In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors

by Doug Stanton

  “What It Meant for America,” July 26, 1995 (byline: Haynes Johnson), p. H6.

  UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS

  Hashimoto, Mochitsura, former captain of I-58. Letter to the Honorable John W. Warner, Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee. Dated: November 24, 1999 (courtesy of Mike Monroney).

  Marks, Adrian. Selected Speeches of R. Adrian Marks (courtesy of Robert W. Marks).

  Paroubek, Richard A. Letter to Commander Bill Toti, February 24, 1999.

  Smith, Keith. “An Archivist’s Overview of the Controversy Surrounding the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Court Martial of Capt. Charles B. McVay III.” Distribution limited to those attempting to get relief for Captain McVay.

  Sultan, Gene. “Captain Charles Butler McVay, III, 7/30/74” (Collection, Indiana Historical Society).

  Smith, Bob, U.S. Senator. Letter and summary concerning introduction of Senate Joint Resolution 26, October 13, 1999.

  Twible, Harlan. The Life and Times of an Immigrant Son (by permission of Harlan Twible).

  ———. Public Speeches, 1995—1999 (by permission of Harlan Twible).

  Wassell, John H. “Mission Accomplished … But at a Price.”

  MISCELLANEOUS

  von Doenhoff, Richard A. “ULTRA and the Sinking of USS Indianapolis.” Eleventh Naval History Symposium, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, October 1993.

  The Bluejackets’ Manual, Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute Press, 1943.

  “Judgement at the Smithsonian.” New York: Marlow & Company, 1995.

  “The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Subsequent Court Martial of Rear Adm. Charles B. McVay III, USN.” Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session, September 14, 1999.

  “Statement of Paul J. Murphy Chairman, USS Indianapolis Survivors’ Organization, before the Senate Armed Services Committee in support of Senate Joint Resolution 26.” September 14, 1999.

  “USS Indianapolis (CA 35): Second Watch, Information Package.” 1999 Reunion, July 10-August 1.

  “USS Indianapolis (CA 35): Still at Sea.” Third edition, prepared for the Indianapolis Reunion, July 1999.

  “Press, Radio and Television Activities During First USS Indianapolis Survivors’ Memorial Reunion, July 30—31, 1960, Indianapolis, Indiana.” Naval Reserve Public Relations Company 9-1, U.S. Naval Reserve Training Center, Indianapolis, Indiana.

  Barron, Matthew C. Correspondence with the author.

  Blanchard, Walter. Correspondence with the author.

  Grocott, “Pinky.” Correspondence with the author.

  Gwinn, Norma. Correspondence with the author.

  Harp, Albert, and Ruby Harp. Correspondence with the author.

  Havins, Al. Personal interview videotaped by Ruby Tilzel and Linda Day, 1996 (by permission of Billie Havins).

  Van Daalen, Bill. Videotaped interviews with Adrian Marks, Bob Brundige, Charles McKissick, Al Havins, and Harlan Twible. 1990 (by permission of Bill Van Daalen).

  Van Daalen, Bill. “Indianapolis: The Ship of Doom.” Video documentary, 1992.

  “Sea Tales: Missing! The Indianapolis.” A & E Home Video documentary, Cat. No. AAE-17068. Copyright 1997.

  “USS Indianapolis: Tragedy at Sea.” Video documentary. Pangolin Pictures.

  NARA Stock Footage #000960. CR#: 428 NPC 12522.

  “USS Indianapolis Survivors Reunion, Indianapolis, Indiana.” Audiotape transcript, 1960.

  PRIMARY SOURCES

  The Court of Inquiry and Court Martial documents were obtained from the Department of the Navy, Office of the Judge Advocate General, Washington Navy Yard. Although the Court of Inquiry itself numbered 131 pages, attached to it were 723 additional pages of exhibit documents. These included the rescue reports for the USS Doyle, Helm, Register, Ringness, and Ralph Talbot; ship reports submitted from the rescue effort; air support logs; casualty lists and reports; press memorandums; over 120 dispatches; and Court of Inquiry memorandums. Navy Inspector General investigation reports were also included among the Inquiry documents, as well as memorandums pertaining to the court martial of Captain Charles B. McVay, III.

  Additional documents were obtained from various sources, including Naval Academy Archives and personal collections:

  Plan of the Day for Sunday, July 15, 1945 and Monday, July 16, 1945. Signed: J. A. Flynn, Commander, U.S.N., Executive Officer (USS Indianapolis, CA 35).

