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Ot; But You Cannot Forget These Men


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It was 97 here in Indy today. Humidity was about 70%. That is freakin Africa hot. 85 at 9am this morning as I stood by waiting to catch a glimps of some 60 men. The men, mostly in their 80's and only 4 or 5 in their late 70's, sat there and had everyone of us locked on them. They are the survivors of the worst Naval disaster ever. 1197 men were blown into the ocean at about 12:15 am on the morning of July 30th, 1945 by 2 torpedos from a Jap sub. That's 60 years ago this week. Only 317 men managed to get out of the ocean on August 2, 1945 late in the day. Sharks and the ocean took the rest. I stood and watched as they brought each man and sat them down in front of their memorial. Not one of those men had to leave or needed medical attention. They sat in the heat and listened as names of the dead were read and the bell rang. I was lucky enough to be in the position to shake the hand or say hello to nearly every man there. And about 15 or 16 autographed my book. Now this may not be Thompson related, but there were Marines on board and they carried a Thompson. If your ever in Indy, you need to look up the memorial to these men. Or make it to the reunion that takes place every 2 years. It is truely the most touching thing you can ever witness.

 

http://www.mikesmachineguns.com/TCA/survivors_1.JPG

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Guest hardrede

QUOTE
"...the Navy knew there were submarines in the area but never told McVay and sent the ship to sea unescorted ... Worse, the Navy failed to notice that the cruiser had never arrived at port, while hundreds died at sea."

 

QUOTE
Incredibly, the Navy brought the commander of the Japanese submarine, Mochitura Hashimoto, to testify at the court-martial which was held at the Washington Navy Yard. Hashimoto implied in pretrial statements that zigzagging would not have saved the Indianapolis but was not pressed on this point during the trial itself.

 

QUOTE
McVay was found guilty on the charge of failing to zigzag. The court sentenced him to lose 100 numbers in his temporary rank of Captain and 100 numbers in his permanent rank of Commander, thus ruining his Navy career. In 1946, at the behest of Admiral Nimitz who had become Chief of Naval Operations, Secretary Forrestal remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to duty. McVay served out his time in the New Orleans Naval District and retired in 1949 with the rank of Rear Admiral. He took his own life in 1968.

 

In October of 2000, following years of effort by the survivors and their supporters, legislation was passed in Washington and signed by President Clinton expressing the sense of Congress, among other things, that Captain McVay's record should now reflect that he is exonerated for the loss of the Indianapolis and for the death of her crew who were lost.

 

As sickening as this whole story is, I have finally uncovered something honourable that William Jefferson Clinton did during his tenure as President!!

 

 

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He lost 100 numbers in his temporary rank of Captain and 100 numbers in his permanent rank of Commander, thus ruining his Navy career. In 1946, at the behest of Admiral Nimitz who had become Chief of Naval Operations, Secretary Forrestal remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to duty. McVay served out his time in the New Orleans Naval District and retired in 1949 with the rank of Rear Admiral.

 

Well something was going on here for him to go from Commander, back to Captain and then to Rear Admiral int he space of less than 4 years, absolutely unheard of, even in war time. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/blink.gif

 

I think part of the story was they under radio silence after dropping off the bomb, though I know that sounds a bit stupid after dropping it off but hey strange things happen. This is the same navy brass that allowed Pearl Harbour to happen so its not that much of a shock.

 

But these men are something else, they make us proud now as they did then-zig zag or not.

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Proud brave and real men, that just about says it all.

