Sixty-Six years ago today (July 30, 1945) the USS Indianapols was sunk after delivering the atomic bombs to
Guam that ended the war with
Japan.
If it had been sunk a few days earlier the war would have continued and wouldn't have ended in August, 1945.
Congress Vindicates Capt. McVay
By Dina Badaluco
Washington, D.C., Oct. 31, 1960 -- Fifty-five years after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in the waning days of World War II, Congress and President Clinton have cleared the ship's captain, Charles Butler McVay III, of any wrongdoing in the Navy's worst wartime disaster.
In a "Sense of Congress" resolution attached to the massive annual Defense Department Authorization Bill, Congress stated that the Navy withheld critical information and assistance that could have saved the Indianapolis and its crew. It also explicitly said that McVay was not responsible for the ship's sinking or for the massive loss of life that followed.
President Clinton signed the measure on Monday, making it law.
"Captain McVay's military record should now reflect that he is exonerated for the loss of the USS Indianapolis," said the resolution.
The Indianapolis was hit by two Japanese torpedoes in the early hours of July 30, 1945 while enroute to the Philippines. The initial blasts killed 300 men. Of the 900 men that went into the cold waters of the Pacific, only 317 survived the dehydration, hallucinations and shark attacks that lasted five days.
The suffering survivors were finally rescued by chance, when a plane on routine patrol found them. Many of McVay's supporters have long claimed that he was made a scapegoat after the U.S. military lost track of the ship and let the sailors suffer and die in the water for days without launching a rescue effort.
In congressional findings accompanying the resolution, Congress stated what many of McVay's supporters have claimed for years: that Navy officials denied McVay's request for a destroyer escort that might have saved his crew enroute from Guam to the Philippines; and that the Navy withheld intelligent reports from McVay that could have warned him about an enemy submarine in his path.
"Naval officials failed to provide Captain McVay with available support that was critical to the safety of the USS Indianapolis and her crew," Congress found.
McVay survived the ship's sinking but was court-martialed for "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag," a tactical maneuver sometime used to avoid enemy detection. While the United States lost hundreds of ships during the war, McVay was the only captain court-martialed in connection with the sinking of his vessel.
But Congress found that "poor visibility on the night of the sinking justified Captain McVay's choice not to zigzag."
"The American people should now recognize Captain McVay's lack of culpability for the tragic loss of the USS Indianapolis and the lives of the men who died as a result of the sinking of that vessel," the resolution states.
Twenty-four years after the court-martial, McVay shot himself to death with a Navy-issue .38-caliber revolver.
As a group, the aging survivors have long sought to clear McVay's name.
Three years ago, they were joined by 12-year-old Hunter Scott of Pensacola, Fla., who became interested in the Indianapolis after seeing a reference to it in the movie, Jaws.
He began researching the story and interviewed survivors for a history fair project, then contacted Rep. Joe Scarborough, a Florida Republican, who initiated efforts in Congress.
Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of the Japanese submarine that sank the Indianapolis, died last week at the age of 91. Hashimoto testified at McVay's court-martial that he would have spotted and torpedoed the ship even had it been zigzagging.
Over the past several years, Hashimoto supported the survivors' fight to clear McVay's name.
The bill does not technically overturn McVay's conviction; only the Navy can do that. And the resolution's final wording was not as critical of the Navy as some survivors had hoped. But McVay's supporters claimed a long-awaited victory.
"The organization is happy with it," said Paul Murphy, an Indianapolis veteran and chairman of the ship's official survivors organization. "We feel as though Congress white-washed things a little bit, but at least it has been recognized that Captain McVay was wrongfully accused."
"We understand that this will have to be satisfactory," said Murphy. "We're glad that it has been made clear that the Navy was wrong to court-martial our captain."
[Article provided by Calvin Deshong]
