Indianapolis

by Lynn Vincent

  Washington, D.C.

  FOR MONTHS, CAPTAIN WILLIAM Smedburg had been preparing detailed charts showing enemy sub positions in the Western Pacific. The day before the cruiser Indianapolis sailed from San Francisco, he received intelligence on Hashimoto’s boat. I-58 was to be part of the “Tamon” group, a quartet of kaiten-equipped submarines set to sortie from Japan with one purpose: sinking Allied ships. The intel on the Tamon subs—I-58, I-47, I-53, and I-367—was classified TOP SECRET ULTRA, and Smedburg, a combat intelligence officer who worked directly for Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, considered it hot.

  ULTRA was the Allies’ most highly classified program of intelligence. After VE Day in May, the combined intelligence power of the U.S. military had converged on the Pacific. At the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA)—Nimitz’s intel section at Pearl Harbor—the staff swelled to eighteen hundred, with hundreds more personnel fanned out across the theater. JICPOA’s largest challenge now was preparing for the invasion of mainland Japan, set for on or about November 1. Intercepts of Japanese military messages consistently disclosed that, if invaded, her armed forces planned what to Western minds seemed an Armageddon.

  Japan’s preparations surprised U.S. planners with their speed and intensity. The Empire had built defenses and amassed forces at Kyushu four times greater than predicted and in far less time. The manpower level for Japan’s ground armies was approaching 375,000, with a confirmed total of eleven combat divisions and two depot divisions to be in place by month’s end. This force was only expected to grow.

  In addition, Army signals intelligence revealed that Japan had accurately guessed America’s three planned mainland invasion points on the island of Kyushu. Defenses were pouring in so rapidly that Empire defenders would soon outnumber the invasion force. The demand for intel was voracious, and America’s newly concentrated Pacific apparatus was churning out two million printed sheets of data each week. Much of this information coursed like lifeblood through the Allies’ far-flung Pacific units via the vascular system known as the chain of command. This began with Nimitz and branched down through area commanders, such as the admirals in charge of the Mariana Islands and the Philippine Sea Frontier. From there, intel flowed down to the individual island commanders and their tenants, to task force and task group commanders, and on out to the fleet.

  But information classified TOP SECRET ULTRA was different. Closely held and tightly guarded, it seeped out daily to only a tiny group of Pacific Fleet commanders. High rank alone could not earn access—even the commanding general of Army forces in Hawaii was not cleared. ULTRA’s dissemination was chokepoint-narrow, and with good reason. The Japanese had proven they could change their code within twenty-four hours of suspecting it had been cracked. To accidentally tip America’s hand now could tip the scales of war. But since intelligence is useless if it doesn’t reach the forces that need it, sanitized versions were prepared for commanders in the field.

  Since breaking the code, the Americans had collected thousands of intercepts. Each was treated as a discrete data set and “carded”—its facts typed in purple ink on a five-by-seven card with the words “TOP SECRET—ULTRA” stamped in bright red vertically in the margin.

  Early on, ULTRA intelligence could be spotty, the purple lines pocked with blank underscores representing “unrecovered” details—gaps in information. By the summer of 1945, though, the American codebreakers, who were known as “magicians,” had become so proficient that the language on many ULTRA cards was as plain as reading the enemy’s mail.

  Submarine intercepts included copious detail: the identity of the Japanese sender, the submarine’s designator, its mission, dates and times of departure, its plan of movement, sometimes even grid coordinates.

  On July 15, the day before Indianapolis sailed for Tinian, the magicians captured this intercept:

  FROM CAPTAIN SUB I-58

  THIS SUB WILL MOVE UP INTO THE SEA AREA WEST OF

  THE MARIANAS ISLANDS AS FOLLOWS: 182000, WILL

  PASS THROUGH THE EASTERN ENTRANCE TO BUNGO

  SUIDOO

  According to the date-time group in this intercept—“182000”—I-58 would pass through Bungo Suidoo on July 18 at “twenty-hundred” Zulu time, or 8 p.m.I Bungo Suidoo is the wide channel between the Japanese home islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, connecting the Inland Sea with the Pacific. By this point in the war, Japan had restricted her submarine activity almost exclusively to the upper reaches of the Northern Pacific, fending off the Allies’ advance from Okinawa toward the home islands. However, the July 15 ULTRA intercept showed that Hashimoto would drive his boat deep into the Philippine Sea, a sprawling body of water defined within the larger Pacific by green islands sprinkled in the rough shape of an expansive horseshoe.

