I'd read about the sinking of the Indianapolis, but didn't know about this. Article here.


Mochitsura Hashimoto, center, former Japanese sub commander, testifies at the Dec. 13, 1945, session of the Navy court-martial in Washington, trying Capt. Charles B. McVay III. (Byron Rollins/AP/AP)

"...Initially, Navy prosecutors tried to charge McVay with two counts of negligence: “failure to abandon ship in a timely manner” and “hazarding his ship” by failing to steer her in diagonal lines, a since-abandoned defensive maneuver known as zigzagging.

But the prosecutors soon realized they could not prove the first charge because the ship sank so quickly. So they put all their effort into making the second charge stick. McVay had already admitted that the Indy had not been zigzagging at the time of the attack, citing weather. The Navy insisted on proving that his lack of doing so had been consequential.

Among the list of witnesses the prosecution called to testify against McVay was none other than the submarine commander who had sunk the Indy in the first place: Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto. The decision caused an uproar among members of the press and politicians alike....

...During his testimony, he was asked to confirm that the Indy had not been zigzagging at the time he fired upon her — a point he readily conceded. But he went on to seemingly mock the maneuver by explaining that zigzagging would have made “no change” in the way he fired the torpedoes and that he would have sunk the defenseless ship either way.

Despite the unexpected blow that Hashimoto’s testimony had been to the prosecution, McVay was still convicted of hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag.

“The conviction meant that of the almost 400 U.S. captains whose ships had been sunk during the war, McVay was the only one to have been court-martialed,” Stanton said. Indeed, he was the only captain in the entire history of the Navy to be court-martialed whose ship was sunk by an act of war....

The survivors gathered signatures and lobbied members of Congress in visit after visit to Washington... it was up to Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and former Navy secretary, to decide whether to take the exoneration resolution to the Senate floor for a vote.

For several months, Vincent said, Warner had opposed the measure and been “utterly immovable” until he received a letter from the most unlikely of people: Mochitsura Hashimoto.

Once again, 54 years after he’d testified at McVay’s court-martial, the submarine commander was coming to his old enemy’s defense. Hashimoto told Warner that he wanted to join the “brave men who survived the sinking of the Indianapolis ... in urging that your national legislature clear their captain’s name.” He added: “Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its consequences. Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction.”

His heartfelt words were enough to soften Warner’s resolve. “With the addition of Hashimoto’s voice,” Vincent said, “it was as though the entire matter had reached a kind of cosmic critical mass, and Warner realized it was time to finally lay it to rest.”

With Warner at last allowing the resolution to be considered, Congress voted to exonerate McVay on Oct. 12, 2000. Hashimoto died 13 days later....

I believe McVay committed suicide before he was exonerated.
All around a very sad incident.

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“Look life in its iron face”

Very interesting. I either completely missed that or managed to wipe it from the memory bank. Thanks for posting that.

I highly recommend the book In Harm’s Way by Doug Stanton.

Great account of this tragic series of events.

I’m of the opinion that Captain McVay was screwed by the Navy, ultimately leading to his suicide.

But I understand it’s a complex issue, and other viewpoints are equally valid

I remember this very well. A lot of newsprint followed the sinking. Thank God they had already delivered the bomb earlier.

Someone ALWAYS has to shoulder the blame. If a plane crashes and they find nothing to explain it, they write it off as pilot error.

I read that article this morning.

I don't think other viewpoints are equally valid. The article makes clear that the captain was screwed. The Navy scapegoated him, and as a result he committed suicide in the late 60s. It was a campaign by his own men to exonerate him, buttressed by the testimony of the Japanese sub commander, in 1945 and 54 years later in 1999, that ultimately led to his exoneration by Congress in 2000, two weeks before the Japanese captain's death.

Imagine the change in history if the USS Indianapolis had been sunk on its way TO Tinian instead of after leaving it.

There were only two available bombs; Little Boy, of which the Indianapolis was carrying the Uranium core and other components, and Fat Man, the Plutonium bomb whose design had been tested at Trinity Site. Fat Man was delivered by airplane to Tinian four days after the Little Boy components were delivered, and two days before Indianapolis was sunk. Had the Little Boy not been available, there would not have been a second bomb available after Fat Man was used. The war could possibly have continued for some period, although there are arguments that Japan was ready to capitulate and a second bomb would not have mattered. In any case, the entire history book from that point would have read differently.

