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CA-35
Posted by Raven on July 30th, 2005
60 years ago today…A sad event in history. CA-35 was the ship that delivered the atomic bombs in 1945 to the island of Tinian. The bombs were dropped over Japanese cites less than two weeks later. Meanwhile, the men who survivied this tragedy of epic proportions were lost at sea for 4 days, many hanging onto each other for survival.
They endured severe dehydration, shark attacks, skin shedding with oil covered bodies in the South Pacific.
At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.
If you haven’t read the book “In Harm’s Way” I highly recommend it. The gory details of men being attacked by sharks, men going insane because they ingested salt water, the story of real men caught up in a life and death struggle in the South Pacific. I cannot imagine a worse fate then being marooned out in the middle of this ocean, for four days.
The ship’s captain, the late Charles Butler McVay III, survived and was court-martialed and convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag” despite overwhelming evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm’s way, despite testimony from the Japanese submarine commander that zigzagging would have made no difference, and despite that fact that, although over 350 navy ships were lost in combat in WWII, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed. Materials declassified years later adds to the evidence that McVay was a scapegoat for the mistakes of others.
The harrowing true events that led to this ship not being missed…the facts behind the court martial.
The impact of this unexpected disaster sent shock waves of hushed disbelief throughout Navy circles in the South Pacific. A public announcement of the loss of the Indianapolis was delayed for almost two weeks until August 15, thus insuring that it would be overshadowed in the news on the day when the Japanese surrender was announced by President Truman.
The politics of that time were just as bad as they are now in many ways.
Shortly after 11:00 A.M. of the fourth day, the survivors were accidentally discovered by LT. (jg) Wilbur C. Gwinn, piloting his PV-1 Ventura Bomber on routine antisubmarine patrol. Radioing his base at Peleiu, he alerted, “many men in the water”. A PBY (seaplane) under the command of LT. R. Adrian Marks was dispatched to lend assistance and report. Enroute to the scene, Marks overflew the destroyer USS Cecil Doyle (DD-368), and alerted her captain, of the emergency. The captain of the Doyle, on his own authority, decided to divert to the scene.
Had he listened to the command, he would not have gone for the rescue.
Disregarding the safety of his own vessel, the Doyle’s captain pointed his largest searchlight into the night sky to serve as a beacon for other rescue vessels. This beacon was the first indication to most survivors, that their prayers had been answered. Help had at last arrived. Of the 900 who made it into the water, only 317 remained alive. After almost five days of constant shark attacks, starvation, terrible thirst, suffering from exposure and their wounds, the men of the Indianapolis were at last rescued from the sea.
July 30th, 2005 at 8:21 am
I remember watching a movie about this nightmarish event and from time to time, one of the survivors would be interviewed on TV. I’m going to order the book.
July 31st, 2005 at 6:28 pm
It was awful. I have four books on the event, and several videos as well. Just reading the description of the ship splitting in two and sinking-so fast-is enough to make you feel scared. The water caught on fire because of all the oil spilled out; the men who jumped or fell in the ocean got covered with oil and some of them caught on fire…all this in the first moments of the tragedy. There were other cruisers-the USS Juneau was torpedoed and sank, where the 5 brothers all died a couple years before this…
July 31st, 2006 at 6:51 pm
My great-grandfather was the Communications Officer onboard the USS Cecil J. Doyle when they rescued the survivors of the Indianapolis. He is mentioned in my favorite book on the event, “Abandon Ship!”. The real tragedy of the event was that nobody thought the Indianapolis was overdue and thus it took five days for them to be found.