Throughout the history of the US Navy. Shortly before the end of the war, the American cruiser Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine. Two torpedoes fired by the submarine claimed the lives of more than nine hundred sailors.

Volunteers in the Navy

After the horror that Japanese aircraft unleashed on the American naval base at Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the United States found itself embroiled in the carnage of World War II. Among the allied countries, they were assigned an important role in the conduct of combat operations at sea, and thousands of American boys, inspired by the stream of patriotic speeches that poured into them from radios and from the pages of newspapers, signed up as volunteers for the navy.

Those whose duty station turned out to be the cruiser USS Indianapolis had a special reason for pride, and this is no coincidence. The warship, launched on November 15, 1932, managed to become one of the most famous and prestigious ships. President Theodore Roosevelt invariably preferred him on his sea voyages. Crossing the ocean on board, he made goodwill visits. The deck of the cruiser also remembered many members of royal families and leaders of world politics.

The ship and its captain

The cruiser, even in its size, corresponded to such an exceptional position. Suffice it to say that the deck could easily accommodate two football fields. The total length was 186 m, and the displacement was 12,775 tons. 1,269 people served on this giant. The main striking force was three bow guns with a caliber of 203 mm. In addition, its arsenal included a large number of onboard guns and several anti-aircraft guns.

He also had worthy captains who knew how to accurately and on time carry out any order from the high command, which managed to create a good reputation for the ship. The last of them was Charles Butler McVey, appointed on December 18, 1944, a young and brilliantly proven officer. It was difficult to imagine that it was he who was destined to lead the cruiser Indianapolis on its last voyage.

On the eve of the end of the war

As a result of active hostilities in the spring of 1944, the ships of the American fleet were only a few miles from the coast of Japan. For a decisive offensive, they needed to capture an ideal bridgehead - the island of Okinawa. The awareness of the imminent end of the war and imminent victory raised the morale of the sailors and doubled their strength.

At the same time, their opponents found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. The Japanese not only had most of their fleet destroyed and their ammunition expended, but their entire available reserve of manpower was coming to an end. In this critical situation, their command decided to introduce kamikazes into battle - suicide pilots, fanatics ready to give their lives for the emperor.

A year earlier, a squad of Japanese planes loaded with explosives and piloted by voluntary suicide bombers attacked American warships during the Battle of the Philippines. Then and in the next few months, more than two thousand projectile aircraft made combat sorties, causing significant damage to the US fleet. In view of the current situation, the emperor gave the order to use these weapons again.

Suicide attack

According to documents, the cruiser Indianapolis was attacked by suicide bombers in the early morning of March 31. It was extremely difficult to repel it, because the kamikaze could only be stopped by shooting the plane in the air, and this was not always possible.

Just a few minutes after the start of the battle, one of the planes, diving from the clouds hanging over the sea, crashed into the bow of the cruiser. The subsequent explosion claimed the lives of nine sailors, and the damage it caused forced the command to remove the ship from combat duty and send it to the San Francisco docks for repairs. But, in spite of everything, everyone was in high spirits, because it was the last year of the war - 1945.

The cruiser Indianapolis carries out a secret order

As the surviving participants in those events later said, most of the ship’s crew members were confident that the war was over for them and Japan’s surrender would be signed even before the repairs were completed. But fate decreed otherwise. In early July, while hostilities were still underway, the captain received an order, on the basis of which the cruiser Indianapolis was to take on board a highly secret cargo and deliver it to the specified destination.

Soon two containers were lifted onto the ship, to which armed guards were immediately assigned. In those days, none of the sailors knew what this mysterious cargo contained, and most of them were never destined to find out. But the cruiser, which managed to complete the repairs, according to the order, went to sea and headed for Hawaii. He sailed at a top speed of thirty-four knots and covered the entire route in three days.

Carriers of atomic death

Having reached the destination of the journey, Captain McVey received a radiogram to proceed further to those located at a distance of two thousand miles to the west. The final destination was the island of Tinian, which was one of them. There, with utmost precautions, the containers were removed from the deck and taken ashore.

Now it’s no secret to anyone that they contained uranium cores for atomic bombs, one of which ten days later was dropped on Hiroshima, and its explosion, which, according to the most conservative estimates, killed one hundred and sixty thousand people, made the world tremble. But then no one knew this, and humanity did not imagine all the consequences. It was still a military secret.

The death of the cruiser Indianapolis was preceded by an order received by the captain immediately after unloading the containers. He was instructed to proceed to the western part of the Pacific Ocean to the island of Guam, and then to the Philippines. The war was ending, and the next order was perceived by the crew of the Indianapolis as an invitation to a sea voyage that did not involve any danger.

Captain McVey's mistake

The cruiser Indianapolis left the docks of San Francisco on July 16, and on the same day a submarine, numbered I-58, silently departed from the pier of the Japanese naval base. Its captain, Mochitsura Hashimoto, was an experienced submariner who sailed throughout the war and was accustomed to facing death. This time he took his ship out to hunt for the Americans, who were often deprived of elementary caution by the premonition of an imminent victory.

According to established rules, in a war zone, surface ships must move in zigzags in order to avoid detection by enemy submarines. This is exactly how Captain McVey led his ships throughout the war, but the euphoria of victory that reigned around him played a cruel joke on him. Since there was no information about the presence of enemy submarines in the area, he neglected the usual precautions. This criminal frivolity later became a nightmare that haunted him for the rest of his life.

Submarine chaser

Meanwhile, the echo sounders of the Japanese submarine picked up the sound made by the cruiser's propellers, and this was immediately reported to the commander. Mochitsura Hashimoto ordered torpedoes to be prepared for battle and to follow the ship, choosing the best moment to attack. For the cruiser's crew, this trip was a normal work routine, and no one even suspected that their ship was being pursued by an enemy submarine. This allowed the Japanese to follow the Americans covertly for several more miles.

