But the following morning they counted noses down there and they had a considerable group, quite a number more than actually were survivors in the final analysis. We had that group down there, I shouldn't say "we" because I was not with it, I didn't know it existed until Friday morning when I was picked up. I have been told by officers who were in that survivor group that there were people who when they did find something to eat would try to hide it, and they got food Thursday.
Planes came out and dropped food and water and things like that to them. They were, I think, you might say a cross-section of what you would expect in any group of people. There were a few who were willing to sacrifice their lives for others and did so. There were those who were in more or less of an exhausted state and stupefied and they didn't know much of what was going on. There were others who took the attitude that "I'm going to save myself and the hell with everybody else.
You can't pin anybody down. There are people who think certain things happened. Nobody naturally, now, in their right mind would ever admit that he did anything like that and he would deny it if you confronted him with it. There were no flagrant cases that we could bring to light, there were just people who said, "Well, I know somebody who got more food than I did", and somebody said, "Well, I didn't have any food at all.
I wasn't eating anything. We had sharks, or rather they had sharks down there [in the life preserver group]. We know that because we have two survivors who were bitten by sharks and as I told this one boy in the hospital. I said "You'd better take some castellan paint and put on that thing before it heals up because nobody will ever believe you've been bitten by a shark.
We have one boy who was bitten on the thigh. The group down there said that on the calm days, they knew there were sharks around because they cold see them underneath. They didn't actually seem to bother them on the surface. It was different with my group who were in rafts.
We had a shark that adopted us apparently sometime in the early morning of Monday. We couldn't get rid of him. The kids who were in rafts by themselves on this one raft were scared to death of this shark because he kept swimming underneath the raft.
You could see his big dorsal fin and it was white, almost as white as a sheet of paper, apparently [the shark] spent most of his time on the surface and this fin had bleached out so he didn't blend in with the water at all. He had the usual pilot fish [remoras] which we were trying to catch, hanging on him and we could knock this pilot fish off with a canoe paddle, but the shark would then swim away and the pilot fish would be gone.
We were trying to get some fish to use as bait. We had a couple of the very excellent air tight fishing kits that are put up for the rafts that are the finest that I've seen. They're a delight to any fisherman's eye. They have the lures, the hooks and even a net [and] a gaf, but a spear in them, harpoon, I should say. But the fact that this shark was with us all the time prevented us from catching any except the smallest black colored fish.
It looked to me like a member of the Parrot family and, although the meat was very white, I would not let anybody eat. Alert, who was with me, turned out to be an excellent fisherman.
He caught most of the fish. But as I say, every time we caught a little one and used that for bait, the shark got it before we could get any other fish. There were a number of good sized schools of fish that we saw and since I've done a great deal of salt water fishing myself, I know they were either Bonito or small Mackerel or one of those families which were edible, but we could never get any of those fish to bite due to this shark.
So about the 3rd day we were getting a little annoyed with this thing [the shark] and we only had a small knife, the knife that's put up in this fishing apron which has about a blade I suppose an inch long, and I would suggest that someplace in this kit that they put a larger knife, a knife such as a sheaf [sheath] knife.
Well, Heavens! All of you had a sheaf's knife, you wore them on the ship which is perfectly true. You wore them and they were uncomfortable, you sat on them and they were uncomfortable and nobody when we actually got in the rafts had a sheaf knife, either lost out of the sheaf or else had failed to pick it up and put it on when he got out of his bunk.
Of course, it was unfortunate that this happened at night, because nobody had a chance really to pick anything up. So maybe if it [the sinking] happened in the daytime, we may have had people who would have had sheaf knives, but it is essential that you have a knife with a blade larger than an inch. We believe we could have killed the shark if we had had a large blade knife, and then we might have been able to get some fish to eat. We felt that if we had a knife with a sufficiently long enough blade, we could have killed the shark and we, therefore, could have gotten some fish to eat.
Another thing I would like to point out is that obsolete water breakers should be done away with. We ought to have the water in tins, preferably, I believe, in a ounce tin so that you can open that, drink it and it is small enough so that it will fit in the packet of a kapok life jacket.
The matches should be in water-tight tines, the first aid material should be in water-tight tins. In fact everything that you expect to use in abandoning ship should have the best protection there is. The Very rocket--that is well protected. It has a tin covering which may be opened with a can opener and inside of that is a lucite cylinder which further protects the material. The one thing that we noticed in the two containers we had that the first night when I tried to use one, we opened it with the can opener that lifts the top off.
It has a narrow edge which you are supposed to grab with your fingers an pull out from the rest of the tin container. All that we saw had been damaged to such an extent that you could not pull this out. Consequently, you should have a small can opener inside this tin which will allow you to cut longitudinally to remove the tin from the inside container which holds the cartridges.
I was afraid to cut this off at night the first time I tried it because I didn't know what I was running into. I realize now that it is essential that everybody aboard ship should be thoroughly familiar with every type of material which he may run into when he abandons ship.
I would certainly make certain that the crew and the officers were familiar with all this material. They should actually see it opened up to know what's in it, to know how to use it rather than wait until the time you have to use it. The emergency signaling mirror is not an easy, not by any means an easy gadget to use.
It takes quite a bit of ingenuity. I say this because I think I have normal intelligence, it took me about an hour and a half to two hours to chase this so-called reflected cross on your body around to see that it reflects back in the small cross in the back of the mirror and then you have to at the same time see a plane in that.
It is not at all easy when you're going on a raft which is not a steady platform. I felt that after two days trying this I had at least mastered the technique and I felt certain that we were shining this thing directly on planes, but maybe were weren't. Certainly nobody saw the mirror or saw either on of the mirrors that we had with us, nor was any other group able to attract the attention of a plane with them.
In fact, we could not attract planes with either the mirror in the daytime or with the Very stars at night. The Very stars are excellent; however, they are not strong enough. They might possibly have a parachute attached, something that will stay up a longer period of time. Of course, we know now that they have perfected a light which they think can be seen by a plane at night regardless of whether he's looking for anything or not.
But certainly the old type Very star has proved to my mind that it's a very difficult thing to see from a plane. Of course, we know we can see them from ships very easily. On ships, although we have radar, we have not secured [i. In a plane you can't watch your radar, your instruments and also have lookouts, because you can't carry that many people. So I think that every raft should have a radar screen on it, should have some method of giving signals or certainly reflecting signals so that they may be seen by a plane.
I believe the aviators have these, if we had one of those on each raft, we unquestionably would have been picked up much sooner. I understand that the group that was down south did have a reflector dropped to them and also a talkie [hand-held radio]. Well, none of them knew how to use this talkie, what the pilot was trying to do was determine who was down there. He knew there were people, but he didn't know from what ship the survivors were from and he was trying to make his report.
He made his report saying that there were survivors but he didn't know from what ship. I don't know that I can personally add anything regarding life saving equipment.
I naturally feel very strong that our present material is inadequate, because I tried for some hundred hours to attract people to us and was unable to do so [while floating on the life rafts]. I would like to go back to the actual damage of the ship and from what we have been able to piece together with the help of the people from the [US Navy's] Bureau of Ships, we now have what we think is a fairly good idea of about what did happen.
We believe we were hit by two torpedoes, one around frame 8 or 10, because the bow was blown off forward around ten. Another one [torpedo] around frame fifty. We believe that they were large torpedoes, that they were running close to the surface, because none of us believe the magazines blew up, that is the only way we can account for the flashes of flame through the ship. We do know that the doctor, for instance, whose room is second on the starboard side forward on the port bow, was blown out of his bunk.
He said flames shot through the deck in his room. He gained the passageway and flames shot by him and he pulled back and then went in to the wardroom [officers' dining and socializing room] where he fell.
He supported himself with his left hand, apparently on the deck. He touched the deck with his right hand and his right hand was very badly burned. So he knows the deck was very hot. He got up and got to a port[hole] in the wardroom on the starboard side. He got that open and crawled through the port. He said it was so hot in the passageway forward, so hot in the passageway aft, that that seemed to him the only way he could get out.
The fact that it was very hot in those passageways was borne out by people who were aft the wardroom sleeping in offices. They opened the doors of the office and found the heat so intense that they closed them immediately and opened the ports, went out the ports.
That happened on both the starboard and port side of the ship. I have one officer, the chief engineer, who had the eight to twelve watch [8 p. He had come down and was in what we call the head of department's head [bathroom] and shower, which is amidships, there just by the ladder which leads down to the main deck in the midships section there.
He was in there when we were hit. He came out of there and remembers that there was intense heat, his hair was singed, he knows that, his fingers were very badly burned. H doesn't know how they were burned, although he feels that he must have touched something that was particularly hot.
He was able to aft on the starboard side, although badly injured, he didn't get to the main engine room, No. He did talk to somebody in No. They told him that apparently the main steamline going through the port side of the forward engine room had been knocked loose. They had no steam and asked for instructions.
He told them to secure everything in No. At that time, there was very little water in No. On the other hand, there were no more sparks or fire noticed from the No. Since there were only two explosions, I don't feel the boilers went up. We have men who were in No.
I do not know about the aviation gas. We had one full tank of that [for the use of the cruiser's spotter aircraft]. We only had one tank left at the time, about 3, gallons. The people who were up there don't seem to think that there was a gasoline fire. We have two or three officers that got out of the second deck space, Warrant Officers [commissioned officers below the rank of Ensign], who by the time they reached the deck outside their room, it was filled with oil and water.
So we do know that there was very rapid flooding. The No. Of course, securing No. He [the chief engineer] was still making about a hundred rpms revolutions per minute on his No. When "abandon ship" went, he secured. All power all lights were lost forward. The fact that the [torpedo] hits were there, at least we think they were up forward, are borne out by the fact we have almost no Marines who were reported in that section of the ship.
We have not a single steward's mate and their compartment was up there and we have very few officers that were in their rooms at the time of the explosion. So we believe all of those people were killed almost instantly. We do now that sick bay [the medical dispensary compartment] was a shambles. We have evidence to indicate that the number one mess hall [enlisted dining compartment] which is under the main deck, the quarterdeck, was flooding. I think that many people lost their lives because the ship rolled over so rapidly.
