Thursday, July 30, 2015

70 years ago...

70 years ago today..


Those poor bastards in the Indianapolis began their ordeal.

Forgotten by their command, they floated for 4 days in the Pacific after being torpedoed on their way from Guam to the Phillipines...No one was looking for 'em....A LOT of people failed the men of the Indianapolis that day and the next...

No one was even looking for them. Found by accident .

4 days.

880 went into the water..

217 came out.


Kinda like this story:







at

5 comments:

  1. JoeThursday, July 30, 2015 at 7:39:00 AM CDT

    I went through school with Adrian Marks son. He's the guy who found them

    ReplyDelete
  2. IrishThursday, July 30, 2015 at 8:34:00 AM CDT

    Here's some trivia on the Jaws scene:

    http://dangerousminds.net/comments/robert_shaw_was_a_great_actor_but_did_you_know_he_was_also_a_great_writer

    ReplyDelete
  3. Old 1811Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 5:13:00 PM CDT

    They weren't really "forgotten." All Navy ships traveled in groups so they were always accounted for. The Indianapolis was on the most secret mission of the war; her departure, route, and return date were unknown to almost everyone. When she missed her return date by a big margin, people started looking for her.
    I used to have a neighbor, a USN WWII vet, whose brother was killed on the Indianapolis. (I looked it up, and he really was.) My neighbor went to a few of the Indianapolis survivor reunions and was told that his brother, a gunner's mate, was killed instantly in the magazine explosion when the ship was torpedoed. It was probably true, but I'd tell that story to the relative of anyone on that ship, too.
    (By the way, my neighbor's brother had been torpedoed on the Juneau, the ship the Sullivan brothers were killed on. He survived that sinking and was reassigned to the Indianapolis. Fate is strange.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Old NFOThursday, July 30, 2015 at 8:04:00 PM CDT

    Old 1811 is right. BUT, there was a massive coverup and they hung McVay out to dry. He later committed suicide.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Old 1811Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 4:42:00 PM CDT

    That's true. They court-martialed McVay for not zigzagging (or not zigzagging enough; I forget). They even had the Japanese sub captain who torpedoed the ship testify; he said that the ship was silhouetted against the moon and zigzagging wouldn't have made any difference. The Indianapolis, and the guys on her, were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the Navy needed a scapegoat.
    In 1968 McVay sat in his front yard and shot himself in the head with his old Navy-issue Victory model .38.

    ReplyDelete