Freewill
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- Oct 26, 2011
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they certainly were not looking for them and they didn't warn them of the submarines in the path of the ship, read the linked article.Don't know the ship. Background anybody?
Pretty well known. It transported the atom bomb used on Japan. On the return trip it failed to zig zag and was sunk by the Japanese. A lot of the crew survived only to die in the water due to exposure and sharks. Seems like the Navy forgot about the ship until a plane flying over head happened to see the remains.
USS Indianapolis CA-35
They didn't forget about it... it was under radio silence, and it wasn't the Captain's fault, he asked for cruiser escorts and was turned down.
There wasn't a search for the ship even when it did not arrive at its destination, yeah I think that is forgetting.
From the linked article: The ship's captain, the late Charles Butler McVay III, survived and was court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag" despite overwhelming evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm's way, despite testimony from the Japanese submarine commander that zigzagging would have made no difference, and despite that fact that, although over 350 navy ships were lost in combat in WWII, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed. Materials declassified years later add to the evidence that McVay was a scapegoat for the mistakes of others.
McVay's court martial was eventually overturned. And no, it was under radio silence, and they didn't just "forget it" while the men were in the water dying...