Lost
at Sea
The Sinking of
the USS Indianapolis
Harlan Twible was a regular kid who dreamed of adventure. At the age of 23, Twible had just graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and hoped to serve on a fancy naval aviator or a submarine. Instead, Twible was placed on the USS Indianapolis, or the “Indy,” as its crew came to call it. The Indy was a heavy cruiser and far from the glamorous ship Twible had dreamed of. But the Indy had an important job, as Twible would come to learn, and would forever leave its mark on the history of WWII and the U.S. Navy.
Set a Course for Disaster
On July 26, 1945, the Indy docked on the island of Tinian in the Pacific. The top secret cargo was unloaded, and then the captain, Charles Butler McVay III, received word that the Indy needed to travel to an island in the Philippines. Captain McVay knew the journey would be dangerous, but orders must be obeyed. With their orders in place, Captain McVay, Harlan Twible, and the rest of the crew set a course for their new destination.
The top secret cargo the Indy was delivering to Tinian was part of the atomic bomb that would later be nicknamed "Little Boy."
The Indy left Tinian and made a quick stop in Guam before heading toward the Philippines. Twible and his crewmates looked forward to smooth sailing and went to sleep the night of July 29, 1945, without a care in the world. But things were about to change.
A Few Minutes After Midnight
Hidden in plain sight, a Japanese submarine watched as the USS Indianapolis sailed directly into its path. On July 30, shortly after midnight, the crew of the Indy were thrown from their bunks. The ship had just been hit by two Japanese torpedoes.
Smoke clogged the sky as fire from the ship’s smokestack shot into the air. The Indy quickly began taking on water, and with the electricity out, the ship was in chaos. The crew was able to send out a distress signal, but when Captain McVay saw the damage made by the torpedoes, he made a decision: “Pass the word to abandon ship.”
The Navy was aware that an enemy submarine was in the area but kept the information from Captain McVay.
On the other side of the ship, Twible watched as the Indy began sinking from the bow, tilting the back up into the air. Twible was shocked none of the officers were doing anything, “so I took command and I told them to hang on to anything they could hang on to … then when the tilt became too great …I gave the order to abandon ship.”
The front of a ship is called a bow.
In the Water
Sailors threw themselves into the sea as the Indy continued to sink. In the water, Twible was lucky and found a life jacket and a raft to cling to. Very few life jackets and life rafts had made it into the water. The 900 crewmen who survived were now stranded at sea with no food or water, and many had injuries. To make matters worse, the crew was not alone. They quickly realized they were surrounded by sharks.
One sailor, Gus Kay, recalled how the sharks “stalked for hours, going around and around. Finally, they attacked—they pulled guys right out of the water.” Twible quickly saw a need to help. He organized “shark watches” to keep men together and defend those in the water from any shark attacks.
Where is the Captain?
It is an unspoken rule that a captain must go down with the ship. But what if the living crew would benefit from the survival of their captain? Captain McVay took command while struggling to keep himself above water. The captain quickly began taking inventory of supplies and tried to keep the crew’s spirits up. He sang songs, told stories, and got to know his crew on a personal level.
When asked if an SOS message had been sent, Captain McVay promised the crew help would arrive shortly, all the while hoping that rescue was, indeed, on its way. He hoped the Navy would realize the ship had gone missing.
But as planes flew overhead without seeing or coming to the shipwrecked crew’s aid, the situation proved to be more hopeless than ever.
The Rescue
Finally, four days after the sinking of the Indy, a U.S. pilot flying overhead noticed a large patch of black oil in the water and flew lower to take a look. To his surprise, he saw men in the water as well.
Another pilot, Lieutenant Adrian Marks, was called to the scene and began dropping rafts, but the sharks made it nearly impossible for the men to get to the rafts. Disobeying orders, Marks began landing his plane in the water and pulling men inside the cockpit, tying them onto the wings to keep them from drowning. In total, Marks saved just over 50 men.
The sky turned black as it began to rain, making the rescue difficult as more ships and planes arrived. The rescue lasted several days, and on August 3, Captain McVay and the last survivors were pulled from the water. Only 317 of the Indy’s crewmen survived.
The Aftermath
“We returned to our loved ones [afterward], but we were never the same again. Most were markedly changed. Young boys had become mature old men, aged beyond their years. All because of those days at sea.”—Harlan Twible, ensign, USS Indianapolis
Captain McVay was court-martialed from the Navy. Though the crew admired their captain, the U.S. Navy believed he did not abandon ship fast enough.
In the end, Captain McVay was found not guilty and given a post in a Navy office. For years, families of the deceased crew blamed McVay for the death of their loved ones, though the survivors spoke out about the bravery of their captain. It wasn’t until 2001 that the U.S. Navy publicly cleared Captain McVay of any fault in the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
Twible and the other survivors were hailed as heroes when they returned home to the United States. Twible went on to live a long and fulfilling life after his service in World War II. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 96, but his story lives on as a reminder of the bravery and sacrifice of the sailors who served on the Indy.