Finally, when the distance allowed for a combat launch with sufficient confidence of a hit, the Japanese submarine fired two torpedoes at the cruiser. A minute later, through the eyepieces of the periscope, Hashimoto saw a fountain of water shoot up into the sky. This indicated that one of them had achieved the goal. Having completed its combat mission, the submarine disappeared into the depths of the ocean as unnoticed as it had appeared.

Catastrophe

Yes, indeed, unfortunately for the sailors, it was a direct hit. The explosion that occurred in the area of ​​the engine room destroyed the entire crew in it. Water poured into the hole that had formed, and, despite its enormous size, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis began to list to the right side. In this situation, disaster was inevitable, and Captain McVey ordered the crew to abandon ship.

The attack of the submarine, which came as a complete surprise to everyone, the explosion and the subsequent fatal command became the causes of panic and chaos that engulfed the sinking ship. One thousand two hundred crew members simultaneously sought salvation, putting on life jackets as they went and throwing themselves into the water. Surprisingly, it turned out that there were not enough emergency watercraft for everyone - their number did not correspond to the size of the crew. For this reason, most sailors were doomed to spend a long time in the water while waiting for help.

The beginning of a four-day nightmare

Finding themselves in the midst of a huge oil slick spreading around the crippled cruiser, they witnessed the destruction of the ship, which until recently had been considered the beauty and pride of the American fleet. Before their eyes, the cruiser slowly capsized on its side, the bow part completely went under the water, causing the stern to lift up, and, finally, the entire ship, as if having exhausted its last strength in the fight against the ocean, fell into the depths.

On this day, for nine hundred sailors who survived a torpedo attack by a Japanese submarine and found themselves in the middle of the ocean without boats, without drinking water and food, a real tragedy began to unfold. Many were in a state of shock. Cries for help were heard from all sides, but there was no one to provide it. To somehow cheer up the crew, the captain tried to assure everyone that they were on one of the main sea routes and would undoubtedly be discovered soon.

However, everything turned out differently. Since the explosion damaged the ship's radio station and it was not possible to send a distress signal in time, the fleet command did not even suspect what had happened. On the island of Guam, where the cruiser was heading, his absence was explained by a possible change in course and they did not raise the alarm. As a result, four days passed before the planes in distress were accidentally spotted by an American bomber on patrol in the area.

Death Among Sharks

But only a few lived to see this day. In addition to thirst, hunger and hypothermia, sailors were faced with another terrible danger in the open ocean - sharks. At first, several single fins appeared on the surface of the water, then their number increased, and soon the entire space around the sailors was literally swarming with them. Panic began among people. No one knew what to do or how to protect themselves from these ruthless ocean predators.

And the sharks squeezed ever closer into a ring around their victims. They then surfaced, raising their open mouths high above the surface, then again sank into the depths. Suddenly, above the noise of the waves, a piercing human scream was heard, and the water turned red with blood. This served as a signal to the other sharks. They began to grab helpless people and drag them still alive into the depths.

Continuation of the tragedy

The hellish feast either stopped or resumed for three days. Of the nine hundred sailors who found themselves in the water after the tragedy that occurred with the US Navy cruiser Indianapolis, almost half were victims of sharks.

But soon another danger was added to this danger. The fact is that the life jackets, thanks to which the sailors continued to float on the water, were designed to last for three days. Having exhausted their resource, they became saturated with water and lost buoyancy. Thus, death became inevitable.

Rescuers arrive

Only on August 2, that is, on the fourth day of the tragedy, those few who were still alive heard the sound of an airplane overhead. The pilot who discovered them immediately reported to headquarters, and from that moment the rescue operation began. Before the main ships approached the place where the crash of the cruiser Indianapolis occurred, a seaplane arrived and, having made a risky landing among the foaming waves, became a kind of haven for all who managed to survive.

Soon, two ships approached the scene of the tragedy - the destroyer USS Bassett and the hospital ship USS Tranquility, which transported the survivors to Guam, where they received medical care. Of the 1,189 people on board, only 316 survived. The crash of the cruiser Indianapolis cost the rest of the sailors their lives. There were only 17 days left until the end of the war.

Verdict rendered by the tribunal

The tragedy of the cruiser Indianapolis caused a wide resonance among the American and world public. Having barely survived the horrors of the war, people demanded to immediately find and punish those responsible for what happened. The Ministry of Defense demanded that Captain McVeigh be brought to trial, charging him with criminal negligence, as a result of which the ship did not make the zigzag movement prescribed in such cases and became easy prey for an enemy submarine.

By decision of the tribunal, held on December 19, 1945, the captain of the cruiser Indianapolis was demoted in military rank, but avoided prison. It is curious that the former commander of the Japanese submarine Mochitsura Hashimoto, the same one who sent the ill-fated cruiser to the bottom, was invited as a witness in the case. The war was over, and the former enemies were now deciding important legal issues together.

The captain's personal tragedy

The verdict rendered by the tribunal became the reason for numerous disputes. At all levels, voices were heard accusing the fleet command of wanting to shift the blame for the death of the cruiser Indianapolis onto McVey alone and thereby avoid their share of responsibility. It ended, however, that a few months later, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, by personal decree, restored him to his previous rank, and four years later he quietly and quietly sent him into retirement.

However, it was he who was ultimately destined to become another victim, which led to the death of the cruiser Indianapolis. The story of his death was a tragedy in itself. It is known that over the following years, McVey regularly received letters from family members of sailors for whose deaths he was accused. Despite the fact that he was officially cleared of responsibility, many considered him to be the main culprit of the incident. Obviously, these accusations were echoed by the voice of his conscience. Unable to overcome moral torment, Captain McVey shot himself in 1968.

The story of the cruiser Indianapolis again became a topic of discussion in 2000, when the US Congress passed a resolution on the basis of which McVeigh was completely cleared of all previously charged charges. The President of America approved this document with his signature, then a corresponding entry was made in the captain’s personal file, which was stored in the archives of the navy.