 

A survivor's story and email contacts for some of the survivors with email. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/woody.htm

 

Some revealing details about the incompetence of the 'U.S. Navy brass'. [Check, especially, the section labeled 'controversial facts'.]http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/ohmy.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/sad.gif

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/story.htm

 

Cheers, Walter

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First let me start by saying that I personally believe the entire event was a tragedy of the greatest magnitude. No man should have had to endure what these men endured and no man lost at sea should be left to be eaten by sharks when technology exists whereby he may be saved. Drowning is one of my personal greatest fears. I also agree with Admiral Hulsey in that Captain Mc Vay should NEVER had been coutmartialed for the loss of his ship, but to blame this all on politics as usual in Washington is silly. This is a prime example of sensationalistic journalism at its worst. Ever since the captain in 'Jaws' told the story of the Indianapolis everyone has been snowballing it into a scary shadow government conspiracy on par with the moon landings. Yes it's sad, yes it's tragic but there are sound reasons for the chain of events happening the way they did. Do these reasons hold up to scrutiny 50+ years later? No they do not because our hindsight is 20-20 and all the facts are now in. But remember: there was a war on and we did things differently then.

 

I am quoting the second article Walter listed.

 

Shocked reaction

 

A public announcement of the loss of the Indianapolis was delayed for almost two weeks until August 15, thus insuring that it would be overshadowed in the news on the day when the Japanese surrender was announced by President Truman.

 

How did they know Japan would surrender? The plan was if the two A-bombs (the ONLY two we had at the time) didn't work, either mechanicaly or strategically, the war would continue as planed and eventually we would invade mainland Japan. Of course this plan was to be supplemented and changed as new atomic weapons became available. News of this sort was seldom released with the speed of CNN. Hell, pictures of dead Americans were not ALLOWED to be published until we were well into the war.

 

Evidence Withheld

 

U.S. intelligence using a top secret operation labeled ULTRA had broken the Japanese code and was aware that two Japanese submarines, including the I-58, were operating in the path of the Indianapolis.

This information was classified and not made available to either the court-martial board or to Captain McVay's defense counsel.

 

 

This evidence was not 'withheld', no one knew about ULTRA to either ask for or withhold it. ULTRA was the breaking of the original German enigma type cipher coding used by the Germans. Bletchley Park England is where most of this work took place. ULTRA was NEVER used at tactical level to save ship. Keeping the fact that we had broken their code was too important to be tipped by using it to save one ship. Coventry England, a beautiful example of medieval and baroque architecture, was bombed off the map by the Germans. Churchill knew they were coming, where they were going and how many of them there were. Had he thrown up a fighter screen to stop the raid, the Germans would have known for sure that their code had been broken and used something different that was harder, or impossible, to break. It took years to break to original code (starting before the war) and time was one thing we did not have a bunch of in 1943. How does this relate to Japan and the Indianapolis? The Germans were great salesmen and sold an industrial form of Enigma to the Japanese so we were able to break their code using the English technology.

 

"Leading him to believe his route was safe.”

 

There was a war on, no route was safe. This is an example of journalists bending facts for dramatic effect.

 

Controversial Facts

 

Captain McVay's request for a destroyer escort was denied despite the fact that no capital ship lacking anti-submarine detection equipment, such as the Indianapolis, had made this transit across the Philippine Sea without an escort during the entire war.

 

Capital ships where capable of moving much faster than a submerged sub and made transit runs alone all of the time. Moving at 17 knots is pretty fast even for decent sized sail boat let alone a heavy cruiser, only two of the six torpedoes fired hit the ship.The RMS Queen Mary crossed the ocean alone many times during the war and did it while loaded with thousands of troops. One attempt to use destroyer’s escorts almost wound up sinking her. She zigged the destroyer zagged, they collided. She left the area without stopping, leaving the sinking destroyer behind and sending no radio signal. I will not even touch the "capital ship lacking anti-submarine detection equipment" statement.

 

Captain McVay was not told that shortly before his departure from Guam a Japanese submarine within range of his path had sunk a destroyer escort, the USS Underhill.

 

Shortly after the Indianapolis was sunk, naval intelligence decoded a message from the I-58 to its headquarters in Japan that it had sunk an American battleship along the route of the Indianapolis. The message was ignored.

 

See the reference to ULTRA above. It was not ignored. This information was to highly classified to have made it down to someone who would have used it for rescue work.

 

Confusion on the part of Navy communications and a faulty directive caused the failure of the Indianapolis to arrive on schedule to go unnoticed, leaving as many as 900 men at the mercy of a shark-infested sea. (The faulty directive - which required only reporting the arrival of non-combatant ships - was corrected days after the Indianapolis survivors were discovered to require reporting the arrival of combatant ships as well.)

 

The SOP not to report overdue ship was long standing. Sometimes ships just disappear in a war (350 of them according to this article) and you can not stop and redirect forces into search and rescue and fight a war at the same time. Just taking 5 days to search for each ship missing would have been 4.7 years (times how many ships on CSAR duty per event?) added into the war. With just ten ships involved in each search would have needed an and extra 3,500 ships on duty for the entire war just looking for lost ships. Now how many aricraft woul have been involved? 5-10,000? We jus did not have the resources for 'perfect world' operations durring the war.

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The best telling of this story was done by Captain Quint:

 

Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss): You were on the Indianapolis?

 

Brody (Roy Scheider): What happened?

 

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian Delady, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. `Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark would go for nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.

 

Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, bosom's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks ttook the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

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The links I provided are to a site run by survivors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and their supporters, not the media. They are eyewitnesses to history!! They lived it!!! http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

 

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/about.htm

 

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/intro.htm

 

Also, the U.S.Navy had been covering its collective ass, and that is one big ugly guilty ass (in this particular case), for 50 years. That is, until an eleven year old boy, Hunter Scott, saw 'Jaws' and discovered that the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis was true and that the U.S. Navy still blamed Admiral McVey. He sought to get to the truth and McVey was publicly exonerated, but his Navy record is still blemished. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/sad.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

 

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/resolution.htm

 

Here is a link to more related links.

 

http://www.ussindianapolis.org/links.htm

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I was working in a Kinko's when I was going to college, and I ran the color copier for some time. One day, a guy came in with a huge stack of copies of photos to be made. I started shaking when I saw they were crew photos from the USS Indianapolis! I asked if he'd been on the ship when it was sunk, and he was surprised that a (at the time) 20-something would know of such a thing. Yes, he went into the water in 45 and lost buddies to the sharks. He was in there, on vacation, making copies of photos to give to a grandchild doing a school report.

After I was done with all the copies, I totaled them up on a calculator and figured they were over $100 (there was LOT of stuff there). The guy pulled out his wallet, and I went around the counter, handed him the bag, shook his hand and said his money was no good here. It was the least I could do. He just stood there, tears in his eyes, and shook my hand, saying, "God bless you, son." After he left, I realized my boss had been watching the whole thing. He was confused and I think a little ticked off with me. I walked over to him, looked him dead in the eye and said that he could take it out of my pay or fire me, but I knew I'd done the right thing. He never said a word. I've often wondered if my boss let it go because it was the right thing to do, or if it were that since I was getting commissioned as an Army O-1 the following month, there wasn't much he could do to me…

 

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QUOTE (Walter63a @ Jul 25 2005, 07:52 PM)
They are eyewitnesses to history!! They lived it!!! 

As one who holds WWII veterans in the highest esteem I must also say as a historian, they are not the best sources for reliable fact concerning events of 60 years ago.

 

My father saw a huge display of uniforms I had put up for a charity event at a local museum. In the display was a first model 1941 field jacket with a 6th Air Corps patch. My dad said while he had been in thre 6th AC he had never seen a jacket like that. I explained that everyone in the US army was issued such a jacket. He still said no, they were not, because he would remember it and he had never had one like that. I told him yes, yes he had and this was not only one like it, it was THE one he had been issued.

NO, he had never worn any thing like that. I finaly had to show him picture of him wearing that same jacket before he would believe it.

 

I trust the story the vets are telling, I know the facts of the event better than you would belive but read those articles analyticaly, without passion. The thing I refute are things someone has added into the story to slant it. An yes, I am sure no veteran added these little titilating facts into the story. Someone, a journalist, journalized it into a coherent story. This is the person I am calling out as a fact bender.`

 

No sailor in 1945 knew anything about ULTRA.

