Uss Indianapolis

[Freewill]

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...

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.

 

[namvet]

The Headquarters of Commander Marianas on Guam and of the Commander Philippine Sea Frontier on Leyte kept Operations plotting boards on which were plotted the positions of all vessels with which the headquarters were concerned. However, for ships as large as Indianapolis, it was assumed that they would reach their destinations on time, unless reported otherwise. Therefore, their positions were based on predictions, and not on reports. On 31 July, when she should have arrived at Leyte, Indianapolis was removed from the board in the headquarters of Commander Marianas. She was also recorded as having arrived at Leyte by the headquarters of Commander Philippine Sea Frontier. Lieutenant Stuart B. Gibson, the Operations Officer under the Port Director, Tacloban, was the officer responsible for tracking the movements of Indianapolis. The vessel's failure to arrive on schedule was known at once to Lieutenant Gibson, who failed to investigate the matter and made no immediate report of the fact to his superiors. Gibson received a letter of reprimand in connection with the incident. The acting commander and operations officer of the Philippine Sea Frontier also received reprimands, while Gibson's immediate superior received a letter of admonition
In the first official statement, the Navy said that distress calls "were keyed by radio operators and possibly were actually transmitted" but that "no evidence has been developed that any distress message from the ship was received by any ship, aircraft or shore station Declassified records later showed that three stations received the signals; however, none acted upon the call. One commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him and a third thought it was a Japanese trap.

Immediately prior to the attack, the seas had been moderate, the visibility fluctuating but poor in general, and Indianapolis had been steaming at 17 kn (20 mph; 31 km/h). When the ship did not reach Leyte on the 31st, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. This omission was due to a misunderstanding of the Movement report system. or moverep as we called it

wiki

FUBAR and SNAFU all rolled into one

no radar sonar or escort. a sittin' duck

 

[Syriusly]

The Headquarters of Commander Marianas on Guam and of the Commander Philippine Sea Frontier on Leyte kept Operations plotting boards on which were plotted the positions of all vessels with which the headquarters were concerned. However, for ships as large as Indianapolis, it was assumed that they would reach their destinations on time, unless reported otherwise. Therefore, their positions were based on predictions, and not on reports. On 31 July, when she should have arrived at Leyte, Indianapolis was removed from the board in the headquarters of Commander Marianas. She was also recorded as having arrived at Leyte by the headquarters of Commander Philippine Sea Frontier. Lieutenant Stuart B. Gibson, the Operations Officer under the Port Director, Tacloban, was the officer responsible for tracking the movements of Indianapolis. The vessel's failure to arrive on schedule was known at once to Lieutenant Gibson, who failed to investigate the matter and made no immediate report of the fact to his superiors. Gibson received a letter of reprimand in connection with the incident. The acting commander and operations officer of the Philippine Sea Frontier also received reprimands, while Gibson's immediate superior received a letter of admonition
In the first official statement, the Navy said that distress calls "were keyed by radio operators and possibly were actually transmitted" but that "no evidence has been developed that any distress message from the ship was received by any ship, aircraft or shore station Declassified records later showed that three stations received the signals; however, none acted upon the call. One commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him and a third thought it was a Japanese trap.

Immediately prior to the attack, the seas had been moderate, the visibility fluctuating but poor in general, and Indianapolis had been steaming at 17 kn (20 mph; 31 km/h). When the ship did not reach Leyte on the 31st, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. This omission was due to a misunderstanding of the Movement report system. or moverep as we called it

wiki

FUBAR and SNAFU all rolled into one

no radar sonar or escort. a sittin' duck

Thanks for reminding everyone of this tragic story.

 

[whitehall]

Capt. McVey was the last casualty, taking his own life in 1968.

 

[whitehall]

I just saw the recent movie starring Nicholas Cage. It was a heartbreaking account and even more so when Capt. McVey took his own life. An interesting political slant is that nobody blamed Truman even when the ship was under special orders from the President. If it happened under Trump's watch you know the democrat party and the media would have been all over him. It was a different time and the media was not independent of the federal government. It's possible shortly after the war that the media was still under orders to protect the president from criticism or the media was used to protecting Truman. At any rate it was probably pretty accurate that McVey was intentionally targeted as a scapegoat for Truman's and the Navy's incompetence and negligence.