Charles B. McVay III

Rear Admiral Charles Butler McVay III (July 30, 1898 – November 6, 1968) was the Commanding Officer of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) when it was lost in action in 1945, resulting in massive loss of life. He was the only commanding officer of a warship in the history of the U.S. Navy court-martialed for negligence resulting in the loss of his ship during wartime. After years of mental health problems, he committed suicide. Following years of efforts by some survivors and others to clear his name, Captain McVay was posthumously exonerated by the United States Congress in 2001.

In 1978, the events surrounding McVay's court-martial were dramatized in The Failure to ZigZag by playwright John B. Ferzacca. Actor Stacy Keach portrayed McVay in the 1991 made-for-television movie Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, which depicted the ordeal of the men of the Indianapolis during her last voyage.

Education and career
Charles Butler McVay III was born in Ephrata, Pennsylvania on July 30, 1898 to a Navy family. His father, Charles Butler McVay Jr., had commanded the tender USS Yankton (1893) during the cruise of the Great White Fleet (1907–1909), was an admiral in the United States Navy during World War I, and served as Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic Fleet the early 1930s. Charles III was a 1920 graduate of the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Before taking command of the Indianapolis in November 1944, Captain McVay was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C., the Allies' highest intelligence unit. Earlier in World War II, he was awarded the Silver Star for displaying courage under fire.

Captain McVay led the ship through the invasion of Iwo Jima, then the bombardment of Okinawa in the spring of 1945, during which Indianapolis anti-aircraft guns shot down seven enemy planes before the ship was struck by a kamikaze on March 31, inflicting heavy casualties, including 13 dead, and penetrating the ship's hull. McVay returned the ship safely to Mare Island in California for repairs.

Sinking of the Indianapolis
Later that year, Indianapolis received orders to carry parts and nuclear material to be used in the atomic bombs which were soon to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Tinian. After delivering her top secret cargo, the ship was en route to report for further duty off Okinawa.

Early in the morning of July 30, 1945, she was attacked by the JAPANESE SUBMARINE I-58 under Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto. Commander Hashimoto launched six torpedoes and hit the Indianapolis twice, the first removing over forty feet of her bow, the second hitting the starboard side at frame forty (below the bridge). The Indianapolis immediately took a fifteen degree list, capsized and sank within 12 minutes. Of the crew of 1,196 men, 879 men died. It was the worst disaster at sea during the entire war for the US Navy.

Delayed rescue
About 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the initial attack. The rest of the crew, more than 880 men, were left floating in the water trying to survive without lifeboats until the rescue was completed four days (100 hours) later. Because of Navy protocol regarding secret missions, the ship was not reported "overdue" and the rescue only came after survivors were spotted by pilot Lieutenant Wilber (Chuck) Gwinn and co-pilot Lieutenant Warren Colwell on a routine patrol flight. It has been part of folklore that most of the casualties of the survivors in the water were due to shark attacks; however, most died from injuries sustained aboard the ship, dehydration, exhaustion, and the result of drinking salt water. Only 317 men survived. The tale was introduced to a new generation by way of Quint's monologue in the 1975 movie Jaws.

The seas had been moderate, but visibility was not good. Indianapolis had been steaming at 15.7 knots (29 km/h). When the ship did not reach Leyte on the 31st, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. This omission was officially recorded later as "due to a misunderstanding of the Movement Report System".

It was not until 10:25 on August 2 that the survivors were sighted, mostly held afloat by life jackets, although there were a few rafts which had been cut loose before the ship went down. They were sighted by a plane on routine patrol; the pilot, LT Wilbur C. Gwinn, first spotted the oil slick and survivors in the water at about 11 a.m. on 2 August 1945 and radioed for help. A Catalina flying boat was directed to assist and arrived at about 3:30 p.m. En route, it passed over the destroyer escort Cecil J. Doyle and informed the captain of the distress call. On his own authority, Captain W. Graham Claytor, Jr., diverted his ship to the scene, shining some searchlights on the survivors in the water and others straight up as a guide to other rescue vessels. Arriving hours ahead of the Doyle, Marks' crew began dropping rubber rafts and supplies. While so engaged, they observed men being attacked by sharks. Disregarding standing orders not to land at sea, Marks landed and began taxiing to pick up the stragglers and lone swimmers who were at greatest risk of shark attack. Learning the men were the crew of the Indianapolis, he radioed the news, requesting immediate assistance. The Doyle responded she was enroute. When the fuselage of his aircraft was filled to capacity, Lt Marks had additional survivors lashed to the wings. All in all, his crew rescued 56 sailors that day, even though the wings of the PBY Catalina were so damaged that it had to be sunk. The Doyle arrived a few hours later to rescue 93 and recover 21 bodies. Other ships arrived during the night to complete the rescue; the Doyle was the last to leave on 8 August.

