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The Loss of the U. S. S. Indianapolis On July 16, 1945 a U. S. Navy vessel left San Francisco for the island of Tinian with a cargo so secret that Harry S Truman, now the President of the United States and Commander In Chief Of The Armed Forces, had learned about it only some three months earlier and only then after assuming the Presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12th. The Heavy Cruiser Indianapolis was ordered to proceed to the Mariana Islands at all possible speed and in doing so would break all records for crossing 5,000 miles of the Pacific in ten days. The captain had not been informed of the nature of his cargo but was told to keep it under guard at all times. If something happened to the ship that would keep it from reaching its destination he was cautioned to protect the cargo at all cost even if it meant placing it in a lifeboat at the expense of drowning sailors. The vessel would arrive at Tinian on July 26th where its cargo would be discharged for what would be an unknown and unheard off use. The mysterious shipment was the material manifestation of one of the greatest minds in the world and a product of a thought that had first conceived the power of the sun on a university blackboard. For those who could understand it was the mathematical expression that proves that small particles of matter correspond to unimaginable quantities of energy. The formula E = MC2. when applied means that the energy released from a particular mass of material is equal to the weight of the material multiplied by the square of the speed of light expressed in centimeters per second, (the square of 186,000 miles per second). For example, one gram of matter is equivalent to 25 million kilowatt hours or the energy of three thousand tons of coal. At the time very few people on Tinian, if any, knew this. The sea and sky had dominated the visual world of ship’s crew since their departure from Pearl Harbor. Then it appeared on the horizon, a dark brooding mass in the mist of the early morning hours looming out of the sea like a mirage. Off in the distance one aircraft after the other glided through the morning sky, each slowly declining in altitude . At first sight one wondered what they could be, then quickly it became apparent. In a line stretching as far north as the eye could see hundreds of B-29 Superfortresses were returning to the landing fields on Tinian after a fire bombing raid on Japan. As the Indianapolis passed the southern end of the island, its destination was now off the starboard side when the order was given to the helmsman, “Come right to 010 degrees”, then as all such orders are, it was repeated by the sailor already turning the large, gray wheel on the bridge, “Aye Aye Sir, Right 010 degrees” and the vessel with its secret cargo started its swing to the north to steam up the southwestern side of the island which now accommodated the busiest airfields in the world. With several more course changes the ship made its way into the small harbor. “All engines stop” was signaled on the engine order telegraph as the anchor was dropped in the harbor. Two days before the Indianapolis arrived at Tinian, General Carl Spaatz the new commander of Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific was issued his orders, "The 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather permits visual bombing after 3 August, 1945 on one of the following targets, Kokura, Hiroshima, Nigata or Nagasaki” . These cities were selected since up to this time they had been spared American incendiary attacks so that the full force and impact of the “special” bomb could be observed by the Japanese. The Indianapolis discharged its cargo of lead containers and the bomb’s firing device at Tinian, placing the bomb components in a small boat which carried the material to the dock. It then hoisted anchor and steamed west, then turned south where it would make a brief call at Guam, an American island recaptured a year earlier from the Japanese and located 120 miles south of Tinian. The ship would then proceed to Leyte in the Philippines for redeployment. Its estimated time of arrival was scheduled for sunrise, August 1st. On July 28th the vessel departed Guam and steamed westward at 16 knots toward Asia. The Indianapolis delivered only the material for the first bomb. Fearing that something might happen to the ship before it reached the island, and unknown to any aboard the vessel, material for a Plutonium bomb had been flown to Tinian by separate transports from the United States thus insuring that at least one of the two atomic bombs in the American arsenal would reach the assembly and launch area. In breaking the speed record for distance covered between San Francisco and Tinian it is almost certain that the achievement could not have been accomplished if the vessel had engaged in zigzagging maneuvers. The ship was now in waters frequented by enemy submarines. Zigzagging is a common maneuver employed during wartime and particularly when the possibility of enemy submarines could be in the vicinity. It involves steaming on a particular course at one speed for a period of time and then changing to another course and sometimes a different speed and then repeating these changes all the while moving in a forward, although angular movement from a straight base line connecting the point of the vessel’s origin with its destination. This technique of seamanship reduces the possibility that an enemy submarine captain will locate the vessel and project its course and speed to a point on the ocean surface in advance of the location where the vessel was first observed for purposes of launching an attack. Zigzagging can be an effective defense against a submarine attack on a surface vessel. The vessel was steaming on a Great Circle Route which, either on or below the surface of the ocean, is the shortest distance between two points on the globe. It was along one such route code named "Peddie” that the Indianapolis headed westward on its course between Guam and Leyte. This route intersects with a north-south route between Palau and Okinawa and it was in this vicinity that Captain Hashimoto's sleek sea knife lurked in wait of an enemy to devour. The I-58 carried six human driven, suicide torpedoes which could be launched while under water. They were known as Kaitens, or "changing sky". The submarine was also armed with six torpedo tubes. "A STEEL SHARK” In the early minutes of the mid-watch within the Combat Information Center aboard the Indianapolis the crewman peering over the ship's radar had not picked up any object as the sweeping line on the green radar scope circled the seas in a 360 degree scan every few seconds. Nor had the starboard lookout observed the white tell-tale track of incoming torpedoes or the white water “froth” or “feather” trailing a submarine’s periscope as it sliced through the water. There was no indication of the mortal danger that would, in a matter of moments, erupt around the Indianapolis and turn the vessel into a flaming inferno. Below the ship’s main decks in the crew’s sleeping quarters those personnel off watch were in bunks stacked along the bulkhead four deep extending from the deck to the overhead. At the end of the passageway the glow of a blue lamp was the only illumination, the smoking lamp was out. The tropical night made the compartments below deck uncomfortably hot and humid. The churning sound of the ship’s engines and their vibrations went unnoticed as an accustomed rhythm of a vessel underway. So usual and familiar had the throb of the powerful motors become that it was only when they stopped that it was immediately noticed. The sudden silence would awaken even the deepest sleeper. Below the the surface it had been ten days since the submarine I-58 had cast off all lines and slipped out of the harbor of Hirao, Japan. It had traveled south to a point in the western Pacific where it lingered on station astride an imaginary line connecting the island of Guam and Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, a route which was the shortest distance between these two American naval bases. The large, three hundred foot long, cruise-type submarine fitted and designed for trans-Pacific patrols moved silently through the dark waters like a hungry steel shark stalking its prey. Its teeth were six bow torpedo tubes. Inside this metal tube was a crew of 119 men and 11 officers among them the thirty six year old captain, a graduate of Eta Jima Naval Academy, Commander Iko Machitsura Hashimoto. Powered by two, one thousand eight hundred horse power electric motors and, when fully loaded with eight hundred tons of fuel, the under-sea vessel also had on deck a compartment large enough for a float plane which could be catapulted along a fifty foot slanting runway although the I-58 did not carry any aircraft on this mission. When surfaced the monster was capable of cruising 15,130 nautical miles at a speed of fourteen knots and could remain submerged for eighteen hours at four knots. Its safe diving depth was three hundred twenty eight feet and when alarmed or threatened, it could dive to periscope depth in seventy seconds. The air was foul in the great black, steel beast when the captain gave the order to come to periscope depth. As the water was blown from its tanks the vessel began its rise upward from the depths. "Up periscope “came the command and the shaft that was to provide its only view of the world above water moved toward the overhead in the conning tower of the command center of the submarine. Captain Hashimoto pulled down the handles and placed his hands on the focusing instrument and slowly began turning a full 360 degrees to view the world of water above the ship. He saw no sign of an intruding vessel or aircraft. "Down scope-surface", he ordered. And once again the ballast tanks were blown of the excess sea water it had aboard to maintain depth. The bow of the I-58 broke the surface and as the sea rolled over its deck in white swirls of froth, the stern became parallel with the surface and water left the deck. The captain climbed the ladder, spun the wheel on the water tight hatch above him and climbed out into the fresh air of the dark night, inhaling deeply the ocean air free of diesel fumes. He stood with binoculars to his eyes and made a visual sweep of the sea around him. In less than fifty seconds with a half moon darting in and out of intermittent cloud cover which occasionally illuminated the surface he spotted a dark object on the surface. Peering into the night he saw the silhouette of a ship at a distance of thirty thousand yards. Calculating his position bearing ninety degrees from true the target bearing was ninety degrees true. Immediately he ordered, "Crash Dive". Back down the hatch he