They got caught under some debris or they got caught in a compartment. How Lieutenant Redmayne, the Chief Engineer, got off the ship he himself doesn't know. He knows that he got out of the engine room, he knows that he got in the passageway on the port side when the ship took almost a 90 degree list and after that he just knows he was in the water.
He can't imagine how he got out of that debris and stuff that piled on top of him. He was probably just lucky. All my other heads of departments, except the senior doctor and the chief engineer , are missing.
I talked to the damage control officer; the navigator; to Captain Crouch, a passenger; to my executive officer; and in fact talked to all the heads of departments except the chief engineer and the gunner officer before the ship went down. I talked to them on the bridge. Whatever happened to those people, I haven't the faintest idea. I can only say that, as somebody put it, maybe they went back to their room to get a flashlight, a knife, or some money or something else.
That's the only thing that would make any sense to me. I can't believe that they got in the water and were never seen and it's true that we did not see any of them, so they must have gotten caught and not gotten off. It was very embarrassing to me, being the old fud on the ship, to find out that there is nobody between me and, well, the doctor's about 31 or 32, but I have no line officer above a [naval] reserve lieutenant.
I can't account for that in any way except possibly the fact that when I thought I was going to be sucked under with the ship, I tried to swim away. You have rather peculiar thoughts that go through your mind.
I thought that, well, it may be embarrassing if I'm the only one left, or at least if I, as a Captain, am left and my ship is gone. But, I decided that I would attempt to save myself. I must admit that I had the thought that it would have been much easier if I go down, I won't have to face what I know is coming after this.
But, something stronger within me decided that, spurred me to get out of the way, at least to attempt to save myself. And, on the raft, of course, I had a great many hours to think of the disaster and I knew of some of the people I had lost. I hated to think of having to see their wives and a great many of them I knew quite well, having been in the States over two months just previously.
Most of them had been up at Mare Island. I knew there was nothing I could say to them, and I think probably the fact that I enjoyed life, that I thought of many a cocktail hour that you have at home after you have an exhausting day and you come back and take a bath and can relax for a few minutes and get away from the worries of the office. I thought I would certainly like to repeat some of those evenings and I guess that's what kept a good many people going. They just thought of some of the happiness that had been theirs in life and decided they'd stick it out.
To go back to the time when we were hit [torpedoed] and I said that I was attempting to get to Radio One to find out if the message had gotten off. I knew what the message was, as I had told the navigator that besides the ship's position which should be going out now. I wanted to say that we had been hit by two torpedoes, I wanted to give our exact latitude and longitude.
I knew we were sinking fast and we needed immediate assistance. And I know that message got to Radio One because we have a survivor who was in Radio One sending that message out--at least he thought he was sending the message out. Of course, now we know that that message apparently did not get out. At least, we know of nobody that picked it up. We know that we had lost all power forward, but we have evidence from people who were in Radio Two, unfortunately my radio electrician, Woods, who is an excellent man and who was in Radio Two was not saved , but we have evidence from some men there that they know that power was on, they knew that a message was apparently being sent out and we can't understand, nor can they why no message got off the ship.
I suppose that our antenna must have been knocked down our grounded by the explosion. We know that we attempted to send an SOS [radio distress call] over the distress frequency, at least the people back there thought it was going out. It does not seem possible that such a message could have gotten off the ship, because it would have been picked up because that distress frequency is guarded [i. After the offload was completed, McVay turned his ship towards the Philippines for a voyage that faced, he was assured by his superiors, no enemy threat.
This reassurance -- along with poor visibility and the failure of his superiors to notify McVay that the destroyer Underhill had just been torpedoed on the same route -- contributed to McVay's decision on the night of July 30, , to stop the zigzag course mandatory in hostile waters.
When not in hostile waters, the zigzag course is at the captain's discretion. On its straight course en route to a training mission, the Indianapolis was struck by torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I It sank in 12 minutes. Only men out of the crew of 1, survived the five-day wait for rescue. McVay survived, only to become the only captain in the Navy's history to be court-martialed for losing his ship. He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took five days to rescue his men, and he never received an answer.
The Navy has long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records now show the Navy lied. After years of grief-stricken letters from families of his crew, McVay -- haunted by the tragedy and exhausted from family troubles -- shot himself in the chin on his front lawn on Nov.
The son of an admiral and a career officer with a fine record, McVay was court-martialed before the Navy inspector general had even completed his investigation. But it took Hunter Scott, now 15, of Pensacola, Fla. Scott began a history project on the ship when he was 11 and has worked doggedly with the survivors to try to right the injustice done to McVay. Blake Stilwell.
The heavy cruiser was sunk on its way to join a task force near Okinawa. Among the survivors was the captain of the Indianapolis , Charles B. McVay III. McVay would be charged with negligence in the loss of the ship.
Even though he was restored to active duty after his court-martial and retired a rear admiral, the guilt of the loss haunted him for the rest of his life. He committed suicide with his Navy revolver on his own front lawn with a toy sailor in his hand.
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