  Log Books, USS Indianapolis, CA 35, February 1 to June 30, 1945.

  War Diary of the USS Indianapolis, May-August 1945. From Commanding Officer, Chas. B. McVay III to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. Dated June 1, 1945.

  War Diary of the USS Pensacola, July 1945. From Commanding Officer, W. J. Suits to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. Dated August 25, 1945.

  War Diary of the USS Tennessee, July 1945. From Commanding Officer, John B. Hefferman to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. Dated August 3, 1945.

  War Diary of Commander Cruiser Division Four, from July 1, 1945 to July 31, 1945. Original to CominCh. Copy to CINCPAC Pearl.

  War Diary of Battleship Division Three, from July 1, 1945 to July 31, 1945. From Commander Battleship Three, L. D. McCormick to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. Dated August 4, 1945.

  General Plans, CA 35. Bu. C&R #166008-166012. Dated December 1, 1944. (Courtesy of Mike Kuryla.)

  Weekly Reports of the Joint Army-Navy Personnel Shipping Committee, April 1945-August 1945.

  USS Bassett (APD 73) Deck Log—Remarks Sheet. August 4, 1945.

  USS Ringness (APD 100) Deck Log—Remarks Sheet. August 1-5, 1945.

  USS Ralph Talbot (DD 390) Deck Log. August 3, 1945.

  USS Register (APD 92) Deck Log—Additional Remarks. August 3—7, 1945.

  USS Helm (DD 388) Deck Log—Remarks. August 5, 1945.

  USS Cecil J. Doyle (DE 368) Deck Log—Remarks. August 5-7, 1945.

  Navy and Marine Corps Awards Manual. Department of the Navy. Navpers 15, 790 (Rev. 1953).

  Conference Report to H. R. 4205, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2001.

  Author’s Note

  I first became interested in this story in the summer of 1999, when a small local newspaper item caught my eye. It described a reunion being held for a group of survivors from a ship called the USS Indianapolis. I had heard of the Indy before; immortalized by Captain Quint in Jaws, the ship occupied a mythical status in American popular history, a kind of larger-than-life existence. But, I realized, I knew little about the real-life incident.

  Something clicked. A few weeks later, I was on a plane to Indianapolis, on my way to the survivors’ reunion. My plan was to write a short, 5,000-word article. When it was over, I’d be on to the next assignment.

  It’s no secret that we celebrate youth in the United States; the average kid has probably never spent any meaningful time around someone older than fifty. For the most part, I had spent my time working for magazines that celebrate this exile of the aged.

  But then I met the survivors, about eighty-five of them, as we gathered for three days at the Indianapolis Westin. And I was amazed by their generosity, their courage, their dignity. The reunion marked the beginning of a series of correspondences, interviews, and visits that continue today. It also marked the beginning of my absolute commitment to these men and to telling their story.

  Over time, I would become embarrassed by what I had thought of as the hard times in my life. I had spent a portion of it searching out challenges and risk, working aboard a commercial fishing boat and later traveling to far-flung places, once almost drowning on a trip during which I rounded Cape Horn. In retrospect, those adventures were my way of looking for what William James called the moral equivalent of war. But these survivors were the real thing. In writing their story, I knew I would be writing a profile in courage and sacrifice.

  The story of the USS Indianapolis took over my life. I wrote a 35,000-word magazine piece, which was shortened t
o 12,000 words and published in the March 2000 issue of Men’s Journal. It generated more reader mail than any other article the magazine had previously published.

  The heart of the story, as I saw it, was the human, elemental drama of men who survived the worst disaster at sea in U.S. naval history. For almost five days, they struggled against unbelievably harsh conditions, fighting off sharks, hypothermia, physical and mental exhaustion, and finally, hallucinatory dementia. And yet more than 300 of them managed to survive.

  The question I wanted to answer was, How?

  In creating this book, I decided to cast the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis not as a history of war but as a portrait of men battling the sea. “Don’t make me a hero,” Giles McCoy told me as I sat in his living room in Florida. Even though his wife was stricken with lung cancer, and Gil (as he’s known) was battling life-threatening health problems, he and Betty insisted that I stay with them in a spare bedroom for nearly a week. The interview sessions were lengthy as we sat on his porch poring over photos and memories. Gil was never far from a glass of ice water; fifty-five years after the sinking, he still worried about going thirsty.