In the city of Indianapolis, whose name the deceased cruiser bore, a memorial was created in his honor. Once every two years, on July 30, the day when a Japanese torpedo put an end to the ship’s combat journey, all the surviving participants in the events of those days come to the monument to once again share the pain of a common loss. But time is inexorable, and every year there are fewer and fewer of them.

The sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis is considered the worst disaster in the history of the American Navy. There was no time to send a distress signal from the sinking ship, and the sailors had to wait five days for rescue in the open sea, infested with sharks. Military men and adventurers have been searching for shipwrecks in the Philippine Sea for more than seventy years, but only recently have they been able to unravel the mystery of the missing cruiser. found out how it happened.

Japanese torpedo

On July 30, 1945, the American heavy cruiser Indianapolis was heading towards Leyte Island in the Philippine Sea. The ship was returning from a secret mission: it delivered components of the first nuclear bomb to a base in the Pacific Ocean. In a week it will be dropped on Hiroshima, and in another month Japan will capitulate.

The United States was preparing for the final blow against the enemy, so every ship counted. When the Indianapolis was overtaken by a Japanese submarine, there was no one to help.

The cruiser was hit by two torpedoes. Everything happened so quickly that there was simply no time to send a distress signal or organize an evacuation. In just 12 minutes the ship went under water. 400 people died immediately, another 800 ended up at sea.

Frame: the film “Cruiser”

They waited for rescue for five days. There weren't enough rafts for everyone, and food and drinking water quickly ran out. The survivors ingested motor oil spilled on the sea and died from wounds, poisoning or dehydration.

Desperate people, who had not slept for several days, were gripped by mass hysteria. “I see people lined up in a chain,” recalled ship’s doctor Lewis Haynes. - I ask what is happening. Someone answers: “Doc, there’s an island!” We will take turns sleeping for 15 minutes." They all saw the island. It was impossible to convince them." Another time, one of the sailors imagined the Japanese and a fight broke out. “They were completely insane,” wrote Haynes. “Many people died that night.”

Then the sharks appeared. “It was approaching night, and there were hundreds of sharks around,” said Woody James, another member of the cruiser’s crew. - Screams were heard every now and then, especially towards the end of the day. However, at night they also ate us. In the silence, someone started screaming, which meant the shark had grabbed him.”

On August 2, the remnants of the Indianapolis crew were noticed by the pilot of a flying bomber. Only after this did the rescue operation begin. Of the 1,196 crew members and marines who sailed on the cruiser, only 316 survived.

The Indianapolis Mystery

The location of the ship's sinking remained a mystery for more than 70 years. All the notes that his officers made were drowned, and the logbook of the Japanese submarine was destroyed when its captain decided to surrender to the Americans. One could only rely on the memories of the surviving sailors.

Immediately after the rescue, the captain of the Indianapolis, Charles McVeigh, stated that the cruiser was following exactly the intended course. However, there was no debris in the expected location. Adventurers and treasure hunters have tried many times to find the missing ship. In 2001, one of the expeditions scanned the bottom of the Philippine Sea with sonar - nothing. Four years later, he paid for the search operation. The bathyscaphes descended under the water, but they also returned with nothing.

Indiana Jones was probably right when he said that 70 percent of archeology is library work. The key to the mystery was found not in the depths of the ocean, but on the Internet.

A year ago, historian Richard Culver drew attention to a blog with the memoirs of a World War II veteran who served in the Pacific Fleet. The veteran claimed that on July 30, 1945, he saw the Indianapolis from his landing ship. There were only 11 hours left before the Japanese submarine attack.

Culver knew that Captain McVeigh had also mentioned this meeting. The logbook of a landing ship could contain invaluable information, but where to look for it? No one remembered the ship's number.

Now the historian had a clue - the name of one of the sailors. Culver pulled up the archives and found out where he served. The landing ship LST-779 left Guam on July 27, bound for the Philippines. The Indianapolis left the same port the next day and headed for Leyte.

Culver compared the routes and realized that the Indianapolis was ahead of schedule. That's why no one could find him.

The Forgotten Founder of Microsoft

A ten-seater submarine is hidden in the hold of the 126-meter vessel. “The back of the hull flips open and out comes a submarine,” Allen boasted in an interview. “It’s very similar to movies about.” It was with Octopus that the director dived into the Mariana Trench in a submersible.

The billionaire has long had a weakness for sunken warships. Allen found the Japanese battleship Musashi, which sank in 1944, found the site of the sinking of the Italian destroyer Artigliere and helped raise the bell of the British battlecruiser Hood, sunk at the very beginning of World War II, from the bottom of the Denmark Strait.

When he learned that there was a chance to unravel the mystery of the Indianapolis, he immediately equipped an expedition.

Paul Allen's underwater robots

It was not Octopus who went to look for the missing cruiser, but the research Petrel - the billionaire's new toy. In 2016, he bought a 76-meter vessel designed to find leaks in underwater pipelines and refurbished it with the latest technology. “There are only two or three of these vessels in the world,” says Rob Craft, director of subsea operations at Allen’s company.

Petrel delivered three unmanned underwater vehicles to the Philippine Sea. One of them, Hydroid Remus 6000, is capable of operating at a depth of up to six thousand meters. This is exactly what is needed to search for the Indianapolis, because the depth of the Philippine Sea exceeds five thousand meters.

The Japanese live torpedo was a cylinder with a diameter of 1 m, a length of 14.7 m, and a weight of 8 tons, of which 1250 kg was the warhead. The Kaiten's range was 78 km at a speed of 12 knots; or 23 km at a speed of 30 knots. To deliver to the site of the attack, large I-type submarines were used, on the deck of which six Kaiten guided torpedoes were placed.