  At the bottom of the horseshoe lies the Palau island group, seized from Japan in November 1944. The Mariana Islands, several captured during Spruance’s campaigns, form the horseshoe’s eastern upright. Twelve hundred miles to the west—the left side of the horseshoe when viewed from above—the Philippine Islands form the sea’s opposite boundary, with the island of Mindanao in the south, then north up the chain to Leyte, Samar, and Luzon. The Ryukyu chain, including Iwo Jima and Okinawa, lay northeast of Luzon, capping the horseshoe to the north.

  The magicians captured portions of I-58’s projected route—first a pair of unrecovered headings that Hashimoto would use on July 19 and 20, followed by a generally southerly heading thereafter:

  192200, IN GRID POSITION “USE ———, ———”.

  200400, IN GRID POSITION “USE ———, ———”.

  THEREAFTER COURSE WILL BE 160 DEGREES . . .

  The blanks represented the unrecovered headings. This intel was followed by an estimate of I-58’s assigned patrol area, based on a fully recovered range and a partially recovered position:

  I-58 WAS SCHEDULED TO SORTIE FROM THE WESTERN INLAND SEA ON 18 JULY CARRYING 6 KAITEN TO PATROL THE SEA AREA 500 MILES NORTH OF (PALAU?)

  Smedburg, the combat intelligence officer, had been tracking the Tamon group since July 13, when intercepts first revealed the four-sub attack force, all assigned operating areas in the Philippine Sea. On his chart, he had plotted I-53 on the west-southwest line between Okinawa and Luzon, Philippines. Two more Tamon boats, I-367 and I-47, appeared on the chart farther north.

  If this newly recovered information about I-58 and the islands of Palau was correct, then the sub’s position by late July would be essentially astride the east-west Allied shipping lane between Guam in the Marianas on the eastern edge of the Philippine Sea, and Leyte in the Philippines to the west, a course known as Route Peddie.

  Smedburg marked it that way on his enemy sub chart, and immediately put this data in the mill. At Guam, Commodore James Carter received this information. Carter was commander of CincPac Advance, a forward headquarters that Nimitz had established in order to be closer to the fighting. As he did each day, Carter initialed the intel concerning the Tamon group to acknowledge receipt.

  * * *

  I. In a naval “date-time group,” the first two numbers indicated the date and the last four digits the time of day. Date-time groups were always written in “Zulu time,” the military name for the global twenty-four-hour clock predicated on the time of day at the line of longitude that passes through Greenwich, England. On the twenty-four-hour clock, a time of “0000” would be midnight, 0600 (“zero six hundred”) would be 6 a.m., and 1200 (“twelve hundred”) would be noon. Hourly times between noon and midnight are written as 1300 (thirteen hundred, or 1 p.m.), 1400 (or 2 p.m.), and so on to 2300, or 11 p.m.

  2

  * * *

  JULY 16, 1945

  The Pacific Ocean

  INDY ROLLED FORWARD, HURDLING over the wave tops and shouldering through the troughs, her hull swelling with slow, deep breaths like the flanks of a galloping horse. Captain Charles McVay could taste the salt air on the bridge as his ship cleaved the sea at flank speed, near her maximum of thirty-
one knots, or about thirty-five miles per hour. Topside watchstanders leaned toward the bow as the ship churned her own stiff breeze, while below, a small army of men tended a steaming battery of boilers and turbines.

  L. D. Cox was on the bridge to stand his regular watch, but his prime mission was to get the scuttlebutt on a near disaster. Earlier, he’d been sipping coffee in the mess hall when the deck heeled wildly under his feet. Coffee splashed from his cup as he and every man around him slid, stumbled, or fell to starboard. Rumor had it that Indy had hit an unusually rough wave. Cox didn’t believe that for a minute. Sure, they’d run into some rough weather just outside the Golden Gate, but the ship had been in plenty angrier seas than this. Cox slid over to the quartermaster to find out what had happened.

