USS Indianapolis Wreckage found

[Beth]

www.cnn.com/2017/08/19/us/uss-indianapolis-wreckage-found/index.html

[dave]

Great work Beth. I look forward to more details and images from her wreckage.
Regards
Dave

[yanmacca]

I watched the movie a few months ago, starring Nicholas Cage.
Those men must have gone through hell, what a sorry waste of life so late in the war.

[dave]

Ian
The hell the survivors of the sinking went through is unimaginable even though I have seen and read interviews of their experiences. The innate ability of man to fight for survival is amazing but others did not make it due to injuries, shock, the many hours of floating---5 days---without being spotted, the horror of watching shipmates bitten and killed by sharks, lack of water and loss of hope. The navy made many serious mistakes regarding this matter and procedural changes were made. 
Regards
Dave

[BrevetorCoffin]

Yet the powers that were still tried to pin the blame on the Captain. He committed suicide in 1960.

[dave]

Brother David
Captain McVey faced a board of inquiry which recommended a general court martial which Nimitz put the kibosh on and recommended a letter of reprimand instead. And then Ernie King had to get his schmeckel in the process and pushed for McVey to be convicted for not zig zaging. McVey's counsel called on a very successful American submariner who testified that zig zagging would have no effect on the sinking of the Indy.  King was successful and McVey was court-martialed. Nimitz who had been promoted to CNO got the Sec Nav to remit the sentance. McVey was promoted to Rear Admiral at his retirement in 1949. 

The Navy did its best to saddle McVey with every mistake and failed procedure that was involved with the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Shameful behavior, simply shameful. I can certainly understand the stress and strain being officially responsible for the loss of ship and lives of his crew. 

I wonder if any and if so how much , the US Navy has made regarding the purported discovery of the USS (SS 233) by the Russians last year? Gotta believe the matter has been investigated to some degree. She was reported to be in 104 meters off Matua Island in Russia’s Far Eastern Kuril archipelago. The Russians did advise the Americans of the discovery so I look forward to her being discovered officially soon.
Regards
Dave

[BrevetorCoffin]

The Japanese sub skipper who sank the Indianapolis was also called on to testify with the same answer evidently as the American. The Indy was caught dead to rights in the sub's crosshairs.

[quincannon]

I have very mixed feelings about the McVay affair. Mixed in that I believe a courts martial was fully justified, if for nothing more, a fact finding tool.

What I find completely unjustified is the undue command influence exhibited by King, and not leaving the whole matter in the hands of Nimitz, the theater commander. I believe that a letter of reprimand was a just punishment, but I also believe that letter should have only been issued as a result of courts martial proceedings.

It was King, not Nimitz, who remitted the sentence of the court martial according to my references.

I also believe that conviction for failing to zig zag was justified, and for the following reasons.

1) Indianapolis was operating in an active theater of war.

2) Indianapolis was operating without escort, escorts that were equipped with both active and passive sensors.

3) Indianapolis was not equipped with any subsurface detection sensors. It was therefore incumbent upon the ships captain to take any and all means available to thwart any possible submarine attack. The only measure available to him was the seemingly random changes of course, an active measure, known familiarly as zig zagging. Captain McVey did not adopt those measures, and his failure to do so contributed to the loss of the ship. Now it can be and was argued at the time that zig zagging would have not prevented the loss, in that Indianapolis crossed directly in front of I58. Undoubtedly true, but that does not change the fact that McVey placed his ship in danger, by failing to follow standard procedures in a combat zone, by a ship not equipped with appropriate sensors for anti-submarine detection.

4) So in summation, the commander, at sea, on land, in the air is completely responsible for what happens or fails to happen during his tenure of command. That is iron law. Sometimes it does not seem just. Sometimes it is not just. The case of Captain Gilbert Hoover of Helena is a prime example of unjust condemnation of a commander in combat. It is though what it is, and should never be changed in principle, because of singular abuse in practice.

McVay II-King-McVay III is an interesting controversy, one that will be chewed on as long as Indianapolis is remembered, but it is largely a he said-he said and will never fully play out. I think King acted badly in the whole affair, but I do not think he acted out of malice for the father. My opinion only, and I have changed my mind from my previous opinion on the matter after more research. Problem is with these things that any appearance of impropriety is as bad as the impropriety itself. King should have washed his hands of this and left it to Nimitz.

As to the multitude of failures that surround the incident, that is not the concern of any sitting courts martial. The only thing under consideration was the charge against McVay for endangering the ship under his command.

McVay dies by his own hand in 1968, and his record was exonerated in the late 1990's. I am not at all sure if the exoneration was justified. I say that with care, because no further proof was brought forward to suggest that he did not do what he was accused and convicted of. In reading on the issue, it seemed to me to be more of a response to alleged unfair treatment.

Life itself is not fair, and we should never expect it to be, for we will find ourselves in a state of everlasting temporal disappointment.

I should also add that I have a personal dog in this fight. My uncle (by marriage) served aboard Indianapolis from mid 1941 until leaving her to transfer to another ship at the time Indianapolis was given her final refit prior to her last voyage. He was a damage control crewman, and in a very long conversation I had with him a year or so before he passed away he told me in no uncertain terms that everyone aboard Indianapolis knew the ship was a poorly designed death trap, as were all the treaty limited heavy cruisers built in the late 1920's and 30's. The damage that Indianapolis sustained would have been survivable by all of the similar type ships built after 1940, and even the light cruisers built in the late 1930's. Boise, Canberra, and Houston sustained much more severe damage than Indianapolis and survived. The problem evidently was insufficient internal compartmentation used as a weight saving measure during the treaty years, and that is always a fatal flaw. 