When approaching the target, the driver climbed from the boat through a special hatch into the torpedo, where he was locked. Having received an order and information about the direction of movement by telephone from the boat commander, he separated from the submarine and turned on the engine. Approaching the target, the driver adjusted the course using a periscope. Approximately 500 meters from the attacked ship, it turned on full speed and at a depth of 4 meters went to ram. If the driver did not find the target, he would die from suffocation, since the oxygen supply was only enough for an hour, and it was impossible to get out of the torpedo. True, later, “for humanitarian reasons,” they made a device that allowed them to blow themselves up so as not to suffer.

The first attack by a human torpedo took place on November 20, 1944, when one of the initiators of the creation of the Kaiten, midshipman Nishina, broke through to the parking lot of American ships and blew up the large tanker Mississippi (11,300 tons), loaded with 405,000 gallons of aviation gasoline. The explosion, which threw a column of flame to a height of several hundred feet, cost the lives of 50 sailors and officers. Thereafter, while attempting to attack American ships in heavily defended bases, the Japanese lost six carrier boats out of eleven and 55 suicide drivers, most of whom never reached their target. The transports Manzana (1 sailor killed, 20 wounded) and Pondus G. Ross suffered minor damage from nearby explosions. Perhaps one of the torpedoes was responsible for the death of the infantry landing ship LCI-600 (246 tons). American sources vaguely claim that it died from an underwater explosion of unknown origin.

The losses were attributed to a flawed doctrine that called for attacking only protected anchorages and ships near beachheads. The Naval General Staff began to lean toward the idea of ​​transferring attacks to sea communications. According to a number of experts, the difficulties of operating human torpedoes on the open sea should have been compensated for by weaker cover of transports and tankers. For Kaiten, such attacks presented enormous difficulty. Instead of approaching a stationary target in calm water, they had to catch up with ships at sea. The pilot had to rely only on his own small periscope, and in rough weather it was of little use. Although the speed of the torpedo reached 40 knots, which was higher than that of any target, at this speed its range was extremely limited.

Many Western historians consider the sinking of the American heavy cruiser Indianapolis to be the greatest victory of human torpedoes. Thus, in the serious work “Submarines of Foreign Fleets in the Second World War” it is said: “The cruiser Indianapolis (USA). Sunk by man-guided torpedoes." In another source: “The submarine I-58 sank the American cruiser Indianapolis with human torpedoes.” However, the Japanese deny this. The submarine I-58, captain-lieutenant Hashimoto Mochitsura (1909-1968), left Kure on June 18, 1945, with 6 Kaitens on board. Displacement - 1800/2300 tons, main dimensions - 100.6 x 8 x 4.8 m, speed - 20/8 knots, cruising range - 10,000 miles, crew - 64 people, armament - eight 533 mm TA, 120- mm gun.

Commander of "I-58" Lieutenant Commander Hashimoto Motitsura (1909-2000)

Hashimoto was an experienced submariner who sailed throughout the war and was accustomed to facing death. This time he took his ship out to hunt for the Americans, who were often deprived of elementary caution by the premonition of an imminent victory. June 28 at 2 p.m. 00 min. Through his periscope, Hashimoto spotted a large tanker accompanied by a destroyer. He fired two human torpedoes and claimed to have sank both ships. In fact, only the destroyer Lowry received minor damage from the explosion of one of the Kaitens.

A few hours before this attack, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis (USS Indianapolis, CA-35), under the command of Captain First Rank McVey, left Guam for the island of Leyte. The cruiser cut through the humid darkness of the night from July 29 to July 30, 1945, carrying 1,200 crew members on board. Most of them were asleep, only those on watch were awake. And what could a powerful American warship fear in these waters long cleared of the Japanese? It was a powerful modern ship, launched on November 7, 1931 and commissioned on November 15, 1932. Total displacement 12,755 tons, length 185.93 m, beam 20.12 m, draft 6.4 m. The cruiser reached a speed of up to 32.5 knots with a turbine power of 107,000 hp. The ship's armament consisted of nine 203 mm guns in three turrets, eight 127 mm guns and 28 anti-aircraft guns of various calibers. The ship had two catapults and four aircraft.

True, it was possible to run into some stray enemy submarine - according to intelligence data, a certain number of these lone sea wolves were still prowling the waters of the Pacific Ocean in search of unprotected targets for attack - but for a high-speed warship the likelihood of such an encounter is very small (much less than the risk of getting hit by a car when crossing the street in New York). However, such thoughts occupied few people on board the Indianapolis - let the head of these problems hurt the one who is entitled to it - the captain, for example.

The cruiser's commander, Captain Charles Butler McVay III (1898-1968), at forty-six, was an experienced sailor who deservedly found himself on the command bridge of a heavy cruiser. He met the war with Japan with the rank of commander, being the first officer on the cruiser Cleveland, and participated in many battles, including the capture of the islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian and the largest battle in the history of naval warfare at Leyte Gulf; earned the Silver Star. And that night, despite the late hour - eleven in the evening - he did not sleep. Unlike most of his subordinates, McVeigh knew much more than any of them, and this knowledge did not at all add to his peace of mind.

Just two days ago, he completed a top-secret mission - he delivered two atomic bombs to the island of Tinian, which the B-29 was to drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They quickly freed themselves from the special cargo - there was nothing of it at all: a few boxes. People worked quickly and harmoniously, spurred on by strict orders and an unconscious desire to quickly get rid of this mysterious piece of junk along with its gloomy, unresponsive attendants. The heavy cruiser stood in the open roadstead of Tinian for several more hours, awaiting further orders from the headquarters of the commander of the Pacific Fleet. And closer to noon the order came: “Proceed to Guam, and then to the Philippines.” The war was ending, and the next order was perceived by the crew as an invitation to a sea voyage that did not involve any danger.