  “It was some new kid,” the quartermaster said. At the helm, the officer of the deck had a “striker,” a man in training. The OOD had directed a course change, and the kid quickly turned the rudder four or five degrees, the quartermaster explained. “Nearly laid us down!”

  Cox emitted a low whistle. Four or five degrees! Since transferring to navigation division, he had learned that when Indy was hauling ass, you wanted to give her only about two degrees of rudder, or risk putting her on her side. Ships of her class were notoriously top-heavy, and drastic maneuvers might cause her to roll so far that she could not recover.

  Good thing it was only a close call, Cox thought, especially with General MacArthur’s special-delivery scented toilet paper aboard.

  That was one of the guesses on what was in the crate the Marines were guarding around the clock in the port hangar. Rumors raced around the ship, and some of the men even had a betting pool going. The crate was about the size of an automobile, so some said it wasn’t toilet paper for the general, but a car. MacArthur had enough clout to demand something like that, and Cox wasn’t alone in thinking that the man was such a showoff, he probably would. Others wagered the crate was full of liquor for the officers to toast the end of the war.

  Glenn Morgan had heard all the rumors, too. He decided to mosey up to the port hangar to razz the Marines, whom he considered a generally high-strung bunch. He planted himself in front of the guard detail, tipped his Dixie cup back with his thumb, and let a slow, mysterious smile develop.

  “I know what’s in the box,” he said.

  The Marines smirked. “Yeah, what?” said one.

  “It’s a map . . . and the paperwork for the invasion of Japan.”

  The Marines stood fast and eyed Morgan skeptically.

  “Think about it,” Morgan pressed. “They’ve gotta have all this stuff so they’ll know where they’re going once they start the invasion.”

  The Marines told Morgan to quit beating his gums, pointing out that he didn’t know any more than they did. Which was perfectly true. Of all the mysterious-crate rumors Morgan had heard, he knew for sure this one wasn’t true because he’d started it himself.

  Once Indy cleared the worst of the weather, McVay made his way to the flag lieutenant’s quarters to check on his Army guests. They were quartered in one of the larger staterooms on the fo’c’sle deck just aft of the admiral’s cabin, with a double bunk and a desk built into steel walls. Furman and Nolan were there, their curious canisters padlocked and secured to the deck with chains and eyebolts as Furman had requested.

  It was then that McVay received another sliver of information. Furman revealed that Captain Nolan was not an artillery officer. He was a physician, sent on the mission to assure McVay that the material brought aboard his ship was safe.

  McVay processed this revelation and thought for a moment about what the shipment might contain. Aloud, he asked whether the canisters contained bacteria.

  When he did not receive an answer, he let the moment pass. “My crew and I will do everything possible to ensure safe passage of your cargo,” he said.

  Then McVay departed. Later, he called several key officers to the bridge. “We’re on a special mission,” McVay told them. “I can’t tell you what the mission is. I don’t know myself, but I’ve been told that every day we take off the trip is a day off the war.”

  As Dr. Lewis Haynes listened to McVay’s cryptic brief, he recalled something he’d seen earlier that day. It was a dispatch circulated only among members of Admiral Spruance’s staff, of which Haynes was technically a part since he was chief medical officer on the admiral’s flagship. Addressed to all commanders, the dispatch stated that Indianapolis was operating under the authority of the commander in chief.

  The new commander in chief, Haynes realized—Harry S. Truman.

  Indianapolis was not to be diverted from her mission for any reason whatsoever, the message said. Haynes had signed the dispatch as required and thought, my God, what have we got that’s under control of the president of the United States?

  • • •

  Half a world away, President Harry S. Truman held in his hand a top secret telegram from his war secretary, Henry Stimson:

  OPERATED ON THIS MORNING. DIAGNOSIS NOT YET COMPLETE BUT RESULTS SEEM SATISFACTORY AND ALREADY EXCEED EXPECTATIONS.

  Translation: The Trinity test was successful. With a blinding flash and a light not of this world, mankind had entered the nuclear age.

  Truman was in Potsdam, Germany, for a summit with British prime minister Winston Churchill and Communist Party general secretary Joseph Stalin. The president had already met with Churchill and taken a tour of the devastation that was Berlin. He had not yet met with Stalin, but would later size him up as a man with an aggressive agenda who was smart as hell.

  The summit had multiple aims. They included establishing goals for the demilitarization, democratization, and denazification of Germany; defining the borders and governance of Poland; and hammering out a postwar working relationship between the “Big Three” superpowers—the Soviets, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In addition, Churchill, Truman, and Stalin would discuss surrender terms for the lone remaining adversary, the nation of Japan.

  Truman gazed at Stimson’s message and considered its implications. Not only had the test met the most optimistic expectations of the Los Alamos scientists, but America had truly discovered, and had possession of, the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. Truman, a devout Christian, remembered the fiery destruction foretold in Scripture in the Euphrates Valley era after Noah and his fabulous ark. Was this awful weapon the fulfillment of that prophecy?

  3

  * * *

  AT MCVAY’S DIRECTION, KASEY Moore and a small group of officers met with Furman and Nolan in their cabin. The men discussed a range of potential emergencies that, if they materialized, could endanger the Army cargo. The greatest danger to a ship at sea was fire, the Navy officers explained. That could occur at any time. As a matter of standard procedure, the ship’s crew was already well versed in firefighting. In addition, the new men were under an aggressive training program that McVay and his executive officer, Commander Joseph Flynn, had implemented to whip them into shape.

  Moore and the Indy officers next explained another potential emergency: Indianapolis could be sunk in such a fashion that her crew would have less than half an hour to dispose of the shipment. While newer ships had been built to sustain underwater damage, Indy’s senior officers did not believe a cruiser of her class could sustain even a single torpedo strike if hit in a vulnerable spot. In cruising condition, the second deck—about ten feet above the waterline—was left wide open, with no watertight compartments buttoned up to prevent through-deck flooding. This was necessary for ventilation and so that the crew could quickly man their general quarters stations. But it also exposed the second deck to flooding. If that happened, the ship would either capsize or go down by the head, or bow first.

  The Bureau of Ships called this an acceptable risk, and McVay and Flynn’s training program for new crew concentrated heavily on damage control.

  Moore and the other officers told Furman and Nolan that it would take one hell of a lucky Japanese sub commande
r to sink Indy so quickly as to endanger their cargo. First, the sub would have to be lying directly in Indy’s path. Then its skipper would need two hits amidships, or at her center, to sink her. Even then, she would likely remain afloat for a number of hours, enabling the crew to get the shipment safely into a motor whaleboat.

  The whole scenario was so unlikely as to be almost out of the realm of possibility. Still, the Navy officers didn’t discount it entirely. Moore told Furman he would drill a team of sailors on getting the cargo off the ship in a hurry and would even assign alternate crews to assist. He would also set aside ropes, block and tackle, rafts, life jackets, and whaleboats for offloading the cargo in an emergency. There were plenty of extra life jackets. Moore had had a tough time getting a new supply aboard, but then received a double shipment of jackets right before Indy sailed.

  Later that day, Furman heard a fire alarm ring out. A small conflagration had blazed up in a waste area. A designated firefighting team quickly doused it, but the incident underscored to Furman what Moore had said: Fire would be the most prevalent danger.

  • • •

  On July 16, martial music boomed through the harbor at Kure and the voices of cheering patriots rolled to Hashimoto’s ears in waves. I-58 entered the swept channel and headed toward the kaiten base at Hirao. Hashimoto presided over a special ceremony for his six suicide pilots. As always, he marveled at their bravery.

  The next morning, I-58 slipped down to the Bungo channel, where they conducted deep-sea-diving trials during which the kaiten’s periscopes were found to be defective. The setback sent Hashimoto back to Hirao for replacements, but his boat sailed again, in company with I-53, on the evening of July 18. That night, I-58’s radarmen picked up what appeared to be a B-29 formation. Probably en route to attack the Japanese mainland, Hashimoto thought. He found himself wondering which city was in for it this time.