No sailor knew anything about radio communications concerning Jap subs in 1945.

No sailor knew anything about destroyer escorts being denied or even asked for in 1945.

 

These are all things added in to their horror story to make it more outrageous and horrific.

It does not need the add ons but to make the US Navy an indifferent and quasai evil part of the conspiracy aginst these brave men (while someone thinks makes it a better story) is silly and does no justice to these men or the service they gave such great devotion to. I am sure the supporters and family members of the vets are writing as dispassionatly as possible and would never find the Navys reaction to the sinking of the USS Indainapolis as one of cold indifference.

Someone has to be responsible for what happened. I can not just be the fact that thousands of men were left behind from one end of that war to the other and it was not ones fault but the wars (and the fact that war sucks ass and always will).

Was the Navy right to courtmartial the captain? HELL NO! It is just as wrong as blaming the NAVY based on evidence NO ONE SINGLE PERSON COULD HAVE POSSED in 1945?

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Great post PhilOhio! http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/smile.gif

 

Your sentiments and beliefs mirror mine pretty closely when it comes to corruption in and out of government. Your first-hand experience speaks for itself. Thanks. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

 

 

Pathfinder,

 

as Phil stated, these facts have become public knowledge in the past 60 years. It has nothing to do with what some sailor knew or when he knew it. It all comes down to corruption and dishonesty in high places, "superiors" blaming subordinates for their mistakes, incompetence, negligence, and sometimes pure malice. It is good to hear the truth from some insiders like Phil! http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

 

Regards, Walter

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QUOTE (PhilOhio @ Jul 26 2005, 09:38 AM)
evidence which has emerged since the tragedy occurred.

My point exactly. Facts known after the event had occurred, hindsight, second guessing.

 

During the fact no one knew all of the factors that were coalescing. No one knew about all the intelligence that was available. No one knew the SOP could have such effect. No one knew that all of these factors and their built in tolerances would collect together in single direction to give a maximum worst case scenario. No one person had all of this information to say “ Hey, don’t let that ship move without an escort. A Jap sub will be in perfect firing position to sink it allowing most of the crew to be eaten by sharks that we know are gathering at the approximate coordinates where the course of the ship and the track of the sub will cross.” I know it would have been nice to have this happen but who is to say we would not have had a bigger tragedy on our hands when the sub sank a heavy cruiser and both it’s escorts?

 

If this was avoidable, tell me how. Base your answer only on the info available to the area commander at the time. That means no ULTRA, and no information as to the area the sub will be operating in after it had sunk the destroyer.

 

I have prior militray service and did counter drug work with the Air Force in the 80's.

I currently work for Department of Homeland Security running the control center of a class X (the largest class) airport in the midwest

I also attend the University of Michigan where I am working towards my PhD in 20th century Euopean history.

I have studied WWII history for 30+ years and I am occational called upon to lecture on specific subjets and events from the period.

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I don't know boo from siccum but telling the indy there were subs inthe area or by adding escorts to the Indy would never have compromised the code breakers-never. The japs already knew where thier subs were so telling Indy where they might be didn't compromise anything.This is not even close to the decision that had to be made at Coventry. Even if the sub had nailed all three ships (and I doubt that ever happened during the entire war) there should have been a rescue as there was probably no reason for radio silence(if invoked) after dropping off the bomb and therefore a Mayday should have been sent, received and reacted upon. These are some of the breakdowns that are inexcusable to me.
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QUOTE (OldFalGuy @ Jul 26 2005, 12:47 PM)
The japs already knew where thier subs were so telling Indy where they might be didn't compromise anything.

Read this quote out loud.

 

Don't you think that the Japs may have wondered how the Americans knew to avoid (or intercept) the Japaneese subs operating in the area? Also, don't you think that the radio operator on the Indianapolis had also heard the distress call from the destroyer that was sunk and had decoded that message? Also this is EXACTLY like Coventry: if we were willing to let a whole city be destroyed to hide the fact that we had broken their code do you think we would balk at letting a ship get sunk?

