The Life and Death of the USS Indianapolis

The demise of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) is one of the worst naval tragedies in United States history. In July 1945, with a crew of 1,197, Indy embarked from Guam for Leyte, but would never reach her destination. Just after midnight on 30 July, she was spotted by the Japanese submarine I-58 and torpedoed, sinking in less than 12 minutes. After five days in the water, only 316 men survived. But this is the end of Indy’s story. The story of the USS Indianapolis began years earlier, and includes a long history of distinguished service and a spirit of perseverance, determination, and bravery that her crew demonstrated even to the very end.

The USS Indianapolis was laid down at Camden, New Jersey on 31 March 1930. She was launched in November 1931 and commissioned the following year at Philadelphia Naval Yard. The Portland-class cruiser was built under the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, which placed limitations on naval construction. To comply with the demands of the treaty without reducing firepower, ships like Indianapolis were often constructed without most of their torpedo shielding. Thus, Indy had plenty of guns but less armor. Even so, she was an impressive ship, so much so that she eventually became the flagship of the Fifth Fleet during World War II, and before that welcomed President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself on more than one occasion.

Indianapolis had her first experience hosting President Roosevelt in February 1933—less than six months after her commissioning—when she transported him from Maine to Maryland. There, she entertained members of the Cabinet along with the President. She then served as the flagship for Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson during an inspection tour, and was the flagship of the Scouting Force in November 1933. Indianapolis again welcomed the President during a review of the fleet in 1934. She continued to serve as a flagship of the Scouting Force throughout the 1930s, and was selected to transport President Roosevelt yet again during his trip to South America in 1936, which became known as his “Good Neighbor” cruise. On this voyage, he made several state visits to South American capitals and major cities. Indianapolis eventually returned the President and his party to Charleston, South Carolina.

As war tensions continued to rise, Indianapolis and her crew trained to prepare themselves for the outbreak of hostilities. This eventually occurred in December 1941 while Indy was performing bombing exercises at Johnston Island. She quickly returned home and joined Task Force 11 at Pearl Harbor. From there, Indianapolis began racking up battle stars for her valiant service, beginning with the Bougainville campaign and Salamaua-Lae Raid in February and March 1942. After her service in the Aleutian Islands area, for which she received another battle star, Indianapolis became the flagship of the Fifth Fleet, commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance, an Indianapolis native. Indy’s other battle stars included action in the Marshall and Mariana Islands, including the capture of Tinian, and the preinvasion and support operations for the Iwo Jima campaign. She played a vital role in the assault and occupation of the island before being called away to participate in the bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands. After several days, the Indianapolis was again pulled out for yet another mission, the preinvasion bombardment of Okinawa.

Indy’s crew helped to rain ammunition down on the island for a full week to soften it up for the invasion forces. The day before the planned invasion, 31 March 1945, a Japanese kamikaze plane set its sights on the Indianapolis. The pilot flew towards the ship, keeping the plane aligned so that the crew couldn’t see the attacker against the blinding sun until it was too late. One brave gunner managed to get off a few shots, but the plane dropped its bomb and crashed into the sea. The bomb went straight through the ship’s steel decks and exploded underwater. Incidentally, had the Indianapolis been constructed with the usual torpedo shielding, the armor-piercing bomb would have likely detonated inside the ship, killing many people and possibly the Indianapolis herself. Although Indy suffered a list, her crew managed to dog, or seal, the ship’s hatches to prevent flooding. Nine people were killed in the attack and given a burial at sea. After a brief emergency patch-up at Kerama Retto off Okinawa, Indy limped back to the United States on her own power for repairs.

Indianapolis spent weeks undergoing a complete overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard. While repairs were underway, the cruiser was chosen for a top-secret mission: transporting the components of the uranium bomb to the American base on Tinian. The Indianapolis was chosen simply because she was available at the time, and no one on the ship knew what their mysterious mission was really about, although many of the crew placed bets. Captain McVay was given his orders to travel to Hunter’s Point to load a secret cargo, then refuel at Pearl Harbor and make all speed for Tinian. The cargo consisted of a crate, which was placed in one of the ship’s empty hangars and welded to the floor, and a steel canister that was accompanied by two somewhat suspicious Army artillery officers. The officers were really radiologist James Nolan and engineer Robert Furman, two men who worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project. The canister contained uranium-235 for what would become the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima just a few weeks later.

On 16 July 1945, Indianapolis set off for her mission. The ship set a speed record on the trip from California to Pearl Harbor which reminds unbroken. During the refueling stop in Hawaii, one crewman, Radio Technician Second Class Clarence Donnor, was ordered to Officer Candidate School and by a great stroke of luck, left the ship before it got underway for Tinian. The rest of the crew raced at an average speed of 29 knots to the Marianas, and unloaded the mystery cargo and the two “artillery officers” under the observation of many admirals and high-ranking military officials. None of the crew could fathom what could be so important until over a week later.

From Tinian, Indy travelled to Guam, where Captain McVay hoped to secure some training for his crew. Many of the men were brand new, and in desperate need of training that had been put off by their hasty departure from California. Guam no longer offered the training McVay wanted, but the captain was assured that arrangements would be made for gunnery practice upon their arrival at Leyte. Indianapolis was quite used to travelling without an escort, having done so many times, but the captain asked the island’s commander if there happened to be other ships travelling to Leyte at the same time. The commander said no, and Capt. McVay thought nothing else of it. The next morning, Saturday 28 July, the Indianapolis began her fateful journey to the Philippines. The following day, they passed an unidentified LST, now known to be LST-779, and established a brief contact before moving on to allow the little ship to conduct its own firing exercises. This was the last friendly ship ever to make contact with the USS Indianapolis.

