Last week, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced an amazing discovery: he and a search team aboard the research vessel Petrel had discovered the wreckage of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, an American heavy cruiser (larger than a destroyer but smaller than a battleship) sunk by a Japanese torpedo on July 30, 1945.

I had decided to write about the discovery of the Indianapolis before tragedy struck the U.S.S. John S. McCain in the Strait of Malacca, but the choice seems especially appropriate now.

The Indianapolis had 1,196 sailors on board when the torpedo struck. Around 300 went down with the ship; the survivors, many covered in oil from the burning wreckage, drifted in life rafts for days before the Navy even knew the ship had been hit. Many who survived the initial attack died of exposure, dehydration, drowning, and more horrifically, sharks. In the end, only 317 survived.

The sinking of the Indianapolis, less than one month before Japan’s final, unconditional surrender, was the single largest loss of life at sea in a war that saw more than 100 U.S. aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, destroyer escorts, and submarines perish in the Pacific theater alone. It is also the only wartime sinking for which the captain was court-martialed.

finishing a secret mission

I remember reading about the sinking of the Indianapolis with fascination in the American Heritage Illustrated History of the United States as a boy. Now, as a veteran, I still cannot imagine the terror those sailors endured.

The Indianapolis had just undergone extensive renovations in San Francisco when it set sail for Tinian, in July of 1945 carrying what was perhaps the most important cargo any ship had carried during the war: parts for the atomic bomb that the Enola Gay would drop on Hiroshima on August 8. After departing Tinian, she traveled to Guam where the skipper, Capt. Charles B. McVay, III received orders to sail to Leyte in the Philippines.

Capt. McVay’s handling of the ship proved controversial. “Zigzagging,” the random changing of direction was left to his discretion, but Navy doctrine required the tactic in good seas when enemy submarines were likely nearby. In his after-action report, McVay stated he had stopped zigzagging at 2000 hours on the evening of July 29. He later told a court of inquiry that since the sky was overcast, he felt that the ship’s speed of “17 knots was sufficient, also better protection than slowing my speed of advancement, during the alternating conditions of darkness and occasional moonlight.”

It was not sufficient. Two torpedoes from an unseen submarine, later determined to be the I-58, struck near the bow, and within 12 minutes, the indianapolis had sunk.

court martial and eventual exoneration for mcvay

On August 31, the court of inquiry recommended that McVay face court marital for dereliction of duty and recklessly endangering the life of his crew. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz disagreed, stating McVay’s “failure to order a zig-zag course was an error in judgment, but not such nature as to constitute gross negligence.” Someone further up the chain disagreed.

McVay was tried at the Washington Navy Yard in a trial that featured testimony from Cdr. Mochitsura Hashimoto, the commander of the I-58 who had fired the deadly torpedoes. Hashimoto testified that although he could not tell if the Indianapolis was zigzagging or not, it would have made little difference in his attack.

Ultimately, McVay was acquitted of the charge that he delayed giving the order to abandon ship, but was “found guilty of negligence in not causing a zigzag to be steered.” He was sentenced “to lose one hundred numbers in his temporary grade of Captain and also in his permanent grade of Commander,” meaning he was pushed back in seniority.

Although the Secretary of the Navy remitted the sentence and restored McVay to active duty, the charges that he was responsible for such a massive loss of live haunted him for the rest of his life. He committed suicide in 1968, at the age of 70, in front of his home in Litchfield, Conn.

At the urging of Congress, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England officially exonerated McVay of any wrongdoing in the sinking of the Indianapolis.

We now know she lies remarkably well preserved in 18,000 feet of water, where, as a protected gravesite, she will remain.

For those who want to learn more, the Naval history and Heritage command maintains an online repository of documents related to the sinking and the subsequent investigation, inquiry, and trial. You can also read more at http://www.ussindianapolis.org, a site originally created by family of survivors, as both a memorial to their lost shipmates, and an effort to clear Capt. McVay’s name.

Related News

Tom McCuin is a strategic communication consultant and retired Army Reserve Civil Affairs and Public Affairs officer whose career includes serving with the Malaysian Battle Group in Bosnia, two tours in Afghanistan, and three years in the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in the Pentagon. When he’s not devouring political news, he enjoys sailboat racing and umpiring Little League games (except the ones his son plays in) in Alexandria, Va. Follow him on Twitter at @tommccuin