A Tragic Anniversary: Remembering the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis

On July 30, 1945, in the waning days of World War II, the USS Indianapolis met a tragic fate in the Philippine Sea—one of the worst naval disasters in U.S. history. The heavy cruiser had just completed a top-secret mission, delivering critical components for the atomic bomb later dropped on Hiroshima, when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, the I-58, under the command of Mochitsura Hashimoto.

The attack occurred shortly after midnight. Two torpedoes struck the Indianapolis on its starboard side, triggering a violent explosion that tore the ship apart. In just 12 minutes, the vessel sank beneath the surface, taking approximately 300 of its 1,195 crew members down with it.

For the nearly 900 men who survived the initial sinking, the true nightmare was just beginning. Adrift in the open ocean without lifeboats or adequate supplies, the survivors endured four harrowing days and nights exposed to the elements, dehydration, saltwater poisoning, and relentless shark attacks. With no distress signal effectively sent or responded to, rescue efforts were delayed until a routine patrol aircraft spotted the floating men by chance on August 2.

By the time help arrived, only 316 men remained alive. The rest had succumbed to injuries, exposure, drowning, or predation—making it the deadliest disaster at sea in U.S. Navy history not involving a hospital ship.

In the aftermath, controversy surrounded the treatment of the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Charles B. McVay III. Despite surviving the ordeal, McVay was court-martialed in late 1945 and convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag,” a maneuver intended to evade submarine attacks. Many Navy officers, including his Japanese adversary, Hashimoto, testified that zigzagging would have made no difference. Nonetheless, McVay became a scapegoat.

Haunted by grief and hounded by letters from families of lost crewmen, McVay died by suicide in 1968 at the age of 70. He was found at his home in Connecticut with a toy sailor in one hand and his Navy-issued revolver in the other.

For decades, survivors of the Indianapolis held annual reunions in Indianapolis, Indiana, to honor their fallen shipmates and preserve their shared story. The reunions became a sacred tradition, marked by remembrance ceremonies, fellowship, and efforts to seek justice for their captain.

A turning point came in the late 1990s, thanks to Hunter Scott, an 11-year-old Florida middle school student who researched McVay’s court-martial for a National History Day project. His meticulous work—drawing on interviews with survivors and records from the National Archives—sparked renewed public and congressional interest. Scott eventually testified before Congress, helping build momentum for a formal exoneration.

In October 2000, President Bill Clinton signed legislation clearing Captain McVay’s name, more than half a century after the disaster. It was a long-overdue measure of justice—driven in part by a boy too young to vote, but wise enough to recognize an injustice.

Despite the scale of the tragedy, the sinking of the Indianapolis remained relatively obscure in popular culture until 1975, when actor Robert Shaw, portraying shark hunter Quint in Jaws, delivered a haunting monologue recounting the ordeal. Though fictionalized, the scene reintroduced the story to a generation of Americans, where it has remained ever since.

The USS Indianapolis unleashes a barrage from her 8-inch deck guns in response to an incoming wave of enemy aircraft. As a fast cruiser, she played a vital role in close-quarters combat against both aircraft and enemy vessels, lending her firepower to all 10 major naval campaigns of World War II before her sinking on July 30, 1945.

Today, the legacy of the Indianapolis lives on—through survivor testimony, historical remembrance, and the 2017 discovery of its wreckage in the Philippine Sea. Each July 30, the nation honors the bravery, sacrifice, and brotherhood of its crew—and remembers the painful cost of silence, secrecy, and war.