USS Indianapolis

     On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis (CA-34) was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Pacific and sank within 12 minutes in shark-infested waters. Of a crew that totaled 1,196, only 317 survived.
     Four days earlier the USS Indianapolis had delivered critical parts of the first atomic bomb to Tinian Island. The mission was top secret and most of the crew did not know the real identity of the cargo that was carried. After leaving Tinian Island, the heavy cruiser had orders to meet the battleship USS Idaho in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines for the invasion of Japan.
     Halfway between Guam and Leyte Gulf, after midnight on July 30, a Japanese torpedo struck and split the ship in two with a tremendous explosion. About 300 men were trapped inside the ship, while another 900 jumped or crawled overboard into the sea. Many died from drowning, shark attacks, injuries from the explosion and exhaustion. The survivors were in the water four days before help arrived.
      The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Sixty percent of the city was destroyed and there were about 130,000 casualties. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on  August 9, 1945.
     After the rescue of the USS Indianapolis survivors, the ship's captain, Charles McVay, was court-martialed for failing to steer a zigzag course and avoid enemy submarines in the area. McVay was the only Navy commander to be court-martialed for losing a ship during WW2. After the court-martial, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted Captain McVay's sentence and restored him to active duty. McVay retired in 1949. During a period of depression, he committed suicide in 1968. Surviving crew members, for the most part, believed that Captain McVay had been made a scapegoat for the tragic sinking of the ship.
     In October 2000, 55 years after the USS Indianapolis was sunk, Congress cleared Captain McVay's name. President Clinton signed the resolution. In the following year, 2001, the Secretary of the Navy ordered McVay's record cleared of all wrongdoing.