A few minutes after midnight two loud explosions rocked their ship and ten minutes later that ship sank. Because the above three men were either awake or very close to the open upper decks of the ship they were able to swim away in those short ten minutes before their ship slipped under the waves. The almost instant sinking of their ship was the start of five days of terror and a lifetime of painful memories. Many of the sad memories were about the way the crew and ship's captain were treated after the sinking.

If you have watched the movie "Jaws" there was a scene where the old shark hunting sea captain (Robert Shaw) and the young marine biologist were comparing their scares. The captain told how he had been on board the USS Indianapolis when it was sunk in shark infested waters. How over 900 men went into the ocean after the attack by a Japanese submarine and only 317 survived because the sharks circled the sailors and killed so many men. Shaw's Hollywood character was not real but the USS Indianapolis was, and the death of so many men by shark attack is true naval history.

The three surviving seaman I met at the Iwo Jima Veterans reunion in Wichita Falls, Texas were well into their eighties and glad to have been allowed to live every one of those days since the USS Indianapolis went down. They came home and got on with their civilian lives. All three men told me that their families did not know about the sinking or the shark attacks until the movie "Jaws" came out.

The USS Indianapolis was the last US Navy surface ship to be sunk during WW II. It had just delivered some of the critical parts for the first atomic bomb, to a secret location in the Pacific. On the way back they were torpedoed and not missed by the Navy for five days. In fact it was not until an airplane spotted men in the water and sounded the alarm to the US Pacific fleet that the Navy even knew the USS Indianapolis was lost.

Captain McVay, the ship's commander was court marshaled by the Navy. It was done so fast that McVay was not allowed time enough to prepare his defense. However the Navy had time enough to find the Japanese submarine commander, get him to the trial, and have the "enemy" testify against their own naval officer. Secretary of the Navy Forestall was supposed to be in the business of ships, but in the case of Captain McVay, the good Secretary was in the "railroading" business. The men of the USS Indianapolis were made to feel that they were at fault for the worst maritime disaster in US Naval history. The senior powers-to-be forgot the enemy in that equation

I would suggest that the ship's crew and captain did not know who their real enemy was. Everyone in the Navy then and now knows that Captain McVay was not a fault but in 1968 he took his life. Family members of dead crewmen continually hounded McVay. The Navy said he was criminally at fault and the grieving families needed someone to blame and hate. Not all is fair in love or war.

By Van E. Harl
Copyright 2007

About Author:
Major Van E. Harl, USAF Ret., was a career police officer in the U.S. Air Force. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. Major Harl is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School, the Air Force Squadron Officer School and the Air Command and Staff College. After retiring from the Air Force he was a state police officer in Nevada.

Comment on this article