The Second World War was probably the greatest collection of tragedies our collective civilization has inflicted upon itself. The stories of warfare between belligerents, or atrocity on civilians out of the event are probably innumerable. There are, however, a few that stand out even among those. This is the one about the last success of Imperial Japanese Navy on their opposite number, the United States Navy. Following is the story of USS Indianapolis, her commander Charles Butler McVay III, and Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of Japanese submarine I-58 which sank her.
It is almost the end...
July 30 1945. It was the tail-end of the six year long meat grinder. The 3rd Reich was already brought to its knees and decapitated, the European theater has been over for months. Now, the whole war was very nearly over. Very nearly, but not just yet.
Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto was commanding Japanese submarine I-58, a Type B Mod 2 class sub. The visibility was on and off, and sea state was slightly rough. But the clouds gave way to a bright moon for a little bit. That was when he has spotted the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis. Initially, the Japanese crew mistook it for a New Mexico class battleship, though this is besides the point. The actual point is that, after diving and setting the course, they have and running an intercept course for about half an hour, I-58 has released a spread of 6 torpedoes, at least two of which hit home. It was 00:15, dead of the night, and Indianapolis shook like all hell.
The Japanese torpedoes were among the most fierce in the war. Torpedoes ignited the ship’s magazines, huge pillars of flames shot up to the sky, right after similarly huge pillars of water. The ship took in huge amounts of water quickly.
I-58 had successfully sneaked to a relatively close distance of 1500 yards. It was pretty hard for a 6 torpedo spread to miss entirely.
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| I-58, the submarine that sank USS Indianapolis |
During the late war, United States’ ships were chock-full of advanced fire control equipment, sensors, and almost comical numbers of anti-aircraft guns. These, of course, had to pile up over the ships as time went on, and were not in their initial design. Eventually, this made some of the ships rather top heavy, especially the older ones like Indianapolis. Thus, after developing some list, it did not take long for the top heavy ship to topple over, and sink.
It is almost a twist of fate, as Indianapolis' last mission was, in a way, to bring about the end of the war. She did just that, and promptly met her own end afterward.
The weapon to end all wars
At this point, we take a break, and wind the calendar back a few days, as Indianapolis’ last mission was rather important: Just four days ago, she had delivered the parts for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Japan soon. When she raised anchor from San Francisco on 16th of July, she made for Pearl Harbour at break-neck speed, and got there in 74.5 hours. With an average speed of 29 knots, this remains the record to this very day. From Pearl Harbor, she kept on steaming without escort for Tinian, where she delivered the parts for the nuclear weapon.
When the fateful encounter between the submarine and heavy cruiser happened, Indianapolis was returning back from that trip. Had the encounter took place a few days earlier, the Japanese submarine could have thwarted, or rather postponed the nuclear attack that took the lives of more than 140000 in an instant, and paved the way to the eventual Japanese surrender. Due to the radioactive nature of the weapon, many more would slowly succumb to health issues, mostly cancer, throughout the following months and years.
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| USS Indianapolis a few weeks before she was sunk |
I-58's other attacks weren't as successful. They had claimed two tankers and a destroyer as probably sunk, but in fact, they were not. The destroyer was, however, sank by another Japanese submarine eventually. Indianapolis would be I-58's only victim. It would also be the very last success by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States Navy.
On 7th of August, I-58 learned of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and on 15th of August, Hashimoto learned of the Japanese surrender. He is said to have given an emotional speech to the crew, announcing the surrender of Japan. Though, this would not be the last emotional news he would get. When he got back to Japan, Hashimoto has learned that all of his family was killed in the devastation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. He did not know that the ship he has sunk a couple weeks ago delivered the key components of that bomb just a few days before the sinking.
In fact, neither did the crew of USS Indianapolis. Their mission was top secret. They were ordered suddenly to prepare and go, two funny looking, small yet heavy crates were loaded aboard the ship, and Army personnel hopped on for the journey. Even Captain McVay was only told that they were carrying important cargo that will speed up the ending of the War, and perhaps even make invasion of Japan unnecessary. The Manhattan project was pretty secret stuff, atomic bomb was not a known thing even among most of the US military personnel. Even after delivering their cargo, the crew of Indianapolis were not allowed to leave the ship to walk the land again when the ship stopped for refueling. It was still considered a security risk for the crew to step into the outside world, where there can be Japanese intelligence agents.