 

You have to loose a few now and again so the mark does not see your best stuff until you are ready to show it to him. (rules of 9 ball for cash)

 

If we had come out with surgical strikes aginst every German sub we had intell on from ULTRA or blocked every move the Japs made before they made it (or told every US ship to avoided thier subs just because we knew where they were), they would have known that we had broken thier code, and changed it to somthing different. That war was not won until the bombs worked so to have their subs sudden become ineffective would have told them that somthing was up. They were not supid people, they would have figured it out. If not , when should we have started telling our ships how not to get sunk? Dec 8 1941?

 

The people with acess to ULTRA (The Preseident, the Prime Minister, Marshall, Eisenhower. )had sweet fuck all to do with ship deployments and would never had passed it down to the tactical level: it was used for stategic planning only. The only time it was used aginst a single target was when we killed Yammamoto. That, dear folks, was also a strategic decision, not a tatical one.

 

No one here seems to know how important that secret was. It was so important that it was kept secret until 25+ years after the war had ended. We still had people around the world using enigma type ciphers and we had a whole oraganization in place to break it.

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Pathfinder,

 

You sorta miss my point. It would not have given away the ballgame (the broken code) for the Indy to have an escort home. I am not discribing a hunting part for subs that might have been still inthe area, merely an escort, a normal activity with large/capitol ships. Undoubtly they could have rerouted or delayed sending the indy into a known sub infested area-this would have told the Japs absolutely nada- while att he same time sending the Indy to the same area completely naked didn't prove a thing either-

 

You believe that the Indy was purposefully sacrificed so the Japs would report- Codes are safe we just nailed a capitol ship unescorted??????????

 

What if the same Jap sub had a malfunction and sank would this in turn tell the Japs the code had been broken?

 

Right, neither event would have woken them up- Heck they could have changed codes the day before and flushed the old book and dials and dear old unescorted Indy would have still died for nothing when it didn't have to.

 

Mark

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QUOTE
Ltcboy Posted: Jul 26 2005, 05:59 PM
Wasn't Quint from "Jaws" on the Indianapolis?

 

Leave it to Spielberg to fuck up the truth again. Not 1100 men went in the water, 1197 men. Not 316 came out, 317. Sharks and exposure to the weather took the rest. very few were said to have died in the attack by the sub.

After talking to a few of the guys, I can see why it took them so long to come out about it and start talking. How would you feel, 400 miles away from land, nothing to hang onto and a shark takes the buddy next to you, and the one on the other side of you? Then he blistering sun and no water to drink. As one guy said after seeing a picture for the first time taken by the first boat there, "I had no idea I was that close to death. Look how bad some of us were." He said that with tears in his eyes.

And another very scary coincident, 317 is the area code for Indianapolis. How about that for weird.

 

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Mark, injustice is everywhere and in no place is it more obvious then when brave men who have done their duty are killed any way. Pat Tillman springs to mind. As Americans we try to seek justice for such wrongs. What we need to learn (again) is that sometimes brave men are killed in the cause of freedom, no matter how undeserving their death may seem.

Sometimes there is no single factor, no single person to blame for the loss. Sometimes it just happens. To not find justice or punish someone definite for this loss goes against everything we have been taught as Americans. We will push here, and try there to find the key to the mystery. We stop, think, and push and pull again to unravel the knot so we can say "Ha ha! Here is the reason they were killed and here in the culprit!" The cavalry always comes and the Indians are beaten . The girl is always saved and the man who tied her to the railroad tracks is punished.

Our need for a bad guy in every instance of injustice will not always be satisfied: sometimes it is no ones fault. A missed message. An unheeded warning. A slight change in course. Deciding to ride your motorcycle instead of driving your car on the day the drunk blows off the red light. Different hands, mine, yours, theirs, all moving without knowing, without thought, and without malice. It is just bad luck.

 

So............

