Wreckage of the USS Indianapolis, a renowned Pacific Fleet cruiser that delivered the first atomic bomb to an airfield in the Northern Marianas during World War II and then was sunk by a Japanese submarine in shark-infested waters, has been found on the floor of the Philippine Sea.
The discovery was made Friday and announced Saturday by a research team led by Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen.
The wreck lies in 18,000 feet of water and is in pieces, but with its anchor still in place and an identifying spare parts container lying on the seabed.
The Indianapolis, skippered by Honolulu resident Capt. Charles B. McVay III, was torpedoed on July 30, 1945, only weeks before the end of the war, and sank within minutes.
Of the 1,196 sailors and Marines embarked, about 800 made it into the water.
But the Navy never realized the ship was missing and days passed before the survivors were spotted by routine air patrol.
During that time another 500 died from exposure, dehydration and — infamously — sharks. So horrific was the predation that the sinking and its aftermath were recounted in a scene in the 1975 movie “Jaws.”
The team used high-tech underwater equipment during its search, mounted aboard Allen’s 250-foot research vessel R/V Petrel.
“To be able to honor the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role in ending World War II is truly humbling,” Allen said in a statement. “As Americans, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the crew for their courage, persistence and sacrifice in the face of horrendous circumstances. While our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue, I hope everyone connected to this historic ship will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long in coming.”
The discovery was hailed by the Navy History and Heritage Command.
“Even in the worst defeats and disasters there is valor and sacrifice that deserves to never be forgotten,” said Sam Cox, director of the command, based at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., in a statement joining Allen’s. “They can serve as inspiration to current and future sailors enduring situations of mortal peril. There are also lessons learned and, in the case of the Indianapolis, lessons relearned, that need to be preserved and passed on, so the same mistakes can be prevented and lives saved.”
John Woolston, a survivor of the USS Indianapolis who lives in Makiki, welcomed the news with emotion.
“This is something we expected to happen at any minute, but when it actually happens you still get a little spurt,” said Woolston, 93. “You feel a little impatient because we’ve been waiting so very long.”
Woolston, who has lived in Honolulu for 28 years, was one of only 317 sailors and Marines aboard the Indianapolis to survive both the initial sinking and the four harrowing days in the open ocean that followed before help arrived. Today he is one of only 19 of those servicemen still alive.
“It was one hell of a sacrifice for the men on board,” he said. “And two-thirds of it was unnecessary. They should have seen to it that we were looked for as soon as we were hit.”
Woolston said he hopes the discovery will lead to answers for long-held questions about what happened that day.
“I’m looking forward to their evaluation now that we know where it is,” he said. “We’ll know more about what happened if we can actually look at it.”
Although born in Pennsylvania, Capt. McVay, a 1920 graduate of the Naval Academy, had strong ties to Hawaii, having married Kinau Wilder, granddaughter of Samuel Gardner Wilder, a shipping magnate and minister of the interior under King Kalakaua.
After delivering the Little Boy atomic bomb — destined for Hiroshima aboard the B-29 bomber Enola Gay — to Tinian atoll, his ship was attacked by the Japanese submarine I-58, which fired six torpedoes. Two of them hit, the first one right in the bow.
McVay ultimately was court-martialed for the incident and was found guilty of not “zigzagging” to create a tougher target for subs. He is the only Navy skipper to have been court-martialed for losing a ship sunk by act of war.
He was allowed to retire as a rear admiral, but committed suicide with his service pistol in 1968 at his home in Litchfield, Conn.
His son, the late Honolulu promoter Kimo Wilder McVay, and others — including a 12-year-old Florida schoolboy, Hunter Scott — sought for years to have McVay vindicated. That happened in October 2000 by congressional resolution, backed in the House by U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie and signed by President Bill Clinton.
Allen said only part of the debris field was found and that the Petrel will stay on station looking for the rest.
“The Petrel and its capabilities, the technology it has and the research we’ve done, are the culmination of years of dedication and hard work,” said Robert Kraft, director of subsea operations for the expedition. “We’ve assembled and integrated this technology, assets and unique capability into (an) operating platform, which is now one amongst very few on the planet.”
A key factor in the discovery was information that surfaced in 2016 when Richard Hulver, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command, pointed to a new search area west of the original presumed position. That was based on identifying a naval landing craft that had sighted the Indianapolis hours before it was torpedoed.
With that information, the research team developed a new position and search pattern, which still covered 600 square miles of ocean.
The location of the wreckage will be kept confidential.
While its place in history is secure, the Indianapolis also occupies an unshakable perch in popular culture.
In “Jaws,” as his boat creaks at anchor, Captain Quint, played by Robert Shaw, tells police Chief Brody and researcher Hooper, played by Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, about surviving the Indianapolis disaster:
“Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about half an hour. Tiger, 13-footer. You know how you know that when you’re in the water, chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn’t know was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us as overdue for a week. Very first light, chief, sharks come cruising.”
Star-Advertiser reporter Michael Tsai contributed to this report.