  Time was of the essence. While I was visiting Gil, we learned that three more survivors had just died, all in the same month. Gil, a husband of fifty-three years and father of three, wanted to tell his full story before it was too late.

  Other survivors echoed this sentiment. Which is one of the reasons why in my book readers will find information at odds with that of previous accountings. The book also draws on new information, including U.S. government documents, that only in recent years were made available to the public.

  Throughout, I have remained faithful to the bones of the story: that in the dog days of World War II, in a backwater of the Pacific, the cruiser USS Indianapolis was sunk.

  What ensued was a nightmare.

  For the survivors, the disaster of the Indy is their My Lai massacre or Watergate, a touchstone moment of historic disappointment: the navy put them in harm’s way, hundreds of men died violently, and then the government refused to acknowledge its culpability.

  What’s amazing, however, is that these men, unlike contemporary generations who’ve been disappointed by bad government, are not bitter. Somehow, a majority brushed aside their feelings of rancor and went on to help build the booming postwar American economy of the fifties.

  Some might say that the America of the World War II era, a country in which people felt a sense of belonging, of being part of a community larger than themselves, is lost to us today. But I don’t think so. It lives on in these men, these survivors. They are not our past; they are the future.

  In the course of writing this book, I’ve read hundreds of published pages about the USS Indianapolis, conducted hours of personal interviews, and studied miscellaneous materials provided by survivors and people intensely interested in the history of the ship. More than a few of these individuals warrant special mention.

  I must first thank Heather Shaw Cauchy, without whose aid completing this book would have been a far more arduous task and to whom is owed much of its texture and breadth. For her perseverance, brilliance, and tireless contributions, I am forever grateful. She has been the perfect colleague in this enterprise. Thank you, H.

  Of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis disaster, I especially want to thank Gil and Betty McCoy for making me feel like a member of their family. Likewise, I am grateful to Dr. Lewis Haynes and Margaret Haynes, who welcomed me into their home. I’d also like to thank Harlan and Alice Twible, Mike and Lorrain Kuryla, Jack and Muffy Miner, Bob and Gloria McGuiggan, Victor and Dottie Buckett, and Robert and Norma Neal Gause for their support. The men and their families opened their hearts and their homes to me, and I hope I’ve given back something in return.

  Other survivors who generously gave of their time include Felton Outland, Jack Cassidy, Richard Stephens, Bill Drayton, Gus Kay, Ed Brown, John Spinelli, Richard Paroubek, and Grover Carver. Lou Bitonti and Woodie James also offered much-appreciated encouragement. Nina Bartasavich generously shared the ordeal of her father, survivor Joseph Naspini.

  Besides offering recollections of the sinking and their survival, these former crew members also provided special insight into Captain McVay, as well as into the ship’s operation and regimens. Mike Kuryla, Giles McCoy, Robert Gause, Harlan Twible, Erwin Hensch, and Dr. Lewis Haynes were especially helpful in understanding the captain and his duties, as well as providing insight into his personality. John Spinelli provided a firsthand account of his days afloat with McVay, and Mrs. Billie Havins, Al Havins’s widow, answered questions and provided materials concerning her late husband’s experience with the captain aboard ship and on a life raft. Documentary filmmaker Bill Van Daalen was generous in supplying interview materials and photographs concerning McVay and the survivors.

  David Nelson, director of Second Watch, and his assistant Robin Field, were helpful in answering questions about issues facing survivors today, and Michael Monroney took time to explain the effort to exonerate Captain McVay. Keith Smith, an archivist of the USS Indianapolis Survivors’ Organization, also provided valuable assistance. I’m grateful as well for the welcome I received at the 1999 reunion of the Indianapolis survivors, led by their organization’s chairman, Mr. Paul Murphy. For excellent information about Second Watch and the organization, visit www.ussindianapolis.org.

  I also owe a debt of gratitude to McVay’s stepsons, Winthrop Smith Jr. and Gordon Linke, as well as Jocelyn, Scott, and Corrine Linke. Winthrop and Gordon arranged for me to tour Winvian Farm in August 1999, and offered particularly keen insight into the Captain’s character. Likewise, Florence Regosia, McVay’s housekeeper, was helpful in understanding McVay’s last years, as was Ed Stevens, McVay’s fishing, hunting, and bridge-playing companion. Former U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham provided assistance in obtaining McVay’s military service record.