A wet week begins
If we go back to that fateful midnight of late June, the crew had been on the sea for weeks now. They would be IN it for almost a week more. Below the deck, just about everything was on fire. Ammunition, fuel, anything else that would burn, and then some that normally wouldn’t. The crew below the deck stampeded to reach above. Those that were above, immediately took their assigned positions to help their less lucky brothers. The scenes were most macabre, horrid screams and the smell of burnt flesh have set the ambiance.
The hits, and the fire they have caused had severed the ship’s communication system. The order to abandon ship could not be transmitted like that. The ship’s trumpeter ordered to play the call for abandon ship, which he took to have meant that he was ordered to abandon ship. Promptly, he did just that. While the order was issued in a timely manner, there was no way for it to reach everywhere on the vessel.
Sailors coming up from below the deck were usually in horrible shape due to burns. Those above the deck, who did not catch the worst of fire and explosions helped them. For some, even donning the life jacket was unbearably painful as most of their skin was a seared mess. Some couldn’t move much, so after life jackets were put on them, they had to be literally tossed outboard.
Sailors who were near the bow section needed neither jump, nor be tossed, as at some point the entire bow section of the ship literally slipped below the surface beneath their feet. After this, the ship took a nose-first attitude and began going under. As the stern was raised above, the ship's screws were still turning. People who were at the stern section were falling down on the turning blades. Due to severed communications, engine room never received an order to stop, and the ship was moving forward with its huge wounds, speeding up its sinking.
The whole deal happened so fast, the sailors did not have much time to get away from the hull. As it went under, the suction it created dragged down many who were on the surface. Some of them won the herculean struggle to make it back up, others didn’t.
Before long though, the majority of the crew had already abandoned the ship successfully, and were on the surface. About 320 of the crew could never make it off the ship and went under with her. About 880 were now at the mercy of the Pacific ocean.
The mood was decent enough, considering the ordeal that they had just been through. The expectation was that they would be picked up by morning or so. Even jokes were being exchanged.
Sadly, this would be another one of those cases where the expectation and reality as it turned out would be wildly different.
They would be there for almost 5 days. Sunburn, salt water, waves, desperation, thirst, and hunger would eventually add up. Slowly but surely, people would go from making jokes to seeing hallucinations, getting paranoid, fighting each other, and losing the will to keep surviving with no rescue in sight.
Already from the first moment on, the ambiance was set with screams of the wounded, those who rather wished to expire, so that the unbearable pain would leave them be. That would get worse though, much more so.
They were out in the open ocean. And the open ocean was not where humans were home, it was where fish was home, big ones at that. Before long, sharks began circling around. So many living things trashing about on the surface, all the commotion from ship sinking and them jumping, and the smell of blood from many wounded all called for them. First, they went for the weak and wounded. Doomed sailors screamed as they were torn apart by the sharks.
What of Captain McVay?
Captain Carles Butler McVay III was among the last to leave the ship. He fell off the ship without having a lifevest, and remained afloat by holding onto a crate. A few of the ships rafts and floating nets remained above the water as she went down. McVay pulled himself on one of those, and then starting pulling others up onto it.
At the time of ship's sinking, he was exactly 47 years old, in fact, July 30 was his birthday. Born to a family of Navy officers, his work was cut out for him early on. McVay was a handsome looking, energetic man. In his youth, he dated famous beauties like actress Signe Hasso, fan dancer Sally rand, and fashion model Viviane Smith.
It seemed like he was one of those people on whom the fortune smiles in all ways of life. That smile was about to turn into a lifelong frown.
When the ship stopped in Guam for resupplying in 27th of June, McVay immediately spoke to necessary personnel in port to learn what’s ahead. What they told to McVay was, that there was little risk of surface, air, or subsurface attack on the route. There were, of course, 4 Japanese submarine sightings over the last few weeks but, apparently that was a mere technicality. Never mind the fact that destroyer USS Underhill was sunk just days ago, right on the route USS Indianapolis would use, and by a submarine.