dropped, turning the wheel on the hatch that would seal the interior from the on-rush of water that was sweeping over the bow-he jumped to the deck of the conning tower. Outside water rushed over the ship as it sank beneath the waves, down, down, it drifted in a world of silence until upon reaching periscope depth he ordered, "Up Periscope". With that he waited as the submarine moved into position. The order rang through the ship, "Prepare to fire torpedoes and launch Kaitens”(1). "Fire” Hashimoto barked ... And at that moment the first of six torpedoes were pushed through the submarine's bow tubes. Quickly, five more oxygen propelled, Type 95 torpedoes with their magnetic warheads left the submarine at a spread of three degrees, all speeding toward the black silhouette Hashimoto had seen through the periscope. The metal fish raced at a speed of forty eight knots at a depth of twelve feet all directed at the ship which was well within range of the 880 pound warheads of the torpedoes. As the torpedoes left the submarine the ship "bounced up” as it was relieved of the weight, "Down scope", came the order so as to keep the ship from breaking the surface. Then he waited as the seconds ticked by, waiting, waiting, tick, tick, tick, tick, as he watched the second hand sweep around the time piece, counting off everyone's measured life span in a way never to be recalled a measured cadence of the universe leading all men on each individual journey to eternity. "Up Scope” he ordered and the steel cylinder which was his eyes revealed a flash of fire and in its light he also saw two plumes of water forward of the ship's bridge rising from the water like giant, white geysers, then he heard the sound he was waiting for, "Boom”- followed by "Boom” and again in the instant of a breath another, "Boom", "Boom”; "no vessel could possibly survive this devastating attack", he thought. It was 12:15 A. M., Monday, 30 July, 1945 and so recorded in the submarine's log. "DEATH OF A WARSHIP” The torpedoes had torn into the vessel forward of the bridge with a horrendous volcanic blast, bursting through the steel hull and collapsing bulkheads. One hit had severed forty feet of the vessel's bow. As the ship continued its forward motion its pointed bow which once served as a sea knife was now falling through the depths of the dark ocean while the vessel plowed through the sea scooping in water in devastating quantities flooding compartments and drowning the crew below deck. The warship had been in condition "Yoke Modified", a situation below deck where only some of the water tight hatches were "Dogged", (closed and sealed). The jagged hole released a raging flood into the vessel's interior. Those crewmen not sleeping topside on deck to avoid the suffocating heat of air-less, sealed sleeping quarters below were mangled in the crushing, collapsing bulkheads Those resting in their bunks were tossed to the steel deck. Below decks men rushed to put on their kapok filled life jackets and from force of habit rushed to their battle stations among the clanging din of a blaring klaxon. It was to late to fight back. The sea tiger had drawn first blood and it would be the only blood spilled that morning. The inclinometer on the bridge started registering the vessel's list in degrees and the angle of tilt was increasing rapidly to the starboard side. It was just a matter of minutes before the gallant ship would turn in on itself and devour what was left of the once mighty cruiser. Erupting fuel tanks and uncontrolled exploding ordnance for her guns ignited thereby hastening the death of the Indianapolis. Unknown to anyone at the time, the disaster taking place at that moment would result in the most tragic loss in American naval history and would be the last major warship lost by the United States Navy in World War Two. Radiomen had attempted to alert American forces in the vicinity of the disaster but did not know if their SOS distress signal had been received. It wasn't. Men walked down the port side of the flaming ship which was now horizontal with the surface of the sea and simply stepped into the water before it capsized, hundreds of men endured the shock of the dark waters of the Pacific. Little did they realize that this would be the first and mildest of the terrible fate that would overtake them in the hours and days to follow. Hampered by the life saving buoyancy of their Mae West life jackets they swam with all their strength to quickly place as much distance as possible between themselves and the ship which was now listing to starboard as water poured into compartment after compartment from ugly, gapping holes in her side. They instinctively knew that to remain close to the vessel meant to be sucked down with the wreck as it slid beneath the waves. In a short while some 800 of the officers and crew were in the water among them the captain of the ill fated war machine. Flailing in the dark, head and chest above water, faces black with fuel oil, their legs dangled beneath the surface as they attempted to keep as close together as possible all the while bobbing like corks with each warm, wind swept sea swell. Even though some were suffering from horrible burns and others were bleeding, all were in shock. Still they were relatively well off as compared to what they would soon be forced to endure.