On the night of June 29, the cruiser sailed unaccompanied; not only, as if tempting fate, McVey refused to use the zigzag. According to established rules, in a war zone, surface ships must move in zigzags in order to avoid being attacked by enemy submarines. This is exactly how Captain McVey led his ships throughout the war, but the euphoria of victory that reigned around him played a cruel joke on him. Since there was no information about the presence of enemy submarines in the area, he neglected the usual precautions.

At 23.00 on July 29, a report was received from the I-58 hydroacoustic that the noise of the propellers of a target moving on a counter course had been detected. The commander ordered the ascent. The navigator was the first to detect the enemy ship visually, and a report immediately came about the appearance of a mark on the radar screen. Having climbed to the upper navigation bridge, Hashimoto was convinced personally: yes, there is a black dot on the horizon; yes, she's getting closer. “I-58” dived again - there was absolutely no need for the American radar to also detect the boat. The target's movement speed is decent, and the enemy can easily dodge. And if the enemy does not notice them, then a meeting is inevitable - the ship’s course leads directly to the submarine.

The commander watched through the periscope eyepiece as the point enlarged and turned into a silhouette. Yes, a large ship - very large! The height of the masts (with twenty cables this can already be determined) is more than thirty meters, which means that in front of it is either a large cruiser or even a battleship. Tempting prey! He immediately prepared the torpedo tubes, and also ordered one of the Kaiten pilots to take a seat in the torpedo. When the target approached a distance of 4000 m, the boat commander identified it as an Idaho-class battleship and decided to use conventional torpedoes. Meanwhile, the suicide bombers began to unanimously ask for permission to attack such a tempting target.

Hashimoto Motitsura at the periscope

Indeed, there are two attack options: either discharge the bow tubes at the American with a six-torpedo fan, or use Kaitens. The ship is moving at a speed of at least twenty knots, which means that, taking into account errors in calculating the salvo, one can hope to be hit by one or two, maximum three torpedoes, but the boat commander chose the first option. At 11 p.m. 32 min. Hashimoto fired a salvo of 6 torpedoes from a distance of 1200 m and scored two hits on the bow of the cruiser. Despite the claims of many authors, he did NOT use Kaiten in this attack. When the Indianapolis did not immediately sink after being hit by torpedoes, the pilots again began to persuade the commander to allow them to make the final blow. But this was not necessary: ​​after 15 minutes the cruiser capsized and sank. About 350 people died in the explosions.

Since the explosion damaged the ship's radio station and it was not possible to send a distress signal in time, the fleet command did not even suspect what had happened. On the island of Guam, where the cruiser was heading, his absence was explained by a possible change in course and they did not raise the alarm. As a result, four days passed before the planes in distress were accidentally spotted by an American bomber on patrol in the area.

Soon, two ships approached the scene of the tragedy - the destroyer USS Bassett and the hospital ship USS Tranquility, which took the survivors to Guam, where they received medical care. But only a few lived to see this day. In addition to thirst, hunger and hypothermia, sailors were faced with another terrible danger in the open ocean - sharks. During this time, 533 people died from cold and sharks. Of the 1,189 people on board, only 316 survived. It is not known for certain how many sailors became victims of sharks. But of those bodies that were recovered from the water, traces of shark teeth were found on almost 90. The death of the Indianapolis went down in the history of the US Navy as the most massive loss of personnel as a result of a single sinking.

It is curious that Hashimoto’s report to his command, indicating the coordinates of the attacked ship, was intercepted, but it spoke of the sinking of the battleship, so American intelligence took the radiogram for another Japanese trick.

Captain McVay, who had commanded the ship since November 1944, was one of the survivors of the ship's sinking. In November 1945, he was brought to justice by a military tribunal for the death of the ship. He was accused of "endangering the ship by failing to carry out anti-torpedo maneuvers." At the same time, Hashimoto was brought to Washington to testify at a naval tribunal in the case of the death of the Indianapolis; he was also accused of destroying the Indianapolis with the help of a suicide bomber, which was interpreted as a war crime. The Japanese honestly confirmed that McVey had put the ship in danger by not using the anti-submarine zigzag. At the same time, he argued that the ship’s performance of anti-torpedo maneuvers would not have brought any results, and it would still have been torpedoed. According to him, he fired 6 torpedoes at the cruiser from an extremely short distance. Hashimoto did not have a lawyer; he testified through an interpreter. He knew English, but not enough to answer the judges' intricate questions. However, he firmly defended his version of the non-use of Kaiten. In the end, the commander of the cruiser was found guilty, however, taking into account his old merits, he was not punished, but was quietly sent into retirement, and Lieutenant Commander Hashimoto was returned to Japan, without having been able to prove that he had committed a war crime.

There is a very widespread legend that Hashimoto’s torpedoes saved another Japanese city from the fate of Hiroshima, since there was supposedly a third atomic bomb on board the Indianapolis. However, this version has not received documentary confirmation.

After returning from Washington in 1946, Hashimoto continued to be in prison for some time, then was transferred to a prisoner of war camp and was filtered by the Americans. Again, of course, there were interrogations. There was no end to journalists who wanted to know whether Hashimoto used “Kaitens” against Indianapolis or not? Having been released from the camp, the former submariner became a captain of the merchant fleet, sailing on the ship almost the same route as on the submarines “I-24”, “PO-31”, “I-158”, “PO-44”, “I- 58": The South China Sea, the Philippines, the Mariana and Caroline Islands, it happened to go to Hawaii and San Francisco... After retiring due to his years of service, Motitsura Hashimoto became a monk in one of the temples in Kyoto, and then wrote the book " Sunk,” in which he continued to adhere to the version that he used conventional torpedoes against the Indianapolis.