[dave]

QC
My information regarding the handling and prosecution of Captain McVey's case comes from the USS Indianapolis CA-35 website listed below. The various sections of the site are all well written and based on factual matters as far as I can tell. The Captain McVey section is most informative regarding the man and his career which included testimony from Glynn Donaho, a highly decorated US submariner, that zigzagging would not have been effective. By the by, in McVey's sailing order the choice to zig zag or not was at his discretion!

As your comment regarding the construction and many flaws of the "Treaty Cruisers" is well stated and unfortunately very true. They were designed for long patrols and to carry heavy armament but to adhere to the treaty restrictions weight allowances their armor protection was sacrificed. 
Regards
Dave

www.ussindianapolis.org/

[quincannon]

Dave:

The Indianapolis affair in its totality can be divided into three distinct parts, decisions before, actions during, and aftermath.

The decisions made before, particularly the decision not to provide an escort, was a judgment call, one for which someone should have been held accountable. The facts were though that destroyers and destroyer escorts the only type of ships equipped to provide those services were in short supply in theater following heavy losses of those types in the Okinawa Campaign. Priorities had to be set, and the judgment was that the fleet trains and transports needed the protection more.

McVay was charged with two counts, failure to zig-zag and failure to promptly order abandon ship. He was found not guilty on the second charge. It was indeed the opinion of Donaho and the commander of I58 that zig-zagging would not be effective, but that was also immaterial to the charge. The fact is that Indianapolis did not zig-zag as an active means used to ward off possible submarine attacks. The charge was that McVay did not take all possible measures to safeguard his ship. He did not and was found guilty for not doing so.

Discretion: If I told you that you must go down a dark alley in the Bronx, a place where gang activity was known or suspected, and I told you to do it at three in the morning. Further, I told you that it was at your discretion to either go unarmed or go carrying an assault rifle, what discretion would you use? Going unarmed does not necessarily spell your doom. Going armed does not necessarily insure your survival. Going armed though would be the far more prudent course of action, just as zig-zagging was the far more prudent use of discretion.

The Aftermath: Everything associated with the events following the sinking of Indianapolis were not material to the charges leveled against McVey. A fantastic case could be made about leveling similar charges against a good number of people ranging from simple stupidity to gross negligence.

The key problem with the treaty cruisers Dave was internal subdivision to mitigate flooding, once the ship was hit. I don't blame the lack of armor as much as I do the internal subdivision issues. There was no armor capable on any ship that could withstand the effect of a Long Lance torpedo. On Indianapolis the first hit blew off the bow. That was a survivable hit and as a matter of fact your father's ship Portland, Indianapolis's sister ship, suffered the same type damage from the same source. The second, if I recall, was around frame 40,and unless that hit broke her back, she should have either been able to survive the hit given appropriate subdivision, or at least been able to stay afloat more than 12 minutes, allowing more of the ships company to escape.

[dave]

QC
I do not know much detail on either the ship or its construction so will accept your comment to with the proviso to change my mind later.
One question I have had answered satisfactorily is did the Navy fail to pick up the Indy's SOS signal or did the ship fail to send the SOS during the 12 minutes she had afloat after the attack?
Regards
Dave

[quincannon]

I think the answer to the latter question Dave is self evident. Had there been no signal from Indianapolis, then that would have been a third charge leveled against McVay.

There was clearly dereliction involved in the non-response response, and evidently the three most involved in the resulting deaths of 600 people got off fairly unscathed. Maybe we had become so accustomed, so calloused to death in war that it did not seem to matter that much.

I can tell you that as a child playing on a 24" Long Lance that sat in front of Main Navy in DC all those years ago, it is my firm belief that there is no armor in existence, then or now, that could not be penetrated by that weapon.

[dave]

I agree that the armor or lack of it had little to do in the sinking of the Indianapolis. I have searched before for information as to what happened to the distress signals if they were sent then who did not receive it and act upon that info. I agree that by the end of July 1945, war fatigue was certainly raging and the population had become had benumbed to the loss of lives except those close to them. 

Perhaps we the discovery of the wreck there will be new scholarship about the ship, the sinking and all factors related to that and the survivor's stories.
Regards
Dave

[quincannon]

Dave I neglected to mention a book that you may be interested in, "U S Navy Cruisers, an Illustrated Design History" by Norman Friedman. It is a bit expensive, but should be available through your local library. I think you would find it very informative.

Also there was a rather cryptic and brief note in both the 1939 and 1941 editions of Fahey's "Ships and Aircraft of the U S Fleet" regarding "wrinkles that have crept into their (Pensacola Class) design have been ironed out" that I have never seen adequately explained. I think he is referring to low freeboard from midships aft, but that would apply equally to all the treaty heavies.

The heavies were designed to be the main body of the Scouting Force and were designed and built before the air component came to the fore. Mainly they were to scope out the opposition, and given the speed and sufficiency of gun power to get themselves out of trouble, and not much else.

[quincannon]

PBS is having a special on Indianapolis this week sometime. Here in Colorado I believe it is on Thursday, but I sure it will vary in different parts of the country.