It had only been several minutes after the normal routine of the ship’s mid-watch which had come on duty only to be shocked by the terror and impact of two successive explosions followed shortly by a third and then a forth. The vessel was sinking rapidly and the men below decks that were not immediately killed by the force of the explosion or dead of concussion were now drowning or being burned to death in the flaming cauldron while others in the engine room were soon to be scalded horribly by super-heated steam from ruptured boilers. Many were crushed against the bulkhead as heavy machinery and equipment tore lose from their mounts as the ship listed on its starboard side. Others were suffocated by the pungent smoke from burning paint. Their screams could be heard by those lucky enough to be in the water and away from the flaming disaster. At first the ship listed to starboard as the on-rushing sea entered the interior of the vessel flooding compartment after compartment below the main deck. Damage control had no time to stop the watery onslaught. Unable to stay afloat, the gray hulk turned over on its side like a dying animal and the sea flooded through the stacks pouring water into the engine room, then the ship flipped over and all matter of debris fell from the main deck to the sea floor below. The bottom of the capsized vessel glistening briefly until it sank, bow first in the glow of a midnight moon. It was gone. Sliding beneath the surface and falling through the black depths, its grave was first marked by the ugly froth of dirty white swirls mixed with oil slick and flotsam. The great ship with its ten battle stars sank ever deeper into the Pacific abyss until it came to rest on the ocean’s floor to forever remain hidden in the great depth of the western Pacific. Its life giving support system now only a memory. All those floating on the surface looked in horror at the spot where the vessel had been only minutes before. The tomb of the ship would be marked only by geographic coordinates on the vast expanse of the Pacific at 12 degrees -2 minutes north by 134 degrees, 48 minutes east. It would also be marked on the Japanese navigational chart carried aboard the the submarine now cruising below the surface. The Japanese sub did not pick up any prisoners. The Indianapolis, sister ship of the Heavy Cruiser Portland, which would later be the scene of the Japanese surrender at Truk, was dead. For those survivors in the water, it was time to take stock of the situation on the surface and the first thing was to keep the floating group together as much as possible and hope any rescue effort would not be long in locating them. Hunger had not yet overtaken them since chow had been served some seven hours earlier. The only thing that could be done now was to wait for the sunrise to push the darkness over the western horizon and hope for a search party to locate them under the lifesaving rays of daylight. They would wait and hope a long time. A few life rafts had been cut loose and several had broken away but, as would soon be revealed, they had inadequate food and water aboard. The cool night was their only blessing but this would soon end in about six hours after-which a blazing and relentless sun would first break over the horizon and begin its tortuous climb across a cloudless sky. Advancing 15 degrees each hour, by 1000 hours the heat from the flaming ball would start the process of dehydration on their water soaked bodies which already were being tormented for a single cooling, life giving, quench of fresh water. Since entering the water many had ingested mouth-fulls of salty sea water which only made the desire for potable water more intense. That morning officials in Tokyo rejected the Potsdam ultimatum calling for unconditional surrender of the Empire even though food shortages had become so acute in Japan that the government requested the civilian population to collect 2. 5 million bushels of acorns for conversion into food. Food was not yet something on the minds of those floating on the sea west of the Marianas. On Tinian servicemen began the assembly of the final components of the device which would become known as “Little Boy” when the world would learn of the first uranium bomb dropped in anger on an unsuspecting city in Japan. The Naval Base at Leyte remained under routine war time conditions and no distress signal had been received to alert the facility to launch search and rescue missions. As far as was known, the vessel was due in two days when it would then be reassigned, probably somewhere north off the coast of Japan to support the planned invasion of Japan's home islands. On Tinian the secret cargo that had been delivered was being inspected and placed in position for use in the immediate future. General Curtis LeMay, or "Old Iron Pants” as he was called by his men, was conferring with his staff for the purpose of selecting primary and secondary targets in Japan. They were unaware of the fate of the Indianapolis some 660 nautical miles southwest of the Guam and 290 miles west of Palau. Toward the east the first rays of the new day broke over the horizon. The morning sunrise revealed a mass of hundreds of sailors scattered over a relatively large area some of whom had been carried by the currents well beyond the main concentration of floating survivors. As the flaming sphere began its long, slow climb across the heavens its burning rays magnified by the reflection on the water began to burn into their oil