  For accounts of the rescue of the Indianapolis crew, I want to thank former navy personnel Albert Harp, John Wilschke, Peter Wren, Roy McLendon, Irving Lefkovitz, Douw Mac Haffie, Max Seisser, Robert France, Hilton Logan, Joseph Lalley Jr., and William C. Meyer. Norma Gwinn answered questions about her husband, pilot Chuck Gwinn, and Robert Marks aided in recounting the role his father, Adrian Marks, played in the rescue effort.

  My research was also aided by military historians and researchers Paul Brockman and Eric Mundell at the Indiana Historical Society, and Martin Williams in Washington, D.C. The following historians were also greatly helpful: Air Commander “Pinky” Grocott (naval radar), Bill Roland and Walter Blanchard (loran navigation), William Stewart (Indianapolis history and Mariana Islands), Ron Filion (San Francisco in 1945), and John Wassell and Bill MacDermott (rescue planes).

  Lee Albright provided information about the USS Howze, and Fred Kimball and Rich Tretault described the unescorted voyage of tugboats along the Indy’s route. James B. Johnson and Dr. Robert Browning provided historical perspective of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, respectively.

  Russell Hetz and Donald Allen offered detailed information about the Indianapolis’s SOS message, and Richard Von Donhoeff answered questions about the code-breaking program ULTRA. John Savard was helpful in understanding cryptography.

  Former Indianapolis crew members Charlie Sullivan and William Collins provided welcome descriptions of the ship. Sullivan, a former altar boy aboard the ship, also aided in understanding the Indy’s affable priest, Father Conway. Dennis Covert offered perspective on Captain McVay’s situation within the chain of naval command. Deep sea explorer Curt Newport’s help was essential in understanding the mechanics of the Indianapolis’s sinking and the drift-course of the survivors. David Dorflinger described Guam in July 1945, and detailed his jeep ride on the island with Captain Mc Vay.

  Dr. Terry Taylor and Dr. Julie Johnson were instrumental in explaining sea trauma and the effects of saltwater immersion. David Baldridge was helpful in understanding shark attacks, and oceanographer Matthew C. Barron provi
ded climatological information about the South Pacific. Scott Sanford, Andrew Lundberg, Marly Wyckoff, Kathy Erlewein, Gayle Gallagher, and Cindy Lyskawa also offered appreciated encouragement and assistance.

  Close to home, I’ve benefited from the friendship and support of the Stanton, Bott, Edwards, Dennis/Dunn and Earnest families, and my sister Deb Demin, along with Tony, Genessa, and Wylie Demin; Bob Butz and Nancy Flowers, Dave Scroppo, Glenn Wolff and Carole Simon, Jerry and Gail Dennis, Nick Bozanic and Brit Washburn, Mike and Claudia Delp, Jack and Lois Driscoll, Joe Mielke and Jodee Taylor, Terry and Marlene Caszatt, Jim Fergus, Mike Paterniti, Veronica Pasfield, Larry Grow, Danielle Freund, and Kathy and Bill Thompson. Thanks also to Woody and Laura, Ron Bernstein, and especially to Betsy Beers.

  I want to thank author Richard Newcomb, who patiently walked me through the ins and outs of naval command during the height of the war in 1945. From his vantage point, I think, he saw an effort to tell this story from a new perspective, forty-two years after he had left off. For this, I’m grateful. I was also aided by the published work of Katherine Moore, Raymond Lech, Dan Kurzman, and Peter Wren. And I’d like to thank Kimo and Charles McVay IV, and James Bargsley for their early encouragement.

  Sid Evans agreed to let me write the story of the USS Indianapolis as an article for Men’s Journal magazine. I’m thankful for Sid’s friendship and demanding editing, and for then editor-in-chief Terry McDonell’s unwavering support. I am also grateful to Jann Wenner for publishing my work.

  Throughout, Jim Harrison and Guy de la Valdene have given important support, and to them I offer heartfelt thank-yous. My agent, Sloan Harris, has provided sharp advice that’s never failed to lift my spirits, and his friendship has been fun, essential, and deeply appreciated. Thank you, Sloan.

  Two people who were instrumental in bringing this book to life are Jennifer Barth, Henry Holt’s brilliant editor in chief, and Holt’s ever-supportive president, John Sterling. Throughout a demanding work period, Jennifer saw both the ocean and the waves, and nursed this tale from its primordial soup into something larger than even I had imagined. She selflessly worked to make it a better book, and I cannot state emphatically enough the importance of her jeweler’s precision in all matters editorial. Likewise, John Sterling offered prescient comments and made this writer feel welcome.