 

It would not have given away the ballgame (the broken code) for the Indy to have an escort home. I am not describing a hunting part for subs that might have been still in the area, merely an escort, a normal activity with large/capitol ships. Undoubtedly they could have rerouted or delayed sending the Indy into a known sub infested area-this would have told the Japs absolutely nada- while at the same time sending the Indy to the same area completely naked didn't prove a thing either-

 

I don’t think that two subs in the Philippines sea constitutes an ‘infestation’. Oddly enough sending ship through waters we knew had subs in them was a fairly common part of that war. What I am saying is that the article sites all of this evidence of how the Navy fucked up. What it does not make clear, and is therefor missleading, is that some of this inforamation they are using to recriminate the comander who sent the Indy forth, without escort, was not available at the time, to anyone in the area. It is jsut not true to say he had ULTRA information available. Also, how come no one is saying anything about a cover up regarding the destroyer that the same sub had just sank in the same area? Ships get sunk in wars.

 

You believe that the Indy was purposefully sacrificed so the Japs would report- Codes are safe we just nailed a capitol ship unescorted??????????

 

Sacrifice implies purposefully doing something anyway when you know the consequences will be detrimental to ones self but will benefit others. Contrary to what the article says, they didn’t know that they would be sacrificing the Indy. The article states that they didn't give them the escort WHILE they had ULTRA intell available to them (showing gross negligence on the part of the Navy).The area commander for the Navy, did NOT have that intelligence available to him. The Navy had it, but not everyone in the Navy had it. It is a complete and utter load of bullocks to imply that ULTRA was used (or was available) at that level in the command structure. Even full Admirals were nor cleared for ULTRA. It was used as an advantage between nations, not as tactical lead pipe between combatants.

 

What if the same Jap sub had a malfunction and sank would this in turn tell the Japs the code had been broken?

 

No, but where would we stop if we guided one ship around Jap subs or gave them all sub proof escort screens to make sure no one got sunk? First off, as I have stated before, we did not have the war ships available for such lavish security blankets around every ship. Second, they didn't know they would be sending the Indy into 'sub infested ‘ waters. What I have said is it would have been a slippery slope to start using something as important to the war effort as ULTRA to protect one ship. I asume then every ship would have received such protection? THEN the Japs would have figured out that we had broken their code. And then thousands of man years of labor would have been lost and the war would have been protracted, costing even more lives that just the brave crew of the Indy

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Pathfinder,

 

No person here, certainly not I, doubts your sincerity or patriotism. However, I think you are making too much of the fact that we broke the Japanese code(s). By the time of this disaster the A-bombs were less than a month from being dropped. Nothing would change that. I think that a destroyer escort could not possibly have hurt the war effort, and it may, indeed, have saved those 1,197 warriors lives, from suffering and death. We will never know if it would have made the difference, because someone, or a group of someones, decided not to tell McVey which route home would be safest and did not think it necessary for a destroyer escort. I wonder, if some of the big wigs who had that knowledge and power had been aboard the U.S.S.Indianapolis, would the decisions made have been the same? I doubt it. In that case, the safest route would have been determined, plotted and followed home, with a destroyer escort. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/blink.gif Of course, that is my opinion, but think about it. It was a fuck-up (not Commander McVey's), at best, and possibly malice which resulted in those brave men's sufferings and deaths. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/ph34r.gif Perhaps we will never know the whole truth in our lifetimes. Hopefully, those who made the decisions, above Commander McVey in the chain of command, have (had) consciences. Hopefully there was no malice; but if there was, I hope their consciences ate at them the for rest of their days!!! http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/mad.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/cool.gif

 

Regards, Walter

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Pathfinder,

 

I hear what your saying about justice and tactical level commanders might well not had Ultra level intelligence- I agree. Your right 2 subs is not an infestation, I was not refferring back and forth tot he article when I wrote the post and that article might not have know exactly what was what either.

 

I just don't think the code aspect is the best excuse for these guys getting hammered.