blackened faces . Their skin was burned and blistered and after awhile baked by the unrelenting rays. Those without headgear, and there were many, became dizzy and light headed then racked with painful, mind numbing head aches. Thirst was the first torment to overcome the helpless bobbing seamen as their tongues swelled to fill their mouth. Even knowing that it meant certain death, some were wracked by delirium and could not resist the desperation and distressful feeling of a tortuous urge to drink sea water, an act that only magnified their agony leading to an uncontrollable desire to consume even greater quantities of the deadly liquid only to be relieved by death after a prolonged period of insanity. Several men had entered the water with bleeding wounds. It must have been the blood that attracted the huge black, sinister beasts. The first sharks that appeared circled the group, then they were joined by more and the horrible feeding frenzy began. Men screamed and flailed their arms as one after the other was pulled underwater in a swirl of blood and froth only to bob to the surface for an instant before being dragged down, never to be seen again. An arm floated to the surface and was snatched again by a huge gapping mouth filled with rows of razor sharp teeth. The men were thrashing the water and shouting in a desperate attempt to keep from being eaten alive while watching shipmates being carried off in a nightmare only the Devil himself could conceive. The carnage was shocking and beyond belief. Everyone in the water was in a state of panic and shock. Then it was over and despair overtook those that remained some bleeding after having deep chunks of flesh torn from their bodies. This was occurring at a time when Japanese authorities were told by United States military officials that eight of its cities would be leveled if it did not surrender. The sun had long since passed overhead and was now setting in the west marking the coming of dusk, then the blackest of night. All hope of rescue from the dark sea was all but abandoned and many men where now relinquishing all hope of being found. Then the orange ball slide below the horizon, its disappearance marked by colors of orange, purple and the blood red of a beautifully obscene sunset over the Philippine Sea. It was the second night of darkness and dread. It was a long night as men fought off fatigue and tried to keep alert to fight off more man-eating shark attacks while searching the horizon for any sign of a dark object which might signal the sign of a rescue vessel. None were seen and the long night wore on. Tuesday, July 31st dawned and the ship still had not appeared at Leyte where its non-arrival had still not been questioned. Hundreds of miles east of Leyte men waited and wept in the water. With a blazing sun beating down many were beginning to hallucinate and were being driven mad . The insanity led some to speak of imaginary islands and they would swim off never to be seen again. Heat, thirst, fear, depression and hopelessness drove those the sharks didn't carry away to self -destruction. Hundreds of the crew had now drifted away, some carried away by monsters, others died of wounds or thirst, many were going insane, some were dead of dehydration or from drinking salt water, several committed suicide by untying their life preservers and slipping under water. Those that still clung to life by the thinnest of treads were dazed, weak,sick, tired and afraid as they drifted hopelessly toward death. The only horror they had not yet experienced at sea was to be helpless in the water during a typhoon, God had spared them that. When the full force of a raging Pacific typhoon is upon you all distinction between the ocean and the atmosphere is lost in a world of water and wind. As the barometer falls, waves are transformed into mountains of water. A screeching, howling wind of up to 120 miles per hour is punctuated by moments of eerie calm only to rise again to its former crescendo of shrieking violence. The gusts of the storm will peak and then drop to a relative lull. After the initial thrust of high wind and rain which can last for hours, a period of calm follows when the wind slackens and frequently, during daylight, the sun shines this is the center of the storm when the "eye” is passing. The force of the wind and rain will quickly resume to full fury with the only difference being a change in the direction of the wind it blows in the opposite direction of the first phase of the typhoon. This will be the only horror of the sea that the survivors of the Indianapolis will be spared. The only horror. Throughout the night men babbled their maddening, imaginary thoughts, their minds now unable to distinguish reality from insanity. There were fewer in the water now but no one knew how many as all count had been lost. Their co nfused and numb brains were beginning to cease imagining green meadows, cool, fresh water, dry beds, food and memories of loved ones as their minds began to shut down to block out the unspeakable horror that had overtaken them they drifted in and out of a state of semi-consciousness. They were too weak and exhausted to do anything but continue to maintain the basic animal instinct for survival. All sense of sensation and emotion was being drained away as unconscious heads bobbed back and forth with each movement of the rise and fall of the waves. This scene continued through the