i am watching a programme about this ship which was sunk after dropping off the atom bomb ,that was used to bomb japan ,100's of men were eaten by sharks its terrible
does any one know of any real life stories told by survivors ???
USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis
what a moving programme the average age of these brave men was 19
I was born and raised in Sioux Falls, S.D., and turned 18 [in] October of 1943, and on my birthday I got notice from the government to report for service. I got a month's extension from October to the end of the term to finish my high school and I reported to the Navy in January of 1944. I went to a shortened boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, for four weeks and shipped out to San Francisco, to Treasure Island where I caught the assignment to the USS Indianapolis, the heavy cruiser that was docked at pier 14 in San Francisco.
We sailed for Hawaii and [were] met there and assigned our duties. I was assigned to the 4th division, which is a 5-inch anti-aircraft battery. And as we sailed from Honolulu, our division officer made us [do] a physical drill in the morning and said, "Gentlemen we're leaving, we're crossing the ocean 5,000 miles into enemy territory. And from this day forward if you're captured the only thing you know is your name, rank and serial number." So I was about six weeks out of high school and I was now in the war zone.
We sailed to the invasion of the Marianas and Saipan, Guam and Tinian. Had the first battle of the Philippine seas with the Japanese fleet, which is a humdinger. We sailed to the invasion of Pelileu and eventually back to Hawaii for stores of ammunition. And I had been in the Navy six months out of high school and already had four battle stars.
Incidentally, I received the invitation to my high school graduation while we were invading Saipan. Mainly because the Indianapolis was the flagship of Adm. [Raymond] Spruance and when they flew mail out to him they brought our mail along with it. So that's why I got my high school invitation [to graduation] at Saipan.
After the Marianas and Pelileu, we were in the operation at Iwo Jima. I saw the flag hoisted there. We were at the invasion of Okinawa, where we were hit by a kamikaze and lost nine men. For that hit we sailed from Okinawa back to the United States for repairs. And while we were in Mare Island we got a seven-day leave on each watch.
The Atomic Bomb
I traveled to South Dakota to see my folks on the trains, and the trains in those days were notoriously late all the time. I know when I returned to the ship I was 2 ½ hours late reporting back and I was put on commander's mast. And when I went up before Cmdr. Flynn, who was an Annapolis man, he didn't have any neck. He was just square shoulders and his head set right on his shoulders [with a] red face. Irish as you could tell by the name. He asked me what happened. Meaning why was I late returning to duty. I told him that there was a train wreck outside of Omaha. And he says, "Well you're confined to ship for the next 15 days," knowing full well that we were going to be aboard ship for the next 90 days. And he told me, "Seaman Brown, we're not going to be able to send you kids home on choo-choo trains and get in train wrecks because we've got a war to win out here."
We sailed to San Francisco at Hunter's Point, which is right near where Candlestick Park is today. We took aboard a huge crate that we put in the hangar deck of the ship. That was on the 16th of July 1945 at 8 in the morning. After they detonated the first atomic bomb in Almagordo, N.M., at 5 o'clock and found it to be a success, we were given orders to sail and we sailed from San Francisco under the Golden Gate with that precious cargo. Of course none of us aboard ship knew what it was. And we sailed and dropped it off and we crossed the Pacific in nine days, which is a record that still stands, to Tinian where we dropped the crate off to the 509th bomb squad and Col. Tibbets and my brother was in that group on Tinian with the air force.
And we sailed to Guam and got orders to report to Leyte for a six-month patrol duty before the invasion of Japan, which was scheduled for around the first of September. And on the way to Leyte we were sunk -- on the 30th of July at midnight by the I-58 Japanese submarine commanded by Capt. Hashimoto.
"Where Are They? Where Are They?"
I had just gone on watch at midnight -- and we were hit and the ship went down in less than 15 minutes. We jumped over the side and as we swam away from the ship in the pitch black night, we swam what we thought was a safe distance and turned around to look back and the moon came out and it showed the big proud queen of the 5th Fleet going nose down, its fantail straight up in the air. The screws were still turning and it dove straight down into its watery grave. There we were stranded in the middle of the dark Pacific. And we counted up who was there. And the group that I was in there was 366 men. That night we counted. And when we were picked up five days later there was 66 of us.
We kept asking, "Where are they? Where are they? They should be here to find us." We expected when dawn broke the first morning that there would be rescue ships and planes there. Nothing happened and nothing happened and we kept saying, "Where are they? Where are they?" And each day we lost more and more sailors. We'd wake up in the morning and more of them would be gone. Each day more and more disappeared, mostly from dehydration, hallucination, starvation and sharks.
And as the days went on we couldn't understand why the planes that were flying from Guam to the Philippines couldn't see us in the water. It's impossible I know but at that time we didn't understand why they couldn't see us.
Rescue
We were spotted by our angel, Chuck Gwinn, who was flying a land-based twin-engined bomber, on antisubmarine patrol duty. He was flying due west and the tail gunner said he couldn't get the radio antenna out of the plane and so Capt. Gwinn went back to help him get the antenna out. When he was looking down at the water and not into the sun, he saw a great oil slick and he saw men in the water.
And he circled around and came back and first thought that it was a Japanese submarine and he was opening his bomb bay doors and was ready to drop bombs. And then he saw the men scattered all over the place and he radioed Peleliu and said there's a big oil slick and a bunch of men in the water out here. And Peleliu told him you must be hallucinating because there's been no report of any ship missing. Although the Japanese submarine radioed Japan and told them that they'd sunk a ship on the order of the USS Idaho, the battleship Idaho. But our people in the Philippines and Guam that intercepted that message thought they were just bragging and didn't do anything about it.
We were finally picked up. Capt. (Adrian) Marks flew out in the PBY and picked up myself and 56 other sailors in the water -- tied some of us on the wings until the Cecil Doyle, destroyer escort under the command of Graham Claytor, who turned his spotlight in the sky and on the water at night against all naval regulations to give us hope that somebody was on the way.
We were picked up and eventually went to Peleliu and then eventually we transferred to the USS Tranquility, a brand new hospital ship to Guam where we were in a rest camp for six weeks making sure that we were sane enough and healthy enough to send home on liberty.
One of the things that I recall is that when we were floating around in the water we were kind of ecstatic after Chuck Gwinn spotted us and then Capt. Marks landed his PBY. And there were planes flying over dropping water canisters and life rafts and they hadn't real great depth perception. They'd fly right over the top of us and they'd drop them and then they land a couple hundred yards past us. I was swimming after a raft after a couple of them had been commandeered and I was still in the water next to Dr. Haynes, and Danny Spencer was on the raft.
I was swimming after another raft and all of a sudden I just realized I couldn't go any longer. I was just pooped, out of gas. And I heard somebody holler at me, "Grab that ring." And I looked up and here was a life ring, a white life ring and I grabbed ahold of it. It was [tied to] Capt. Marks' PBY. And I grabbed a hold of that and he revved up the plane and pulled me "chop, chop, chop" across the top of the breakers and they lifted me up into the bubble on the side of the plane. And all those sores and scabs that I had on me, they peeled them right off. But I was happy to be aboard.
And the first thing they gave us was a teaspoon of water and sugar. And as he pulled the rest of the survivors aboard and tied most of them on the wings, I just wanted to reflect that I don't think I'd be here today if that ring hadn't been there right at that time. Because I was spent, I was gone and I was dazed in the water. So by the fate of God I'm here because I caught that life ring.
The other thing that might be of interest is Capt. Marks told us at the convention many times "I don't know if I could have [but] I should have done more. I probably could have saved more men." And I said, "Geez, look what you did. You plucked 56 out. And you stayed there [and] landed your plane." And he said, "well, I probably could have done more." And that's the same way with Chuck Gwinn. He said, "Geez, I could have been there earlier. I could have been there the day before." You know all the people that are our saviors always felt that they could have done more.
And the Navy wasn't in any hurry to send us home. They transferred us from Guam to Hawaii, where Adm. (Chester) Nimitz had a reception for us, and from Hawaii to San Diego on an old Liberty ship. Every time those old bulkheads would start creaking and groaning why we'd get nervous and [we] were happy to get off that thing when we got to San Diego. And then we got 30 days leave and went home.
But we all still to this day are very concerned about what they did, what the Navy did to our Capt. McVay. The first reunion we had in 1960, Capt. McVay attended and each and every one of us at that reunion told Capt. McVay we'd go to sea with him any time he was ready. We thought that much of him. But the Navy decided that somebody had to be a scapegoat for the great tragedy of losing the Indianapolis: 880 men went down; 317 survived. So they court-martialed Capt. McVay.
For 55 years after we spent five days saying, "Where are they? Where are they?" and for 55 years we're saying, "Where are you? Were are you?" to the United States Congress. We tried to get this thing resolved. With the help of Hunter Scott bringing the thing to the attention of the United States Congress, we've got (a joint resolution) in the Senate right at the present time trying to get the resolution passed to exonerate the good name of Capt. McVay. And I hope that the Congress will pass that. Most of us are getting up there where we're hoping this happens while we're still here. We're losing more and more survivors all the time. We've lost six in the last six months. But we'd like to get this thing rectified. And I think it would be fitting and proper if they do.
I was born and raised in Sioux Falls, S.D., and turned 18 [in] October of 1943, and on my birthday I got notice from the government to report for service. I got a month's extension from October to the end of the term to finish my high school and I reported to the Navy in January of 1944. I went to a shortened boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, for four weeks and shipped out to San Francisco, to Treasure Island where I caught the assignment to the USS Indianapolis, the heavy cruiser that was docked at pier 14 in San Francisco.
We sailed for Hawaii and [were] met there and assigned our duties. I was assigned to the 4th division, which is a 5-inch anti-aircraft battery. And as we sailed from Honolulu, our division officer made us [do] a physical drill in the morning and said, "Gentlemen we're leaving, we're crossing the ocean 5,000 miles into enemy territory. And from this day forward if you're captured the only thing you know is your name, rank and serial number." So I was about six weeks out of high school and I was now in the war zone.
We sailed to the invasion of the Marianas and Saipan, Guam and Tinian. Had the first battle of the Philippine seas with the Japanese fleet, which is a humdinger. We sailed to the invasion of Pelileu and eventually back to Hawaii for stores of ammunition. And I had been in the Navy six months out of high school and already had four battle stars.
Incidentally, I received the invitation to my high school graduation while we were invading Saipan. Mainly because the Indianapolis was the flagship of Adm. [Raymond] Spruance and when they flew mail out to him they brought our mail along with it. So that's why I got my high school invitation [to graduation] at Saipan.
After the Marianas and Pelileu, we were in the operation at Iwo Jima. I saw the flag hoisted there. We were at the invasion of Okinawa, where we were hit by a kamikaze and lost nine men. For that hit we sailed from Okinawa back to the United States for repairs. And while we were in Mare Island we got a seven-day leave on each watch.
The Atomic Bomb
I traveled to South Dakota to see my folks on the trains, and the trains in those days were notoriously late all the time. I know when I returned to the ship I was 2 ½ hours late reporting back and I was put on commander's mast. And when I went up before Cmdr. Flynn, who was an Annapolis man, he didn't have any neck. He was just square shoulders and his head set right on his shoulders [with a] red face. Irish as you could tell by the name. He asked me what happened. Meaning why was I late returning to duty. I told him that there was a train wreck outside of Omaha. And he says, "Well you're confined to ship for the next 15 days," knowing full well that we were going to be aboard ship for the next 90 days. And he told me, "Seaman Brown, we're not going to be able to send you kids home on choo-choo trains and get in train wrecks because we've got a war to win out here."
We sailed to San Francisco at Hunter's Point, which is right near where Candlestick Park is today. We took aboard a huge crate that we put in the hangar deck of the ship. That was on the 16th of July 1945 at 8 in the morning. After they detonated the first atomic bomb in Almagordo, N.M., at 5 o'clock and found it to be a success, we were given orders to sail and we sailed from San Francisco under the Golden Gate with that precious cargo. Of course none of us aboard ship knew what it was. And we sailed and dropped it off and we crossed the Pacific in nine days, which is a record that still stands, to Tinian where we dropped the crate off to the 509th bomb squad and Col. Tibbets and my brother was in that group on Tinian with the air force.
And we sailed to Guam and got orders to report to Leyte for a six-month patrol duty before the invasion of Japan, which was scheduled for around the first of September. And on the way to Leyte we were sunk -- on the 30th of July at midnight by the I-58 Japanese submarine commanded by Capt. Hashimoto.
"Where Are They? Where Are They?"
I had just gone on watch at midnight -- and we were hit and the ship went down in less than 15 minutes. We jumped over the side and as we swam away from the ship in the pitch black night, we swam what we thought was a safe distance and turned around to look back and the moon came out and it showed the big proud queen of the 5th Fleet going nose down, its fantail straight up in the air. The screws were still turning and it dove straight down into its watery grave. There we were stranded in the middle of the dark Pacific. And we counted up who was there. And the group that I was in there was 366 men. That night we counted. And when we were picked up five days later there was 66 of us.
We kept asking, "Where are they? Where are they? They should be here to find us." We expected when dawn broke the first morning that there would be rescue ships and planes there. Nothing happened and nothing happened and we kept saying, "Where are they? Where are they?" And each day we lost more and more sailors. We'd wake up in the morning and more of them would be gone. Each day more and more disappeared, mostly from dehydration, hallucination, starvation and sharks.
And as the days went on we couldn't understand why the planes that were flying from Guam to the Philippines couldn't see us in the water. It's impossible I know but at that time we didn't understand why they couldn't see us.
Rescue
We were spotted by our angel, Chuck Gwinn, who was flying a land-based twin-engined bomber, on antisubmarine patrol duty. He was flying due west and the tail gunner said he couldn't get the radio antenna out of the plane and so Capt. Gwinn went back to help him get the antenna out. When he was looking down at the water and not into the sun, he saw a great oil slick and he saw men in the water.
And he circled around and came back and first thought that it was a Japanese submarine and he was opening his bomb bay doors and was ready to drop bombs. And then he saw the men scattered all over the place and he radioed Peleliu and said there's a big oil slick and a bunch of men in the water out here. And Peleliu told him you must be hallucinating because there's been no report of any ship missing. Although the Japanese submarine radioed Japan and told them that they'd sunk a ship on the order of the USS Idaho, the battleship Idaho. But our people in the Philippines and Guam that intercepted that message thought they were just bragging and didn't do anything about it.
We were finally picked up. Capt. (Adrian) Marks flew out in the PBY and picked up myself and 56 other sailors in the water -- tied some of us on the wings until the Cecil Doyle, destroyer escort under the command of Graham Claytor, who turned his spotlight in the sky and on the water at night against all naval regulations to give us hope that somebody was on the way.
We were picked up and eventually went to Peleliu and then eventually we transferred to the USS Tranquility, a brand new hospital ship to Guam where we were in a rest camp for six weeks making sure that we were sane enough and healthy enough to send home on liberty.
One of the things that I recall is that when we were floating around in the water we were kind of ecstatic after Chuck Gwinn spotted us and then Capt. Marks landed his PBY. And there were planes flying over dropping water canisters and life rafts and they hadn't real great depth perception. They'd fly right over the top of us and they'd drop them and then they land a couple hundred yards past us. I was swimming after a raft after a couple of them had been commandeered and I was still in the water next to Dr. Haynes, and Danny Spencer was on the raft.
I was swimming after another raft and all of a sudden I just realized I couldn't go any longer. I was just pooped, out of gas. And I heard somebody holler at me, "Grab that ring." And I looked up and here was a life ring, a white life ring and I grabbed ahold of it. It was [tied to] Capt. Marks' PBY. And I grabbed a hold of that and he revved up the plane and pulled me "chop, chop, chop" across the top of the breakers and they lifted me up into the bubble on the side of the plane. And all those sores and scabs that I had on me, they peeled them right off. But I was happy to be aboard.
And the first thing they gave us was a teaspoon of water and sugar. And as he pulled the rest of the survivors aboard and tied most of them on the wings, I just wanted to reflect that I don't think I'd be here today if that ring hadn't been there right at that time. Because I was spent, I was gone and I was dazed in the water. So by the fate of God I'm here because I caught that life ring.
The other thing that might be of interest is Capt. Marks told us at the convention many times "I don't know if I could have [but] I should have done more. I probably could have saved more men." And I said, "Geez, look what you did. You plucked 56 out. And you stayed there [and] landed your plane." And he said, "well, I probably could have done more." And that's the same way with Chuck Gwinn. He said, "Geez, I could have been there earlier. I could have been there the day before." You know all the people that are our saviors always felt that they could have done more.
And the Navy wasn't in any hurry to send us home. They transferred us from Guam to Hawaii, where Adm. (Chester) Nimitz had a reception for us, and from Hawaii to San Diego on an old Liberty ship. Every time those old bulkheads would start creaking and groaning why we'd get nervous and [we] were happy to get off that thing when we got to San Diego. And then we got 30 days leave and went home.
But we all still to this day are very concerned about what they did, what the Navy did to our Capt. McVay. The first reunion we had in 1960, Capt. McVay attended and each and every one of us at that reunion told Capt. McVay we'd go to sea with him any time he was ready. We thought that much of him. But the Navy decided that somebody had to be a scapegoat for the great tragedy of losing the Indianapolis: 880 men went down; 317 survived. So they court-martialed Capt. McVay.
For 55 years after we spent five days saying, "Where are they? Where are they?" and for 55 years we're saying, "Where are you? Were are you?" to the United States Congress. We tried to get this thing resolved. With the help of Hunter Scott bringing the thing to the attention of the United States Congress, we've got (a joint resolution) in the Senate right at the present time trying to get the resolution passed to exonerate the good name of Capt. McVay. And I hope that the Congress will pass that. Most of us are getting up there where we're hoping this happens while we're still here. We're losing more and more survivors all the time. We've lost six in the last six months. But we'd like to get this thing rectified. And I think it would be fitting and proper if they do.