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re: Here’s the tale of the Ship Indianapolis, The torpedoes got some, the sharks got the rest
Posted on 4/1/21 at 8:44 am to GetCocky11
Posted on 4/1/21 at 8:44 am to GetCocky11
What I don’t understand is why a distress signal wasn’t sent out. The Japanese sub had spotted and torpedoed them so their location was known to the enemy anyways. It seems that common sense should have overridden the orders for secrecy once the secret was out.
Posted on 4/1/21 at 8:50 am to fr33manator
quote:
What I don’t understand is why a distress signal wasn’t sent out.
I always thought that the ship managed to get one distress signal out, but the operators never responded. Also, nobody in the Philippines seemed to care that the ship never arrived at all.
The ship sank really fast...something like 15 minutes or less. It was probably an incredibly chaotic situation.
Posted on 4/1/21 at 9:44 am to fr33manator
quote:
What I don’t understand is why a distress signal wasn’t sent out. The Japanese sub had spotted and torpedoed them so their location was known to the enemy anyways. It seems that common sense should have overridden the orders for secrecy once the secret was out.
Distress signal or not, the Navy was doing their best to figure out a way to ignore/disown it, and when that wasn't possible, criminally scapegoat the captain through his court martial.
From McVay's wiki:
quote:
He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took four days to rescue his men but never received an answer. The Navy long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because one commander was drunk, another thought it was a Japanese ruse, and the third had given orders not to be disturbed
quote:
After a Navy Court of Inquiry recommended that McVay be court-martialed for the loss of Indianapolis, Admiral Chester Nimitz disagreed and instead issued the captain a letter of reprimand. Admiral Ernest King overturned Nimitz's decision and recommended a court-martial, which Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal later convened. McVay was charged with failing to zigzag and failure to order abandon ship in a timely manner. He was convicted on the former. Prior knowledge of Japanese submarines being identified in the area was withheld from the court and from McVay, prior to sailing, as well. Following McVay's conviction for hazarding Indianapolis by failing to zigzag, Admiral King recommended setting aside the punishment.[6][7] Hashimoto, the Japanese submarine commander who had sunk Indianapolis, was on record as describing visibility at the time as fair (which is corroborated by the fact that he was able to target and sink Indianapolis in the first place). American submarine experts testified that "zigzagging" was a technique of negligible value in eluding enemy submarines. Hashimoto also testified to this effect.[1] Despite that testimony, the official ruling was that visibility was good, and the court held McVay responsible for failing to zigzag.
Admiral King and Secretary Forrestal sound like the real criminals here.
Saddest part:
quote:
On 6 November 1968, McVay took his own life by shooting himself with his service pistol at his home in Litchfield, Connecticut, holding in his hand a toy sailor he had received as a boy for a good luck charm
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