third night and still there was no sign of a savior as they waited for the relief of death. Again the sun broke over the eastern horizon bringing with it scorching heat and unbearable rays beating down on blackened, blistered faces. The nearest land was now hundreds of miles to the east where, on the island of Tinian, huge B-29 Superfortresses were roaring down runways prepared to drop 6,600 tons of bombs on five Japanese cities. In a few hours the entire city of Toyama would be destroyed. These aircraft would not see the men in the water as they were headed in the wrong direction. Even upon the return flight of the aircraft to Tinian and Saipan when sometime they would fly at low altitudes searching for downed pilots and crew members of crashed aircraft, the shipwrecked men would still not be seen. They were too far southwest of the airfields. Late in the afternoon of August 2nd Lieutenant Robert A. Marks flying a Catalina PBY 5A spotted some of the survivors bobbing in the water and at great risk to himself, his crew and the plane, landed the amphibious aircraft in the water near the men. There were strict regulations against landing this type of aircraft on the open sea as the hull of the "Dumbo", as it was known, was weakened by construction necessary for placing its landing wheels. Lt. Marks and his crew taxied to the area where some of the survivors were being attacked by sharks and began to fill the aircraft's fuselage with fifty-six men who were later transferred to naval vessels which began arriving on the scene between midnight and three A. M. One such vessel, the U. S. S. Ringness, APD 100, picked up Captain McVay and thirty five others and sent a secret dispatch while proceeding to Peleliu which stated that the Indianapolis had not been zigzagging. Rescue operations continued for six days, until August 8th, and covered a radius of one hundred miles of open ocean saving 316 of the crew. Eight hundred eighty three men were lost in a single sinking. Two days before the search effort for survivors of the Indianapolis ended a B-29 stationed on Tinian was positioned over a hole in the ground about the size of a grave where the cargo delivered by the Indianapolis would be lifted into the bomb-bay area of an aircraft named the Enola Gay. On August 6th Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 509th bomber group received his orders and in the early morning hours roared down a runway built only a year before by the 107th Naval Construction Battalion (Seabees) bound for Hiroshima. The cargo the Indianapolis delivered to Tinian would soon create an event that would change the world. However, the men in the water still awaiting rescue knew nothing of the fate of Hiroshima and they waited only for their own fate to deliver them from the torture they were experiencing even if it meant death. Fate had also cheated Japan, as the course of history might have been changed had the I-58 sunk the Indianapolis and its secret cargo before it reached Tinian. The B-29-45-MD (44-86292) Superfortress lifted off Tinian at 2:45 A. M., August 6, 1945 for the six and one half hour flight to Hiroshima. At 31,600 feet with a ground speed of 328 m. p. h., a bomb was released weighing 9,700 pounds measuring 129 inches in length with a diameter of 31. 5 inches containing 137. 5 pounds of Uranium 235 split into two sections. After falling to an altitude of 800 feet nuclear fission began in one fifteen-hundredth of a micro-second. The firebomb that erupted was the equivalent of thirteen thousand tons of T. N. T. and thousands of degrees hotter than the surface of the sun. It melted granite and vaporized people leaving only their shadows on the few remaining buildings left standing in the city after the blast. This single bomb left 118,661 dead, 30,524 severely injured, 48,606 slightly injured, 3,677 missing and 118,613 uninjured. It exploded with the temperature of the fireball at the outer edge reaching 1,800 degrees centigrade 15 milliseconds after the explosion with the velocity of the shock at 100 meters per second 1,000 meters from the epicenter. On August 9th Major Charles W. Sweeney was in command of the B-29 Bock’s Car, named after its usual pilot, Captain Frederick C. Bock. This aircraft dropped the second Atomic Bomb code named “Fat Man” which was a plutonium device. The primary target was Kokura but bad weather forced the pilot to the alternate target of Nagasaki. It was the second device detonated over Nagasaki that finally convinced the Japanese that the war was lost and surrender followed on August 15, 1945. Orders were issued to the U. S. Pacific fleet to cease offensive operations against the Empire of Japan. By the time the war ended, fragments of the Japanese Army were scattered and marooned on dozens of islands throughout the Pacific and the Imperial Navy was at the bottom of the sea. As Admiral Toyoda remarked, “I do not believe it would be accurate to look upon the atomic bomb and the entry of Soviet Russia as direct causes of the termination of the war. But I do think those two factors did enable us to bring the war to an end without creating utter chaos in Japan". The country was already in a chaotic state, the military was impotent, the economy was wrecked and financially bankrupt. Starvation, death and tragedy was everywhere in Japan. As Theodore Roscoe wrote in his U. S. Naval Institute book,Submarine Operations, "The holocaustal