The history of the cruiser Indianapolis again became a topic of discussion in 2000, when the US Congress passed a resolution on the basis of which McVeigh was completely cleared of all previously charged charges. This document was approved by the signature of American President Bill Clinton, and then a corresponding entry was made in the captain’s personal file, which was stored in the naval archives. On August 24, 2016, the premiere of the feature film “Cruiser” about the fate of the cruiser and crew took place in the United States. On August 18, 2017, the wreckage of the cruiser was discovered by a research team at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean at a depth of over 5,400 meters. However, the exact location of the wreckage has not been disclosed.

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Indianapolis in 1944

U.S. National Park

On August 18, 2017, a search expedition organized by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen discovered the remains of the American Portland-class heavy cruiser Indianapolis in the Pacific Ocean. The wreckage of the ship is located in the Philippine Sea at a depth of 5.5 thousand meters. Their more precise location is not indicated in the expedition's message.

As confirmation of their find, the expedition published photographs of a fragment of the side of the found ship with the number 35, as well as the lid of a box with spare parts with the name of the ship and the type of parts written on it. The US Navy cruiser Indianapolis had the hull number CA-35. Photos of the anchor and bell of the Indianapolis are also published on the expedition page.

The American cruiser was built in November 1931. The ship's total displacement was 12.8 thousand tons with a length of 185.9 meters and a width of 20.1 meters. The cruiser could reach speeds of up to 32.5 knots, and its range was about ten thousand nautical miles. 1,197 people served on board the cruiser.

Since its construction, the Indianapolis has undergone modernization, during which its weapons were replaced. In the final version, the cruiser received three three-barrel artillery mounts of 203 mm caliber, eight anti-aircraft guns of 130 mm caliber, six anti-aircraft guns of 40 mm caliber and 19 anti-aircraft guns of 20 mm caliber. The ship carried three seaplanes.

Before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he was engaged in ocean patrols, and since 1942 he was already responsible for searching for Japanese ships in the Pacific Ocean. During World War II, the Indianapolis took part in several military operations, including an attack on a Japanese base in New Guinea and attacks on Japanese positions on Kwajalein Atoll.

In total, the cruiser received ten battle stars for participation in military campaigns in the Asia-Pacific region. This is the name given to additional insignia in the United States Armed Forces and is issued as additional insignia for repeated awards of medals or ribbons for service or participation in campaigns.

On July 26, 1945, the cruiser Indianapolis delivered parts for the Baby atomic bomb to the US military base on the island of Tinian in the Mariinsky Islands archipelago. This munition, with a yield, according to various estimates, from 13 to 18 kilotons, was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. You can read more about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Four days after delivering the bomb to Tinian, on July 30, 1945, the Indianapolis encountered the Japanese B-class submarine I-58, which torpedoed it. As a result of the damage received, the Indianapolis sank in just 12 minutes, having managed to send a distress signal. At this moment there were 1196 people on the ships.

The people who survived the torpedo attack were in the water for another four days before they were picked up by American ships. According to various estimates, between 60 and 80 people died from hypothermia, dehydration and shark attacks over four days. Rescuers managed to lift only 321 sailors from the water, of whom 316 survived. 22 former Indianapolis crew members have survived to this day.

The sinking of the Indianapolis was the largest mass loss of sailors in the history of the US Navy. The cruiser also became the last major American ship lost by the US Navy in World War II. Shortly after the atomic bombings on August 6 and 9, 1945, Japan surrendered, effectively ending World War II (Japan's Instrument of Surrender was signed on September 2, 1945).

Vasily Sychev

A movie will soon be released in the United States about the famous episode of the sinking of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis by a Japanese submarine at the very end of World War II, resulting in the death of almost 900 sailors.
The Indianapolis was known for carrying elements of nuclear bombs for the bombing of Japan.

Judging by the trailer, which actually retold the entire plot, the film will be so-so, plus the graphics with special effects are very low-cost, and it’s impossible to look at the pompous pathos of the titles without laughing.
In reality this story is more interesting.

The sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis.

In Tokyo's Sugamo prison, where war criminals were kept after the surrender of Japan, one December day in 1945 the cell doors opened to Captain 3rd Rank Motitsura Hashimoto. They did not open so that the prisoner would gain freedom... No, of course. Two Americans with sergeant stripes abruptly commanded: “Get out!” Quickly, quickly!
Outside the prison gates, they unceremoniously pushed Hashimoto into a jeep, which immediately picked up speed. Looking around, Hashimoto tried to determine where he was being taken. He asked the guards in passable English, but they pretended that they did not understand him. No explanations, no answers to questions. At some point, Hashimoto thought that he was being taken to Yokohama, where in those days there was a trial of officers and generals of the imperial army and navy. But the jeep, having left the destroyed quarters of the capital, took the prisoner along a narrow winding road to the Atsugi military airfield, located a few kilometers from Tokyo.
On the transport plane, where Hashimoto was escorted and handed over to the pilots against signature, no one said a word to him either. Only in Hawaii, where the car landed for refueling, from a casually overheard conversation, Hashimoto was able to learn that he was being transported to Washington by decision of a military tribunal that was hearing the case of the former commander of the Indianapolis heavy cruiser, and that he was assigned the role of the main witness at the trial.

