In Indianapolis (#799) co-authors Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic do the seemingly impossible; they lay out the facts of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis just before the end of World War II, the hideous ordeal suffered by the survivors of the ship, and the subsequent Navy court martial of its commander, Captain Charles McVay while simultaneously making the modern reader care about events and injustices that occurred more than seventy years ago and just recently at long last, put to rights.
I must admit, I was not familiar with the fate of the USS Indianapolis and its crew before hearing the buzz about this book, but her story is utterly absorbing, tragic, heroic and a travesty, all at the same time. On July 30, 1945, after delivering a highly secret cargo to the remote Pacific island of Tinian, the Indianapolis was given orders to sail to Guam, where she was expected to join in the Naval forces preparing an assault on the Japanese home islands to bring an end to the war. Despite intel available to Naval routing staff there of creditable reports of Japanese subs near the route the Indy was given, Captain McVay was told there was "nothing to worry about" and sent off to Guam without even an escort vessel, which would have been the norm. When she was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese sub I-58, no-one reported that she never made port on her expected arrival date. If her oil slick had not been accidentally spotted by an American pilot, its crew of nearly twelve hundred men would never have been rescued because no one was looking for her. As it was, only 316 of her crew survived after five days of dehydration, starvation, shark attacks and blistering sun during the day and hypothermia at night.
A few days after the rescue, the Navy convened an Inquiry into the incident in Guam. Higher ups decided to recommend Captain McVay for court martial. For that court martial, the prosecuting Naval JAG officer called Mochitsura Hashimoto, captain of the I-58, to Washington to testify against McVay, an action that outraged most Americans. Yet the ultimate decision of the court martial placed a black mark on McVay's record despite the backing of the crew of the Indianapolis. It took the efforts of the Indy Survivor's Group, Captain William Toti, the captain of the USS Indianapolis, the nuclear sub namesake of the sunken battle cruiser, a determined schoolboy from Florida with the backing of Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire and a surprising letter to Senator Mark Warner of Virginia to tip the balance in McVay's favor and redress the injustices that had been committed. Captain McVay was assigned sole blame for the loss of his ship; yet plenty of responsibility for the fiasco of the crew's non-rescue lies squarely on the shoulders of many in the Navy brass, none of whom were ever held accountable. It's an astonishing story.
How serendipitous to see that a documentary about the underwater discovery of the USS Indianapolis in 2017 was being aired on our local PBS station just after my husband and I finished reading this book! It truly is fascinating to see how well-preserved the vessel is in her grave three and half miles below the surface. Since it is the tomb of so many sailors and marines, it is undisturbed as a grave site. Remarkably, some of the survivors of that night are still alive, and were shown footage of the Indy in her final resting place to help bring closure to them and their families. It's very moving to watch, if you have the opportunity.
I wasn't kidding about this book being weighty, though; literally! Although I prefer reading a paper copy of non-fiction books like this so I can page back and forth to photos, maps, etc., this book may be difficult for some readers to hold comfortably. But whether you read it in paper or e-book format, this is a piece of American history that deserves to be read.
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