Ever wonder why the Indy just didn't take the same egress route how as thier inbound route- did they have an escort inbound- you bet they did or should have. Why no Mayday? Was that mentioned either? No flyby with a PBY??

 

Mark

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QUOTE
I just don't think the code aspect is the best excuse for these guys getting hammered.

No it is not the best, but it is one that is ignored in every account of the event that asks 'Why did this happen'. I am sure there are others. And no, these guys should not have been 'hammered' like this for ANY reason, code or no code.

 

Well there are things that the Navy could (read as should http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/wink.gif )have done. Any time a ship that large moves you would think they would want it protected.

This is where the government as usual crap comes in: as soon as it was done with the important mission they stoped caring and all the shody SOPs were back in place. You can bet your bottom dollar that was well protected on the way out!

 

I had an uncle that flew pathfinder missions off Siapan with B-29s. A tight three ship formation flew in, at night, at low altitude and bombed by radar with incendiaries. My uncles plane had the radar the other two ships where there for his protection and to drop their bombs on command only. It was important that his plane (Lucky 'Leven) be protected on the bomb run because out there in the night were 100's of individual B-29's headed to the target to bomb on his aiming stake of fire. Each plane navigated alone to the target, they did not use formation attacks for the low level, night fire raids

As soon as he droped his bombs SOP dictated that the three ship formation break up and individualy make thier way back to Siapan. Why? these were highly skilled pilots and navigators who had just flown over 8 hours in formation and most of that at night. The reason was he only needed that fomation for protection up until the point where he finished his important job, then f**k em', he's on his own. SOP said that B-29s flying at night should not attempt formation flying, but they had just flown IN that way!!

Stupid and crazy. If I can find it I will scan a post a letter here he wrote about one of his wing man being shot down by night fighters immediatle after the formation broke up on raid to strike the aircraft plant at Tachikawa (a suburb of Tokyo). He crashed into Tokyo harbor. My uncle over flew the plane on the way out of the area and saw the crew standing on the wing of the plane. They were all beheaded in the main square in Tokyo the next morning according to the Tokyo newspapers. Had they held formation leaving the target and clearing the coast, these men would probably have survived the war (note the date of the mission).

As a small memorial to these men here is the MIA report.

 

Mission # 57 to Japan, April 3/4,1945

44-69751 - 500th BG - Z31 - ,MACR 13765 -Crew lost/MIA.

Pilot: AC Maj. Robert Sewell, Jr. (KIA)

Copilot: 2/Lt. Merle S. Eaton (KIA)

Bombardier: 2/LT. Stephen Louis (KIA)

NAVIGATOR 2/LT. IRWIN GENDELMAN (KIA)

FLT. ENG. 2/LT. ISAAC SAMAREL (KIA)

RADIO SGT. MAURICE R. KOMOCAR (KIA)

RING GUN. SGT. AUSBON JUDD (KIA)

R. GUN. S/SGT. THOMAS E. McEVOY (CFC) (KIA)

L. GUN. SGT. WILLIAM C. POOLE (KIA)

RADAR S/SGT. KURT PORJESZ (KIA)

TAIL GUN. SGT. HARRY L. MEARS, JR. (KIA)

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Yep, your right-gov't stupid is on a whole other level-

 

Gotta wonder why tha non formation flying on the return flight RULE was in place at all-

 

One can sometimes surmise that rules follow accidents be it in the air or on the ground- This is a bit extreme to me-If some guy, grunt or pilot, makes a gross error or does something stupid folks should learn from it but to place a rule in place to prevent stupidity is on par with zero-tolerance laws- they are all in place without any thinking about the unintended conaequences they bring to the table.

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QUOTE (PhilOhio @ Jul 29 2005, 12:15 AM)
This was not a flimsy wooden PT boat, skippered by some spoiled rich college kid from the East, running around in circles in the dark and bumping into Japanese ships because junior had no idea where he was or what he was doing. That was a different example of incompetence, which was also whitewashed, but for a different purpose.

http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/laugh.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/laugh.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/laugh.gif http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/laugh.gif LMMFAO

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