He did want destroyers to escort his ship, but this request was not granted. He also was to steam slower this time to conserve fuel. What McVay was told was that zig-zagging was at the captain's discreation.
As with almost every other heavy cruiser of the time, USS Indianapolis did not have any sonar equipment to detect submarines. Therefore she was not able to detect them. If there were destroyers to escort her, they would have that capability, but this was not deemed necessary.
McVay would drift aboard that raft for days, just like hundreds of his men scattered about for miles now. He would need to wait long for the rescue.
Where was the rescue though?
The ship was supposed to be at Leyte at 11:00 AM, July 31st. It wasn't, but the port's director was not immediately concerned. It wasn't uncommon for warships to be late up to half a day. Or they may have gotten new orders and redirected. He filed the ships as an expected arrival every day after that.
At Guam, not having heard anything about Indianapolis from Leyte, the port director just assumed that the ship had arrived there.
Due to intense damage disabling many of the ship's systems, Indianapolis was only able to send out 3 SOS calls but their strength was rather weak. Years later, it would be declassified that the message was received by 3 different stations, with no follow through. One of the had the commander drunk, the other commander decided that it was a Japanese ruse, and finally, another commander had ordered not to be disturbed, so he wasn't informed.
When Hashimoto radioed Japanese command that he had sunk a big USN surface ship, the message was intercepted by USN. However, since no ship was reported missing, this was dismissed as a Japanese ruse.
Basically, the USN had no idea that USS Indianapolis was lost, and almost a thousand men were trying to survive in the ocean under horrifying conditions. No search&rescue effort was organized. No one was looking for them, they did not even know what happened.
The wet week continues
At first the sailors were mad at the Japanese for the sinking. Before long though, this was replaced by being mad at the Navy for not coming for them.
By now, the sailors were delirirous, and were trying to keep each other sane. That, or trying to take each other down in some cases. While food was somewhat available, drinking water was another story. Many couldn't resist the clear waters of the ocean and drank. Salt water only made them thirstier, which led them to drink more of it. In a few hours they would die from hypernatremia.
During the day, the summer sun was scorching without a shade to hide. Salt water and all the fuel they were exposed were also taking their toll on their skin and eyes. During the night, as the sun leaves, the cold became a problem.
Of course the sharks and other assorted dangerous marine life was a never-ceasing problem. They circled, bumped, attacked, killed, and ate the survivors day or night.
In August 2, a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura naval patrol bomber flown by Lt. Wilbur Gwinn was on a routine flight, trying out a new antenna equipment on the aircraft. Somewhere in flight, the antenna was knocked out of alignment. Gwinn left the cockpit to help with reeling it back in.
Looking out of the tail gunner's window, Gwinn saw a black oil slick on the surface. He descenced to a lower altitude, and saw specks around the slick. Taking a closer look, he realized that the specks were actually head, and had arms and hands too, which they were waving at the aircraft.
Who could they be though? There was no American ship reported as lost. The oil slick was more than 20 miles long. Gwinn reported his finding, and reported his position. Reply was along the lines of that it couldn't be since no ship or aircraft requested for rescue.
Ventura is not an aircraft that can land on water, so he couldn't rescue anybody. However, he dropped rafts, emergency rations, and life jackets.
A PBY Catalina rescue plane quickly made preparations and Lt. Adrian Marks took off from Palau. While enroute, Marks was passing by destroyer Cecil J. Doyle. The ship was under command of Lt. Cmdr. W. Graham Claytor Jr. Claytor contacted the PBY on radio, and Marks told of men in the water 200 miles from position. Claytor did not wait for any orders.
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| PBY Catalina, similar to the one rescued USS Indianapolis survivors |
Marks polled his crew whether to attempt a dangerous landing on open ocean, to which they voted yes. Sea was slightly rough, which wasn't something the Catalina was designed to land on. Oh, of course, this kind of landing was against regulations. Marks didn't care, and while the plane almost tipped over one the first contact with waves, he did wrestle the PBY down on the water, safe and sound.
As they began pulling the survivors up, they've asked "which ship are you from?".
