Loss of the USS Indianapolis

For John, BLUF:  The sea can be a tester of men.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Moral Lessons From the Crucible of the Sea

From The New York Times, by Author Doug Stanton 27 July 2018.♠

Here is the lede plus five:

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Each summer, as Lake Michigan finally begins to warm, I think of the men of the World War II cruiser Indianapolis and the worst disaster at sea in United States naval history.  I go down to the lake and I wonder:  How would I have survived what they experienced?

I don’t know the answer, but it’s the asking of the question that helps me recalibrate what could be called my moral compass.

On July 30, 1945, just over a month before the end of the war, the ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.  It sank in 12 minutes.  Of the 1,195 men on board, only 316 were alive when help arrived four and a half days later.  Headlines of the disaster deeply disturbed Americans:  How could this have happened so close to the war’s end?

Today, only 14 of those men are still living, and each July they meet in Indianapolis for a reunion, as they have periodically since 1960, to gather around memories of shipmates who were lost at sea and those survivors who have recently passed away.

By the way, the USS INDIANAPOLIS was the ship that delivered the components for the Little Boy nuclear device, delivered on Hiroshima by the B-29 Enola Gay on 6 August 1945.

Here is the Lesson Learned:

When I ask the survivors about this ordeal’s effect on their lives, they consistently remark that since their rescue, they’ve “never had a bad day.”

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Mr Stanton wrote the story of the sinking go the By the way, the USS INDIANAPOLIS,In Harm's Way:  The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors.