USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
_off_the_Mare_Island_Naval_Shipyard_on_10_July_1945_(19-N-86911).jpg) The ship on July 10, 1945 off the coast of California - 20 days before the sinking
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The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis was a warship of the US Navy and was one of Portland class at. It was used in the Pacific War against the Japanese Empire . The ship was named after the city of Indianapolis , capital of the US state Indiana .
history
Commissioned in November 1932, the ship first went to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and then through the Panama Canal to carry out exercises off the Chilean coast. After an overhaul in Philadelphia, the Indianapolis transported US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and five other members of the Cabinet from Campobello Island to Annapolis (Maryland) from July 3 to 4, 1933 and was stationed in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard . From September 6 to October 27, 1933, Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson undertook an inspection tour through the Canal Zone via Hawaii to San Diego and San Pedro . Stationed in Long Beach , California, President Roosevelt took the ship on a goodwill voyage to South America from November 18 to December 15, 1936, visiting Rio de Janeiro , Buenos Aires and Montevideo .
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , Indianapolis was doing exercises in front of Johnston Atoll and then became part of Task Force 12, which tried in vain to track down the Japanese aircraft carriers. On December 13, she returned to Pearl Harbor and became part of Task Force 11. As part of this task force, she escorted the aircraft carrier Lexington to the South Pacific in February 1942 , where she carried out an air raid on February 20, 350 nautical miles south of Rabaul Japanese aircraft survived undamaged. Reinforced by the aircraft carrier Yorktown , the task force inflicted heavy losses on a Japanese amphibious landing force off New Guinea (Lae and Salamaua) on March 10. After that, the Indianapolis was part of the task force that supported the reconquest of the Japanese-occupied Aleutians , and on February 19, 1943 sank the freighter Akagane Maru , which was transporting reinforcements for the Japanese forces.
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After replenishing supplies at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard , the Indianapolis became the flagship of the 5th Fleet under Admiral Raymond A. Spruance and left Pearl Harbor on November 10, 1943 in order to be part of the Southern Attack Force in the reconquest of the Gilbert Islands ( Operation Galvanic ) to participate. She shot at Tarawa , Makin and Kwajalein and was able to shoot down a Japanese plane with her flak.
In 1944, the Indianapolis was part of the 4th Cruiser Division under Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf and supported the landing operations in the Marshall Islands . In March and April 1944 she was involved in the attacks on the western Caroline Islands , in June she took part in the attacks on Saipan and the Battle of the Philippine Sea , in which she shot down another Japanese plane. Involved in the bombardment of the islands of Tinian and Peleliu , she returned to Mare Island via the Admiralty Islands for overhaul in November .
In February 1945 Indianapolis became part of the carrier combat group that carried out the first carrier-supported air raid on Tokyo since the Doolittle Raid in 1942 on February 16 under Admiral Marc A. Mitscher . As a result, she supported the landing on Iwo Jima and further bombing raids on Tokyo, Honshu and the Okinawa Islands . During the Battle of Okinawa , Indianapolis shot down six Japanese planes and damaged two more, but was itself hit by a bomb that killed nine sailors, tore two holes in the hull and damaged the drive shafts. On her own she returned to Mare Island for repairs.
The Indianapolis , which a few days earlier (departure San Francisco July 16, arrival Tinian July 26), among other things, had brought components for the Little Boy atomic bomb intended for later dropping over the Japanese city of Hiroshima from the US west coast to Tinian, was on Torpedoed 30 July 1945 by the Japanese submarine I-58 under Kaigun-Taisa Mochitsura Hashimoto. The submarine shot down a torpedo compartment of six type 95 torpedoes , two of which hit the ship under the front tower or under the bridge structure. The ship quickly listed to starboard and sank within only twelve minutes without an emergency call being made. Relatively few lifeboats could be launched. An estimated 300 members of the 1196-strong crew died when an ammunition chamber exploded; the rest were still able to leave the ship. However, up to 100 of them died from their injuries within a few hours.
Due to the high level of secrecy of the mission, which ran under the project name Bowery , very few naval agencies were aware of the order. The ship was therefore not immediately missed and rescue measures were therefore hesitant - initially only through the use of flying boats that were looking for the ship. Until the arrival of the surface units called up by the aircraft, the surviving castaways were reportedly exposed to constant attacks by sharks for 4 days . According to recent studies, however, most of the initially survivors did not die from the sharks, but from exhaustion, sunstroke or dehydration caused by diarrhea after drinking sea water.
After several days, only 316 (other sources mention 317 and 318) were rescued alive.
Finding the wreck
The wreck of the Indianapolis could not be located for a long time. Two major searches in July and August 2001 and in June 2005 were unsuccessful. On August 19, 2017, Paul Allen , who led an expedition with the research vessel Petrel , reported that he had located the ship at a depth of 5500 m and found the number "35" on the ship's side. The ship remains the property of the US Navy and its exact location in the Philippine Sea remains confidential. The 75 m long Petrel had an autonomous underwater vehicle REMUS6000, which could dive 6000 m deep, as well as a 16 man crew and had to search 600 square miles (1554 km 2 ).
At the time the wreck was found, 22 of those rescued in the sinking were still alive.
Military court ruling
The commandant of the Indianapolis , Charles B. McVay III , was convicted by a military tribunal in November 1945 for endangering the ship for allegedly failing to perform so-called zigzag maneuvers. McVay (* 1898) committed suicide in November 1968 with the rank of rear admiral .
On October 30, 2000, at the urging of the Indianapolis survivors' organization, the United States Congress cleared him of this charge. The main reason for this was the initiative of the twelve-year-old student Hunter Scott, who lived in Pensacola, Florida. As part of a history project by the non-profit organization National History Day (NHD) of his school, the boy interviewed nearly 150 survivors of the Indianapolis fall and checked 800 documents. His testimony before the US Congress had drawn national attention to the matter.
Others
The Indianapolis is in the movie Jaws mentioned. While the fisherman Quint, the marine biologist Matt Hooper and the police chief Martin Brody are on the hunt for the great white shark , Quint explains that he was a member of the Indianapolis crew when it transported the Hiroshima bomb and was subsequently sunk by a submarine. However, the date of Quint's sinking is given about four weeks too early (June 29, 1945).
The sinking of Indianapolis was set in 1991 with the film Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the USS Indianapolis (Operation Shark - Silently Death Comes) with Stacy Keach as Captain McVay.
In 2015 the film USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage , directed by Mario van Peebles , was shot. The film premiered on August 24, 2016 in the Philippines. Despite the star cast (including Nicolas Cage ), the reviews were rather mixed.
Web links
- www.ussindianapolis.org (Eng.)
- The USS Indianapolis on history.navy.mil ( Memento from December 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- USS Indianapolis at navsource.org (Eng.)
Footnotes
- ↑ The Japanese rank Taisa corresponds to the German rank of captain at sea . The prefix Kaigun indicates that it is a naval officer.
- ↑ Joachim Wätzig: The Japanese Fleet - From 1868 to today . Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89488-104-6 . P. 183
- ↑ Wreck of “USS Indianapolis” discovered after 72 years orf.at, August 20, 2017, accessed August 20, 2017. - No emergency call.
- ^ I spent four days in the water listening to the screams of 600 men being ripped apart by sharks. August 1, 2019, Retrieved August 2, 2019 (UK English).
- ^ "Ocean of Terror", documentary
- ↑ http://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/wissen/geschichte/id_81928146/-uss-indianapolis-us-schiffswrack-aus-dem-zweiten-weltkrieg-entdeck.html
- ↑ Wreckage From USS Indianapolis Located In Philippine Sea paulallen.com, August 19, 2017, accessed January 29, 2020.
- ↑ Hydroid's REMUS 6000 Plays Key Role in the Discovery of the USS Indianapolis Wreckage Kongsberg.com, August 30, 2017, accessed May 28, 2020.
- ↑ USS Indianapolis
- ↑ VHS cassette
- ^ Christian Horn: USS Indianapolis: Men Of Courage. In: filmstarts.de. Retrieved August 20, 2017 .