incandescence which consumed Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not blind observers to the fact that the maritime Empire was already destroyed. And long before the first mass air-raids smote Tokyo, many Japanese-held harbors in the Southwest Pacific were as deserted as the bays of the moon, and in many of Japan's home seaports there were vacant docks with rusting bollards where only spiders tied their lines. The atomic bomb was the funeral pyre of an enemy who had drowned". Captain Hashimoto was ordered to the United States after the war to testify at Captain McVay's Court Martial. The following is the actual testimony of the pertinent portions of Japanese Captain Mochitsura Hashimoto's comments at the trial of U. S. Navy Captain Charles McVay as provided by the Navy Marine Corps Appellate Review Activity, Office of the Judge Advocate General, Washington. McVay was accused of failing to zigzag during war-time conditions and for failure to issue the abandon ship command in a timely manner. HOLD FOR RELEASE UNTIL READ IN OPEN COURT MARTIAL EXPECTED DECEMBER 3, 1945 Judge Advocate, Genera Court Martial, Navy Yard, Washington, D. C. Subject: Charges and specifications in case of Captain Charles B. McVay, III, U. S. Navy
1. The above named officer will be tried before the general court-martial of which you are judge advocate, upon the following charges and specifications. You will notify the president of the court accordingly, inform the accused of the date set for his trial, and summon all witnesses, both for the prosecution and the defense. In that Charles B. McVay, III, Captain, U. S. Navy, while so serving in command of the USS INDIANAPOLIS, making passage singly, without escort, from Guam, Mariana Islands, to Leyte, Philippines Islands, through an area in which enemy submarines might be encountered, did, during good visibility after moonrise on 29 July 1945, at about 10:30 p. m., minus nine and one-half time zone, neglect and fail to exercise proper care and attention to the safety of said vessel in that he neglected and failed, then and then after, to cause a zigzag course to be steered, and he, the said McVay through said negligence, did suffer the said USS INDIANAPOLIS to be hazarded; the United States then being in a state of war. In that Charles B. McVay, III, Captain, U. S. Navy, while so serving in command of the USS INDIANAPOLIS, making passage singly, without escort, from Guam, Mariana Islands, to Leyte, Philippines Islands, having been informed at or about 12:10 a. m., minus nine and one-half zone time, on 30 July 1945 that said vessel was badly damaged and in sinking condition, did then and there fail to issue and see effected such timely orders as were necessary to cause said vessel to be abandoned, as it was his duty to do, by reason of which many persons on board perished with the sinking of said vessel; the United States then being in a state of war. JAMES FORRESTAL Captain Hashimoto was flown to the United States and on December 13, 1945 testified as to the events surrounding the sinking of the Indianapolis. The following describes his testimony. "The accused then requested permission to examine the proposed witness Mochitsura Hashimoto, Japanese enemy alien, as to his understanding of taking an oath and as to his competency to testify in this case as a witness for the prosecution, citing and reading from Wharton's Criminal Evidence, sections 1164 and 1165". "The Court announced that the permission was granted. Upon request of the accused, the challenged witness took the stand and was examined on his voir dire (1) as follows": (Note that an interpreter was used and Captain Hashimoto's testimony is presented in the third person). Examined by the accused: "Question (Q) : Hashimoto, what is your religious belief? At this point the Court ruled that the proposed witness Mochitsura Hashimoto, Japanese enemy alien, understood the taking of an oath and that he was competent to testify as a witness at this trial. The President of the Court then administered the pains and penalties oath to the witness. Said oath was then interpreted by a duly sworn interpreter, in Japanese to said witness Hashimoto which he then signed. Q: And what from his knowledge now was the position of his ship relative to the dark object at that time? A: His position was established still, roughly. at ten thousand meters, be aring ninety degrees from true with the target bearing ninety degrees true. Q: Then what did you do after sighting this dark object? A: He submerged and headed towards the object and prepared to fire torpedoes and launch KAITENS (1). The accused did not desire to recross-examine this witness. Commander Hashimoto left the Courtroom and was returned to Japan. He later described his visit to the United States as “pleasant” . Soon after the end of the war he became a Shinto Priest. Captain McVay was later vindicated from any blame concerned with the loss of his ship. All personnel involved in the failure to report the ship's absence from Leyte were also exonerated. On November 6, 1968 in Litchfield, Connecticut, McVay committed suicide, he was found with a pistol in one hand and a toy sailor attached to a key ring in the other. (1) This is a legal term applied when examining a witness to determine if they are predisposed to think or react to a particular issue, event or situation or to determine if they tend to be bias or prejudice. |
