Peter C. Luebke - Grave Misfortune: The USS Indianapolis Tragedy

FM-1. Final plans for the Portland-class heavy cruiser Indianapolis (CA-35), 3 January 1933 (inboard profile).

RG 19, NARA II, College Park, MD

Published by
Naval History and Heritage Command
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060
www.history.navy.mil

Book design by Jessica Craney

U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL EDITION NOTICE

Use of ISBN
This is an official U.S. Government edition of this publication and is herein identified to certify its authenticity. This titles print edition is cataloged under ISBN 978-1-943604-26-5. A Section 508-compliant PDF is cataloged under ISBN 978-1-943604-27-2. The titles e-book edition is cataloged under ISBN 978-1-943604-38-8. The titles Mobi edition is cataloged under ISBN 978-1-943604-39-5.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov; Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402-0001

To those touched by the tragedy of the loss of USS Indianapolis

This work is dedicated to the Sailors and Marines who lost their lives on the final voyage of USS Indianapolis and to those who survived the torment at sea following its sinking. The good seamanship of these men brought the successful delivery of components for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, contributing to the end of the Second World War. This book is also dedicated to the crews of the rescue ships that saved survivors lives, identified the dead, and provided a proper burial at sea to those lost; to the air crews that provided critical rescue support; and to the medical staff at sea and on shore that tended to survivors. Finally, it is dedicated to those families that lost the irreplaceable and to those whose loved ones lived with the scars of their ordeal for the remainder of their lives.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONT MATTER

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

POSTSCRIPT

METHODOLOGY AND SECURITY STATEMENT

This volume presents the final chapter of Indianapoliss decorated service history using primary source documents. Documents were carefully selected to represent the whole story of the final months of Indianapolis. This volume should not be considered the definitive documentary history of Indianapolis. If the entirety of rescue deck logs, war diaries, after-action reports, trial transcripts, investigation reports, and correspondence were presented in one volume, it would be thousands of pages in length. This volume is a representative sample of those documents and will lead those who want to learn more about Indianapolis to the pertinent archival collections.

All documents in this volume are from public archives and have been declassified by the proper declassification authorities. Although these documents are publicly available, all street addresses and service numbers have been silently deleted in accordance with privacy laws. Names of historical actors were kept original, with explanatory notes as necessary. All efforts to maintain transparency have been taken.

The documents are transcribed and presented as closely to their original form as possible. To maintain the voice of the writer, spelling in all correspondence was left as written. In the source notes for documents, editorial codes tell readers the type of document (a listing of these abbreviations is found below). It is noted in the source note when portions of the documents were omitted due to redundancy, space limitations, or content. When sections have been omitted from the middle parts of a document, ellipses within square brackets appear to show where material was not included; omissions from the start or end of documents have been done silently, with notation in the source note. Minor formatting changes were made to memoranda and lists for ease of reading. For example, many documents were typed entirely in capitals; here the capitalization has been rendered normally. In addition, some minor stylistic changes have been used, such as standardizing italicization of ships names. Square brackets have been used within the text to indicate where text or explanation not found in the original has been inserted; in most cases explanation or additional information appears in an endnote. Intelligence and radio dispatches were also formatted for readability; key information such as sender, recipient, date, precedence, and so forth was kept in the transcriptions and other information related to decoding has been placed in an explanatory endnote. Spelling and grammar were kept as was in the original document unless corrections were absolutely necessary for understanding. It is noted whenever these changes were made, either with the square brackets or in a footnote.

The story of Indianapolis is not an entirely positive one for the U.S. Navy, but as this volume demonstrates, failures were studied and immediately addressed. So as to not repeat failures, or forget the lessons learned, the accurate narrative of Indianapolis must be readily available to the Navy and American public.

Document Codes

TDTyped Document

TDCTyped Document Copy

TDSTyped Document Signed

TDSCTyped Document Signed Copy

TRTranscription

TRCTranscription Copy

ALAutographed Letter

ALSAutographed Letter Signed

TLTyped Letter

TLCTyped Letter Copy

TLSTyped Letter Signed

TLSCTyped Letter Signed Copy

COMMANDING OFFICERS, WWII RECORD, AND SUMMARY OF FINAL CREW