Ok, what date did the Indy get sunk? What date did the WAR END?

30 July 1945. 2 September 1945.

Indianapolis was sunk July 30, 1945, a full week before Little Boy was dropped. The Japanese surrender was announced by Hirohito on August 15, and the unconditional surrender was signed September 2nd.

USS Indianapolis sinking was not known about for 3-1/2 days, which would have made that August 2nd.

Here's the timeline

Attached Images

submarine-USS-Indianapolis-Japanese-July-30-1945.jpg (134.8 KB, 29 views)

Before the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no one thought two bombs would end the war. Most certainly, not the two men in charge of the Manhattan Project. Three days after the Trinity Test, General Groves wrote to Oppenheimer that it would be necessary to drop Little Boy and Fat Man and possibly two more Fat Man bombs.

The pilot of the plane that dropped Little Boy, Colonel Paul Tibbets, told varied accounts. According to his earliest recollection, it would take five atomic bombs to force surrender. He had fifteen bombers and trained crews ready to go in case they needed to drop more atomic bombs during the war.

There is evidence that a 3rd bomb would be ready to used as early as August 19th, 1945. Archival records show a third bomb was under assembly at Tinian in the Mariana Islands where the Enola Gay and Bockscar had flown from, with the main plutonium core about to be shipped from the U.S. On August 15, however, just as the plutonium was about to be sent to Tinian, news of the Japanese surrender came through and its loading was stopped.

A transcript of a top-level call between two military experts on August 13 reveals details of this “third shot.” It also confirmed that a vast production line of about 12 other atomic bombs was being readied for additional continuous strikes against other key targets.

It was agreed this next bomb would be available to be dropped on August 19, with a schedule of further bombs available throughout September and October.

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Live long and prosper

According to the article:

I do believe it was made into a movie staring Nicolas Cage. Very upsetting. Hard to believe the Navy would throw a man like that under the bus.

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Real men love cats!

Especially at that time in the war. It’s not like we were losing.

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“Look life in its iron face”

The Navy was looking for a scapegoat, and it certainly didn't wish to hear from a Japanese submarine captain that zig-zagging would have done no good. The simple fact is with the right geometry and the Long Lance torpedo, there was no escape.

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Release the Kraken

The Navy had issued “ no need to zig zag”, look it up.

You would be correct.

I knew there were more bombs in the works, but didn't know how soon they would be available. All the while, the conventional war would continue.

From the Congressional Record in 2000:

"... the second charge, failure to zigzag, including the phrase ``in good visibility,'' became the basis for his conviction. In other words, failure to zigzag in good visibility became the basis for his conviction, one which effectively destroyed his career as a naval officer.

Let's look at the validity of that charge. Captain McVay sailed from Guam with orders to zigzag at his discretion. Shortly before midnight on July 29, 1945, the day before, with visibility severely limited--you zigzag in clear weather--visibility severely limited, and with every reason to believe the waters through which he is sailing were safe, McVay exercised discretion with an order to cease zigzagging and retired to his cabin, leaving orders to the officer of the deck to wake him if the weather conditions changed.

Whether weather conditions changed is debatable. Some survivors say it did. Some were not sure. But survivors were unanimous in depositions taken shortly after their rescue that it was very dark prior to and at the time of the attack; that the visibility was poor. Chief Warrant Officer Hines, for example, stated he could hardly see the outlines of the turrets on the ship. His and other similar depositions were not made available to Captain McVay's defense counsel.

Again, why not? The Navy maintained, and still does today, that the visibility was good when the Indianapolis was spotted and subsequently torpedoed and sunk that night, ignoring the sworn statements of those who were there when it happened; ignoring them. Why is this important? It is important because there were no Navy directives in place then, or today, which either ordered or even recommended zigzagging at night in poor visibility. The order to zigzag was discretionary even if the weather was poor.

Moreover, in voicing opposition to Captain McVay's court-martial, Admiral Nimitz, in charge of the Pacific Fleet, pointed out:

'The rule requiring zigzagging would not have applied, in any event, since Captain McVay's orders gave him discretion on that matter and thus took precedence over all other orders.'

This is a point, I might add, which Captain McVay's inexperienced defense counsel never even addressed at the court-martial...."

Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 7 - NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001--Continued There is much more at the link. Search for "zigzag" on the page, and then scroll up to find the beginning of the discussion.

From the Wikipedia article on Hashimoto: