss of the U.S.S. Indianapolis." In the document, four Navy officers, whose duty it was to account for the whereabouts of the ship, were publicly reprimanded. These officers were criticized for their "failure to report that the ship had not arrived in Leyte as scheduled."
After sifting through much of the information, three possible explanations for this tragedy are possible: 1) McVay was indeed guilty of failing to carry out the "zig zagging" procedure which allowed the Japanese submarine commander to score a direct hit on the ship; 2) McVay was the victim of a Navy cover up to place the ship's loss on his shoulders rather than accounting for the delay in ordering rescue operations which could have saved numerous lives; 3) McVay and the Indianapolis were the victims of a series of uncontrollable events.
From a modern purely speculative point of view, the Indianapolis appeared to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although the waters of the Philippine Sea in which they were traveling were not entirely safe, given the location and the fact that everyone knew that the end of the war was near, it was unlikely to expect an enemy submarine. It was estimated by some, that the Japanese had only two operational submarines at that time. In his statements, McVay maintained that the sky was cloudy when he retired for the evening shortly after 23:00 hours and that should the moon reappear, he was to be awakened and zig zagging was to resume. Apparently the sky did clear about the same time Hoshimoto's submarine spotted the ship. Everything happened within a half hour's time. The two or three torpedoes that struck the cruiser were so well placed that they knocked out the ship's communication system before it could send a distress signal as well as causing it to sink in under fifteen minutes. From the port of Leyte's perspective, those in charge, while not blameless, were also operating under standard procedures. It was not uncommon for ships to be rerouted without telling the port authorities so that the Indianapolis overdue arrival was not cause for immediate concern. Also, because of the secrecy surrounding the ship's mission, a lack of communication was not unusual. When all the information is added, the tragedy of the Indianapolis could have and should have been avoided, but because of a number of unusual circumstances, it was not. The weight of guilt should not overshadow the misfortune of the event.
The Society's Library has a complete copy of the court marital proceedings, as well as relevant reports, investigations, and printed materials. To view the material on the Indianapolis, request collection number M645. The collection guide to the materials is available on the IHS web site. Also, to commemorate the USS Indianapolis, a memorial to the ship was unveiled in Indianapolis on 2 August 1995. The cut and polished stone monument is located along the canal in the downtown area.
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