The ship had been zigzagging, a maneuver designed to avoid torpedoes since Guam. Previously assured before departure that there was no submarine activity in the area of Indy’s route, Captain McVay ceased zigzagging on the night of 29 July due to poor visibility. Unbeknownst to the Indianapolis crew, Japanese submarine I-58 under the command of Mochitsura Hashimoto was patrolling nearby, and spotted the cruiser just before midnight. Commander Hashimoto originally thought Indy was a battleship and was perplexed by her lack of an escort, but ordered torpedoes at the ready. He performed a few calculations, ensuring a hit even if the ship began to zigzag, and gave the order to fire six torpedoes. Within a few minutes, just after midnight on 30 July, two of these torpedoes slammed into Indy’s starboard side.

Aboard the cruiser, the explosions rocked the ship. Men were thrown from their bunks, tossed across a room, or jolted fifteen feet in the air by the force. One man who had abandoned the hot and stuffy interior to sleep on deck near the front of the ship, said that the bow practically fell away in an instant. Water poured in through the gaping holes in the starboard side, and Indy began to list. Captain McVay, instantly awakened by the explosions, initially believed they could stop the flooding, just as they had at Okinawa. The crew manned their general quarters stations, but it quickly became clear there was nothing anyone could do. With the ship’s communications out, McVay ordered the abandon ship order passed on by word of mouth. Some men had jumped already, but hundreds more followed suit, most grabbing one of the many lifejackets on deck before plunging into the oil-coated water. The cruiser rolled onto its side, and many crew, including the captain, climbed over the rail and walked down the side of the ship before stepping into the water. The screws, or propellers, rose into the air for just a few moments before sinking beneath the waves and disappearing. The USS Indianapolis sank in less than twelve minutes, taking over 300 crew with her and leaving almost 900 men stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The story of the Indianapolis crew’s five horrific days in the water is well known, although often with popular rumors clouding the true facts. Contrary to the testimony of Captain Quint from the movie Jaws, sharks played a minimal role in the deaths of the crewmen at sea, although they fed on many of the bodies after the men died. More than a hundred men died on the first night in the water from injuries suffered during the torpedo attack. Over the next few days, more survivors succumbed mostly to exposure and saltwater-induced illnesses, although shark attacks did claim the lives of some. Severe dehydration set in, and hallucinations and extreme thirst drove men to drink the ocean water, which exacerbated their condition and killed many. Some men simply gave up hope and quietly drowned. The crew was strung out in groups of varying sizes across miles of ocean, and these groups floated further away as the wind and waves drove them apart over the next few days. Few of them knew how many others survived, if indeed anyone else had survived. Those who were still able to hope continued to tell themselves that surely, tomorrow, help would arrive. Someone had to be looking for them.

Unfortunately for the Indianapolis crew, no one ever received their distress signal, nor was anyone expecting them at Leyte until 31 July. It was not uncommon for combat ships to be rerouted from their original assignments, and since Indianapolis was the flagship for Admiral Spruance, no one thought much about it when the cruiser failed to arrive on schedule. In fact, the Indianapolis was never actually reported missing. Even if it had, it would have been too late for many of the men who died before their reported arrival time, almost two days after their ship was sunk. No one was looking for the crew of the Indianapolis.

Yet help did finally come, after the Indianapolis crew had been in the water for over three days. On 2 August, Navy pilot Chuck Gwinn was traveling over the Pacific on a routine patrol flight. During the flight, he moved to the back of his aircraft to fix an antenna when he looked down at the ocean below and spotted a large oil slick. Then he noticed the objects in the water and realized they were people. Gwinn immediately radioed back to his base that there were “ducks on the pond,” or men in the water, and all available craft were ordered to the rescue. Aircraft and warships raced toward the coordinates Gwinn sent out. The Indianapolis had sunk so quickly that many men who had been asleep had no time to dress, and the men were naked or half-dressed and covered in oil when their rescuers fished them out of the water. It took almost two days to find all of the survivors. Of the 1,197 crewmen, only 320 men were found alive, and four of these died after the rescue. The men were taken to hospitals to recover, finally saved from their nightmarish ordeal.

The story of the USS Indianapolis did not end there. After the war, Captain McVay was court-martialed for the loss of his ship. The trial invited national scandal by bringing Commander Hashimoto to the United States to testify against McVay. Although Hashimoto and others insisted that it would have made no difference, McVay was convicted of hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag. Many families of the crewmen lost at sea blamed McVay for the loss of their loved ones, and the captain received hate mail from these families until he eventually took his own life in November 1968. The surviving crew fought for years to get their captain exonerated. Enlisting the help of Captain William Toti, commander of the submarine USS Indianapolis, they finally succeeded in clearing Captain McVay’s name and expunging the court martial from his record in 2001.

The wreck site of the USS Indianapolis eluded underwater archaeologists for decades. It was finally discovered by the crew of the research vessel Petrel in August 2017, more than 72 years after the ship sank beneath the waves and disappeared. By then, most of the survivors had passed away, but a few of them were able to hear the news their ship had finally been found. Her discovery gave closure to some of the families of the lost at sea crewmen, although a few were concerned what the Navy would do with the remains of the ship and her crewmen. The wreck is now considered a gravesite, the final resting place of around 300 men who never made it off the ship. It also serves as a kind of memorial for the nearly 600 other men who never made it out of the water. The discovery of the shipwreck finishes the story of the final voyage of the USS Indianapolis, a horrific and tragic end to a vessel and crew that served their country with strength, commitment, and valor to the very end.

Click here to browse the National Museum of the Pacific War's collection of oral histories from survivors of the USS Indianapolis and the rescue crews who came to their aid.