Future U.S. Secretary of the Navy W. Graham Claytor Jr. was commander of the destroyer escort USS Cecil J. Doyle (DE-368). After receiving the location from the seaplane, without orders, Captain Claytor took the initiative to speed to the area to check the reports of men floating in the water. As he approached at night, he turned searchlights on the water and straight up on low clouds, lighting up the night and exposing his ship to possible attack by Japanese submarines, but rescuing almost 100 survivors of the sunken cruiser. Destroyers USS Madison (DD-425) and USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) were ordered from Ulithi, and the destroyer escort USS Dufilho (DE-423) with attack transports USS Bassett (APD-73) and USS Ringness (LPR-100) from the Philippine Frontier to the rescue scene, searching thoroughly for any survivors.

Upon completion of rescue operations, August 8, a radius of 100 miles (160 km) had been combed by day and by night. However, the effort was able to save only 316 of the crew of 1,196 men.

Controversy
McVay was wounded but survived and was among those rescued. He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took five days to rescue his men, and he never received an answer. The Navy long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because it was thought by one commander to be a Japanese ruse, another had given orders not to be disturbed, and a third was drunk.

There was much controversy over the incident. In November 1945, McVay was court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." Hashimoto, the Japanese submarine commander who had sunk the Indianapolis, was on record as describing visibility at the time as fair (which is corroborated by the fact that he was able to target and sink the Indianapolis in the first place). American submarine experts testified that "zigzagging" was a technique of negligible value in eluding enemy submarines. Hashimoto also testified to this effect. Despite that testimony, the official ruling was that visibility was good, and the court held McVay responsible for failing to zigzag.

An additional point of controversy is evidence that the admirals in the United States Navy were primarily responsible for placing the ship in harm's way. For instance, Captain McVay requested a destroyer escort for the Indianapolis, but his request was denied because the priority for destroyers at the time was escorting transports to Okinawa, and picking up downed pilots in B-29 raids on Japan. Also, naval command assumed McVay's route would be safe at that point in the war. Many ships, including most destroyers, were equipped with submarine detection equipment, but the Indianapolis was not so equipped, which casts the decision to deny McVay's request for an escort as a tragic mistake.

On 24 July 1945, just six days prior to the sinking of the Indianapolis, the destroyer USS Underhill (DE-682) had been attacked and sunk in the area by Japanese submarines. Yet McVay was never informed of this event, and several others, in part due to issues of classified intelligence. McVay was warned of the potential presence of Japanese subs, but not of the actual confirmed activity.

After the torpedo attack, no rescue was initiated, because the Navy did not track the Indianapolis.

Although 700 ships of the U.S. Navy were lost in combat in World War II, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed for the loss of his ship.

It was widely felt that he had been a fall guy for the Navy. Despite McVay's promotion to rear admiral when he retired in 1949, the conviction effectively ended McVay's career.

On 6 November 1968, McVay committed suicide by shooting himself with his service revolver at his home in Litchfield, Connecticut, holding in his hand a toy sailor given to him by his father. He was found just outside of his back porch by his gardener. Though a note was not left, McVay was known by those close to him to have suffered from loneliness, particularly after losing his wife to cancer. McVay also struggled throughout his life from vicious letters and phone calls he periodically received from grief-stricken relatives of dead crewmen aboard the Indianapolis.

Exoneration
USS Indianapolis (CA-35) survivors organized, and many spent years attempting to clear their skipper's name. Many people, from son Charles McVay IV (1925-2012), to author Dan Kurzman, who chronicled the Indianapolis incident in Fatal Voyage, to members of Congress, long believed Captain McVay was unfairly convicted. Paul Murphy, president of the USS Indianapolis Survivors Organization, said: "Capt. McVay's court-martial was simply to divert attention from the terrible loss of life caused by procedural mistakes which never alerted anyone that we were missing."

Over fifty years after the incident, a 12-year-old schoolboy in Pensacola, Florida, Hunter Scott, was instrumental in raising awareness of the miscarriage of justice carried out at the captain's court-martial. As part of a school project for the National History Day program, the young man interviewed nearly 150 survivors of the Indianapolis sinking and reviewed 800 documents. His testimony before the US Congress brought national attention to the situation.

In October 2000, the United States Congress passed a resolution that Captain McVay's record should reflect that "he is exonerated for the loss of the USS Indianapolis." President Clinton also signed the resolution.

In July 2001, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England ordered McVay's record cleared of all wrongdoing.