About twenty miles from San Francisco is the island of Map. Since the spring of 1945, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, commanded by Charles Butler McVeigh, was being repaired at the local shipyard. This valiant sailor participated in many significant operations and battles at sea. For example, off Midway Island, in Leyte Gulf, during the capture of the islands of Guam, Saipan and Tinian. During the battle for Okinawa, the cruiser Indianapolis, which was under his command, was subjected to kamikaze attacks. One suicide bomber dived straight onto the deck. The team managed to put out the fire that arose after the explosion and saved the cruiser, but could no longer participate in Operation Indianapolis. The cruiser went to San Francisco for repairs.
Two months later, when the cruiser had already left the dock, the ship was visited by General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, and Rear Admiral William Parnell. In the Indianapolis commander's cabin, they told McVeigh about the purpose of their visit: the ship was to receive a special cargo and deliver it... They did not say where. They gave McVeigh a secret package from the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Commander of the US Armed Forces, Admiral William D. Leahy. In the top corner of the package were two red stamps: “Top Secret” and “Open at Sea.” The main thing that McVeigh understood: special cargo is more expensive than a cruiser and even the lives of its crew, so it is worth keeping an eye on it.
Nowadays, it is difficult to find eyewitnesses of the events mentioned; only archival documents can testify; even the memoirs of American admirals are full of discrepancies and inaccuracies. Only one thing is certain: in July 1945, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis was ordered to take on board components of atomic bombs and deliver this cargo to the island of Tinian, part of the Mariana archipelago. According to some sources, there were “fillings” for two bombs, according to others, for three. For some reason, the boxes could not be together; they were separated, placed in different rooms of the ship. In the commander's cabin there was a metal cylinder that contained about or more than one hundred kilograms of uranium, in the Indianapolis aircraft hangar there were bomb detonators. Everyone involved in this case received a code name. For example, General Leslie Groves introduced himself as Relief, another passenger, Captain 1st Rank William Parsons, who participated in the creation of the bomb, was called Yuja. The operation itself to deliver special cargo to the island of Tinian was called “Bronx Shipments”.

Exactly at 8 o'clock in the morning on July 16, 1945, the cruiser weighed anchor, passed the Golden Horn Bay and headed for the open ocean, and 10 days later approached the island of Tinian. It was a moonlit night. The waves beat against the side, foamed, scattered fantastic splashes and hissed away towards the white sandy shore in the distance. It was impossible to come close to the shore; we had to drop the anchor five cable lengths from the quay wall. At dawn, a self-propelled barge carrying representatives of the command of the island garrison approached the Indianapolis. The wind had already weakened, and the waves became much smaller, but still rolled into the port through the pier.
The deck was crowded with army, air force and naval officers, talking in low voices. Captain McVeigh noticed that Yuja (William Parsons) felt at ease among them; as he came closer, he heard someone say: “Specialists are waiting for the cargo in Admiral Kakuta’s Cave. This name meant something to the cruiser commander. Exactly a year ago, the Indianapolis supported the assault troops that landed on Tinian with artillery fire. The defense of the island was led by Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuta, commander of the air force of the Mariana Islands. A Japanese soldier captured by paratroopers said that Admiral Kakuta's command post was located in a well-camouflaged cave on the outskirts of the city of Tinian. The prisoner of war volunteered to escort the Marines. In their haste, while trying to enter the cave, two paratroopers were blown up by mines. Then it was decided to blow up the entrance to the cave and wall up its defenders. After the explosion, single shots were heard for some time in the cave, shrouded in clouds of acrid smoke, then everything became quiet. Apparently, Rear Admiral Kakuta died along with his team. The next day, the garrison of the island of Tinian stopped resisting...

Charles McVeigh remembers this episode. Now he could easily guess that new weapons would be collected in the cave. Presumably, it will speed up the pace of the fight against Japan.
Meanwhile, the sailors of the boatswain's crew finished their work, transferred the carefully packed boxes to the barge, on which the diesel engines were already clattering, everything indicated that the self-propelled gun was about to take away the island authorities and numerous guards of officers. Touching the visor of his cap with exquisite politeness, Captain 1st Rank Parsons thanked Captain McVeigh for delivering the special cargo, and as the barge moved away from the side, he shouted: “I wish you good luck, sir!”
The Indianapolis remained in the open roadstead of Tinian Island for another couple of hours, awaiting further instructions from the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Closer to noon, a code message arrived: “Proceed to Guam.” It's not that far. A shipping line to Leyte begins from Guam, along which American convoy and escort ships sail. And, of course, this water area was a favorite hunting area for Japanese submariners. McVeigh hoped that his cruiser would linger in Guam and he would be able to conduct a series of training and exercises for the crew, which needed a combat “break-in”: one-third of the crew consisted of newcomers. But hopes for a stopover in Guam were not realized. The Indianapolis was ordered to put to sea immediately.

The Japanese submarine I-58 was on the Guam-Leyte shipping line for the tenth day. It was commanded by an experienced submariner - Captain 3rd Rank Motitsura Hashimoto. He was born on November 14, 1909 in Kyoto, and graduated from the prestigious naval school on the island of Etajima, near Hiroshima. When Japan began the war on the Asian continent, Second Lieutenant Hashimoto had just begun service as a mine officer on submarines. Participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. After this operation, Hashimoto, as an incentive, was sent to command courses, after which, in July 1942, he was entrusted with the submarine “PO-31”, assigned to the Yokosuka base. The submarine was not of its first generation, and its role was assigned to a purely auxiliary one - to deliver provisions, fuel in canisters, and ammunition to the islands of Guadalcanal, Bougainville and New Guinea. Hashimoto completed all tasks accurately and on time. This did not go unnoticed by the authorities. In February 1943, Hashimoto began his duties as commander of the submarine I-158, which at that time was equipped with radar equipment. In fact, an experiment was carried out on Hashimoto’s boat - studying the operation of the radar in various sailing conditions, because until then Japanese submarines fought “blindly”. In September 1943, six months later, Hashimoto was already in command of another boat, the RO-44. On it he operated in the Solomon Islands region as a hunter of American transports. In May 1944, an order came to send Lieutenant Commander Hashimoto to Yokosuka, where the I-58 boat was being built according to a new project. His commander's share fell to the responsible work of completing and re-equipping the boat to carry Kaiten human torpedoes.
“Kaiten” (literally “Turning the Sky”) was the name given to miniature submarines designed for only 1 person. The length of the mini-submarine did not exceed 15 meters, the diameter was 1.5 meters, but it carried up to 1.5 tons of explosives. Suicide sailors directed these formidable weapons against enemy ships. Kaiten began to be produced in Japan in the summer of 1944, when it became obvious that only the dedication of kamikaze pilots and suicide sailors could delay the moment of the country’s military defeat. (In total, about 440 Kaitens were produced before the end of the war. Their samples are still kept in museums at the Tokyo Yasukuni Shrine and on Etajima Island.)
The command included the I-58 submarine in the Congo detachment. Subsequently, Hashimoto recalled: “There were 15 of us who graduated from the naval school with a scuba diving course. But by this time, most of the officers who once made up our class had died in battle. Of the 15 people, only 5 survived. By a strange coincidence, all of them turned out to be commanders of boats belonging to the Congo detachment. Boats from the Kongo detachment fired a total of 14 Kaitens at enemy ships.

I-58 left Kure on July 18, 1945, carrying six Kaiten man-torpedoes. True, two had to be sent (one after the other) to an enemy oil tanker. The ship sank immediately. Hashimoto informed his team that the initiative had been made: “Thank you all!” In the same waters, the boat commander expected to encounter a large convoy, but on July 29 at 11 p.m., acoustics detected a single target. Hashimoto ordered to surface. He did not climb onto the bridge himself, entrusting observation of the horizon to the navigator and signalman.
The navigator was the first to discover the target. Hashimoto already conducted further observation of the approaching alien ship through the eyepieces of the periscope. Despite the fact that the enemy was still at a great distance, the commander ordered the preparation of torpedo tubes. The corresponding command was given to the Kaiten crews. Having established the target's course and speed, the commander began approaching...
As the explosion rocked the cruiser Indianapolis, McVeigh exclaimed, “God! A kamikaze crashed into us again!” This time Charles McVeigh was wrong. In this area, Japanese planes were no longer masters of the sky; only a submarine could waylay and torpedo the cruiser.
...People were floundering in the water, desperately waving their arms. Choking and gasping, writhing in terrible convulsions, they met their death... Someone snatched Captain McVeigh from the water and threw the raft inside at the feet of the maddened first-year sailors, huddled closely together. Charles McVeigh never recognized the subordinate to whom he owed his salvation. Only on the seventh day were they removed from the raft. The seventh day is August 6, 1945. That day, over the ocean, over the site of the death of the Indianapolis, a B-29 bomber (Enola Gay) flew over the ocean, carrying on board an atomic death, affectionately called “Baby” and intended for the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The rafts were still rocking on the dead ocean swell. The sufferers cried out for help. 883 people from the Indianapolis crew died, half of them went into the depths of the sea along with the ship, and the rest could not stand thirst and died without waiting for help.

Rescued sailors in Guam. How did the I-58 submarine operate? Foreign military historians, including Russian ones, are scratching their heads over this question. Most are inclined to believe that a Kaiten crashed into the side of the American cruiser. Thus, in the serious work “Submarines of Foreign Fleets in the Second World War” it is said:
"Cruiser Indianapolis" (USA).
Sunk by man-guided torpedoes."
From another source:
“The submarine I-58 sank the American cruiser Indianapolis with human torpedoes.

It is known that the Washington judges had a report from a certain Harry Bark, which stated that he, a naval officer, examining captured Japanese submarines, heard in November 1945 the story of an I-58 mechanical engineer who participated in the last military campaign, which according to Kaitens were launched at the cruiser Indianapolis and that this was one of those cases when these weapons were successfully used.
In Washington, it was believed that the former commander of I-58, prisoner of war Motitsura Hashimoto, could become an extremely important witness in clarifying the mystery of the death of the cruiser. Relatives of the sailors who died on the cruiser demanded that Captain Charles B. McVeigh be severely punished as the main culprit of the tragedy, and that Japanese prisoner of war Hashimoto be reclassified as a war criminal.
Motitsura Hashimoto did not have a lawyer; he testified through an interpreter. It was previously said that he knew English, but not to the extent that he could answer the judges' intricate questions. There came a moment when Hashimoto thought that the judges did not believe him, they even questioned the drawing of maneuvering and attacking “I-58”, which he had made with his own hands. Hashimoto did not want to “lose face,” so he continued to insist on his own. But it was clear to the court: in Hashimoto’s actions during the attack on the cruiser, many things did not fit together; strange inconsistencies arose in the timing of the release of conventional torpedoes and the explosion on the Indianapolis.
The court-martial found Captain Charles Butler McVeigh guilty of “criminal negligence” and sentenced him to demotion and dismissal from the Navy. The sentence was later revised. Secretary of the Navy J. Forrestal returned McVay to service, appointing him as chief of staff to the commander of the 8th Naval Region in New Orleans. Four years later, McVeigh was dismissed with the rank of rear admiral and settled on his farm. He led a solitary bachelor's life. On November 6, 1968, Charles Butler McVeigh committed suicide by shooting himself. He became the 884th victim in the crew of the Indianapolis, which was transporting special cargo to the island of Tinian.

Route and place of death of the cruiser Indianapolis. What was the fate of Captain 3rd Rank Motitsura Hashimoto?
After returning from Washington in 1946, Hashimoto continued to be in prison for some time, then was transferred to a prisoner of war camp and was filtered by the Americans. Again, of course, there were interrogations. There was no end to journalists who wanted to know whether Hashimoto used “Kaitens” against Indianapolis or not?
Having been released from the camp, the former submariner became a captain of the merchant fleet, sailing on the ship almost the same route as on the submarines “I-24”, “PO-31”, “I-158”, “PO-44”, “I- 58": South China Sea, Philippines, Mariana and Caroline Islands, happened to go to Hawaii and San Francisco...
Having retired due to his years of service, Motitsura Hashimoto became a monk in one of the temples in Kyoto, and then wrote the book “Sunk”, in which he continued to adhere to the version that he used conventional torpedoes against the Indianapolis.
Mochitsura Hashimoto died at the age of 59, the same year (1968) as Charles B. McVeigh. So, apparently, fate would have it.