"Indianapolis" was the answer. Marks radioed "picking up survivors from USS Indianapolis". Graham Claytor's heart jumped over in the Cecil J. Doyle when he heard that. McVay, Indianapolis' captain, had recently married to Claytor's cousin. Was he alright? Claytor sped on with searchlights ablaze, even though it was forbidden to light them up in the warzone.
PBY shut its engines off, too as many survivors as possible aboard, even tied some up on the wings. According to Joseph Kiselica, one of the survivors, by the time PBY got there and started rescuing them, most didn't even care, they were that far gone.
The ship of course took many more hours to arrive after the catalina. It was night by the time Cecil J. Doyle got there.
Survivors were emaciated, had ulcers, wounds, and burns all over them, and when they were being pulled up, sometimes the skin of their arms peeled off at their rescuers hands. Many of their saviors couldn't hold their tears at such a sight.
They have been in the sea since July 30, and now when they finally could get out of it, the calendars were showing August 4.
New kinds of battles for Charles Butler McVay III and Mochitsura Hashimoto
Almost immediately, it was suggested to court martial the captain. Admiral Nimitz was against the idea, and proposed sending a letter of reprimand instead. Many families with ties up high in Washington wanted to see heads roll, either McVay's, or those of higher command.
Didn't take long for McVay to get court martialled under the charges of failing to issue the command to abandon ship, and failing to zig-zag.
Though, the case had an interesting twist to it: One of the witnesses would be none other than Mochitsura Hashimoto. This did ruffle some feathers, to say the least.
Hashimoto had just learned that his whole family was killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Now he was asked to take part in a military court during the trial of the captain of the only ship he has sunk. If we look under this light, he had all the reasons to be a bit apprehensive about it. But he was assured that he would be treated as a naval officer and not an enemy.
On 9th of December, Hashimoto was brought to United States. He had to remain in his hotel under guard, but always said that he was treated with respect, and was highly impressed by the way he was treated.
Meanwhile, the American public was not overly thrilled by the idea of Hashimoto’s part in the trial. Nevermind the fact that he was giving his honest testimony, appearing in a court in a formerly hostile nation, one that recently wiped out his whole family. A jap was speaking against one of ours in court, and this was unacceptable! While Hashimoto answered all that was asked of him honestly, but also stressed that zig-zags wouldn't change anything, many in the US were outraged purely on the basis of an enemy taking part of a witness against a US officer.
During the trial, he was asked one thing: was McVay zig-zagging? Hashimoto said no, and added that due to conditions favorable for submarine, zig-zagging would not have changed anything, and he still would have sunk the ship with the 6 torpedo fan attack.
It seems that the only part that mattered was “no”. While the charge for not issuing the order to abandon ship was dropped, McVay was still found negligent for not zig-zagging.
Even though hundreds of USN ships were sunk during the war, McVay was the only captain who got court-martialed for it. He just said, "Whatever the verdict, it is for the good of the service."
Due to his good conduct, he was allowed to remain in Navy but, in truth, his career as an active Navy commander was destroyed. McVay remained in some rear duties until 1949, when he was retired.
From this point on, it was a start transformation from the outgoing, energic and music-humming person to a silent and distant one. He believed that his punishment was a small payment for the loss of his crew and his ship. He told his sons that he wished to have died with his lost crew. He may not have believed that the charges were right, but his guilt over the loss of his men made him believe that he deserves it.
His relation with his father soured, he was stricken with the loss of almost a thousand men, his career ruined, and he received hate mail from relatives of the lost sailors for decades. Phone calls, letters, telegraphs. Things to the effect of "Have a nice Christmas, we'd have a nice one too if you didn't take our son from us!"
The life goes on...
The war was over, the trial was over, the Navy career was over. McVay started to spend more time with his family, and also to enjoy outdoors.
Hashimoto stayed with Japanese Self Defense Forces for a bit, and then worked as a merchant ship captain for a while, but an accident caused him to end that career as well. Eventually, he became a Shinto priest, joining the unbroken line of priests in his family.
McVay attended USS Indianapolis survivors reunions once. His crew said that never once did they held him responsible for anything. He was brought to tears, and would not attend the meetings again. The sixties had not been kind to him. First, In 1961 his wife Louise passed away from cancer. In 1965, Mark, his beloved grandson, then 9 years old, succumbed to a brain tumor.
Shortly after Louise’s death, McVay met an old romance of his, Vivian Smith, who used to be a fashion model and also recently widowed. They have married, but it didn’t take long for either of them to realize this marriage was not the best idea. Vivian realized McVay was not the outgoing person she knew anymore, and McVay was not overly fond of tagging along with her in those fancy parties, nor did he appreciate her dislike towards his love for the outdoors.
On November 6, 1968, he showered and shaved nicely, and dressed sharply. He would be found by the gardener with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head. In one hand was his "lucky" toy sailor figure, in the other his Navy issue revolver, with which he took his own life.
Years later, Hashimoto even met the survivors of Indianapolis in 1990 in Pearl Harbor. Through a translator, he said, "I came here to pray with you for your shipmates whose deaths I caused." An initially apprehensive Giles McCoy was touched by the comment, and answered: "I forgive you".
After the war, some of the survivors came to believe that a third of the casualties were caused by I-58, and the rest were caused none other by the negligences by the Navy.
In 1999 Hashimoto has heard of an effort to exonerate McVay. He wanted to help as much as he can, and penned the following letter to US Senate Armed Services Commitee:
I hear that your legislature is considering resolutions which would clear the name of the late Charles Butler McVay III, captain of the USS Indianapolis which was sunk on July 30, 1945, by torpedoes fired from the submarine which was under my command.
I do not understand why Captain McVay was court-martialed. I do not understand why he was convicted on the charge of hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag because I would have been able to launch a successful torpedo attack against his ship whether it had been zigzagging or not.
I have met may of your brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis. I would like to join them in urging that your national legislature clear their captain's name.
Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.
Hashimoto died on October 25, 2000, about a week after his 91st birthday. And 5 days after his death, then president Bill Clinton pardoned McVay, 55 years after his conviction, and 32 years after his suicide.
The story is almost a real life melodrama, and messed up on almost every part and every level.
Long in short would be like: A single ship goes by itself at great speed to deliver the deadliest weapon ever thus far. On return trip, a Japanese submarine scores its only ever victory on that ship, which was literally sent in its way due to a series of negligence. The bomb, parts of which it delivered a few days ago ends up wiping out the entire family of the submarine's commander, as well as more than 140000 others. The day the ships was sunk, was its commander's birthday, who was leading a happy and successful life thus far. He would be the scapegoat, and his life would take a turn for sadness which would culmiate in his suicide. Japanese submariner whose family was wiped out by the bomb tries to give an honest testimony, and say that zig-zagging would not matter, while a socialite lady and some journalists and politicians were fuming in flames because "a jap was testifying against one of ours!!". They pardon the captain McVay decades later, and mere days after his former rival Hashimoto's death, who couldn't get to see his former rival's honor cleared, even though he tried to help in doing so.
Hundreds of sailors had to endure maddening conditions for more than half a week inside the ocean, in the middle of nowhere. Exposed to hallucianations, thirst, elements, sharks, and all sorts of pain and despair. They got rescued entirely by coincident, because a pilot saw them randomly, because of going to back of his plane due to a random mishap. Another pilot landed on wavy open ocean against regulations, and another captain raced their way with searchlights blazing, again against regulations. Oh, and that captain turns out to be McVay's recently wed wife's cousin.
Had the matter been left to Navy, they would never be found or rescued, and the ship would have been lost with all hands. But no, the whole blame was to put on the shoulders of captain.
So many tragic details, even "long in short" isn't short.
My deepest respect for the people who suffered directly or indirectly from this incident, and my most sincere hopes that stories like these will only ever happen in fiction in the future. Though, knowing humanity thus far...
Sources:
- Interview with USS Indianapolis Survivor Joseph Kiselica.
- USS Indianapolis website.
- Wikipedia pages on USS Indianapolis, Charles Butler McVay III, Mochitsura Hashimoto, Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Mochitsura Hashimoto's testimony, as well as other pages on the case on Naval History and Heritage Command.
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