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Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster

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Richard F. Newcomb's "Abandon Ship!" succeeds in its primary goals of sifting through the reasons behind the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during the last days of World War II, and attempting to get behind the Navy's assignment of blame immediately afterward. Newcomb, a naval war correspondent, uses the reporter's tactics of extensive interviews and thorough research of unclassified documents to succinctly lay out his case for what happened and why.

In July, 1945 a Japanese submarine torpedoed the cruiser Indianapolis with almost 1,200 sailors on board. Eight hundred men made it off the ship, but when recovered four days later, only 300 of the crew were still alive. Five hundred men died of shark attacks, exhaustion, dehydration, drowning, and other conditions related to exposure. The ship's commander, Capt McVay, survived to face court martial charges for actions allegedly contributing to the loss of his ship. The Navy even called the Japanese submarine commander that sank the ship to testify against Captain McVay. This was the only time a ship's captain was court martialed for losing a ship in wartime. After the court martial, the Department of the Navy also publicly assigned blame to other Naval personnel, who weren't even previously considered, for failing to report the nonarrival of the Indianapolis into Leyte. The Navy never admitted to the gaping hole in its policy that allowed the nonarrival of a major vessel to literally "slip" beyond notice. This failure to check up on the ship's nonarrival contributed to the majority of the Indianapolis' crew dying through exposure and shark attacks. The men were in the water for four days until a US plane sighted them by chance. No resuce efforts were launched until then. The architects of this policy were the Navy's highest ranking officers, and they weren't ever considered for punishment.

Newcomb succeeds in piecing together the roles of several dozen key participants in the tragedy to explain what happened and why. His long experience with military organizations also enables Newcomb to translate the events for the lay reader. The book does suffer in its narrative prose at times due to Newcomb's colorful and fanciful phrasing, but in key passages it soars. Newcomb weaves over a dozen different perspectives of the sinking by crewmen in various parts of the ship to paint a vivd picture of what the ordeal was like. He also captures the atmosphere of Captain McVay's court martial and puts it in context with the average American's view of the sinking. At these times, the book crackles with tension. Newcomb's description of the sailors' ordeal in the water is lacking some realistic details, probably in deference to readers' sensibilities. After all, Newcomb wrote this only 13 years after the sinking. Many relatives and loved ones were still alive, and perhaps he wished to spare them anything graphic.

Newcomb has clearly done his homework through countless interviews and exhaustive research. However, his access to Navy records was severly limited due to the relative freshness of these events in the public and the Pentagon's eye. With over 50 years between the sinking and now, the story of the Indianpolis bears a second look.

Until then, this books still stands as an informative and riveting work.

At the back of this book is the list of men that survived not only the sinking of The Indianapolis on July 31st 1945, but also the days of suffering that followed. 316 men survived, which represents 26.4% of the crew. All the survivors agree that the majority of the crew safely evacuated the ship. If the number that reached the water was 850, only 37.1% survived the four and one half days they spent in the water. The men who survived, and how they and the tragedy were treated are the subject of this book, "Abandon Ship", by Mr. Richard F Newcomb.

The survivors represented 40 of the then 48 States of The Nation. It is not much of a stretch to say that the nearly three fourths of the men that died would complete the list of 48 States, Native American Reservations, and possibly other locales as well. As this is the largest loss of life from a single ship, it may also be unique in that families in every single State were affected, I don't know this, I am making a presumption. I have often read of this ship when the subject of its cargo was raised. For this book, and the men that died and lived, what it carried is meaningless relative to their ordeal. To use this issue to glorify or to denigrate the sacrifice of these men is equally obscene, and misses the point.

This is a book about human nature at its most brilliant, and its most pathetic. It is a story of a crusade that survivors carried on until the spring of 2000, the story of a 9th Grader who was integral to their efforts, and the bureaucracy that lobbied 55 years after the sinking to minimize any blame they deserved. The part of the Navy that is obsessive about placing blame as far from the top as possible appears to still be in working order. A few years ago a gun turret exploded on a battleship with loss of life, who was to blame, the easiest scapegoat they could find.

I mean no disrespect to The Navy as a branch of armed forces that have defended us for hundreds of years. This is not about the "Navy" the institution; this is about the Navy as headed by insecure, politically paranoid, career bureaucrats. You will read of a four and one half day length of torture that is nearly unimaginable. Hundreds of men, many wounded, with virtually no food or water, and sharks and other flesh-eating creatures sharing their space. Reading about men, who wore life preservers that slowly drowned as the 48-hour useful life of the device ran out, is painful. What follows is even worse.

The moronic policies, the preoccupation with placing blame on the most irrelevant of players, and the 55 year odyssey to clear the Captain's and the crew's name, is nauseating at its best. That after half a century the Navy was still more concerned with its history than the truth, is whatever comes after nauseating.

The Captain took his own life in 1968 about an hour from where I write. The Navy had so vilified him that the letters accusing him of murder that continued for decades must have become too much. Only 134 of the original crew lived to see a Congress pushed, kicked, and dragged into passing resolutions that were the result of outrageous behavior 55 years before. And even when the resolution was passed, it was a resolution watered down by The Navy.

The Navy that was protecting what? Tradition? What Tradition? The only people that were deluded enough to think that what was done in 1945 was legitimate sent sacrificial lambs to face the questioners, the accusers. The transcripts of some exchanges are included, and are so ridiculous as to be farce, and are in the best traditions of nothing.

"Flags Of Our Fathers" is another book that has enjoyed well-deserved success. This story was originally published in 1958, and is as important now as it was then, perhaps more so. Time never runs out for the truth, no matter how blockaded it may be by self interested parties that are supposed to serve those they vilify or fail to vindicate.

A spectacular book about amazing men.

It is amazing that after each of its disasters the military hirearchy immediately looks for a scapegoat. We have seen this time after time and it seems to be standard procedeure for our military leaders. This book is in the realm of the Kimmel writings, it is the story of a disaster and the search for and conviction of a scapegoat. Those responsible never seem to be taken to task. In this instance an Admiral with a personal vendetta against the accused's father, and a former hero of a submarine disaster who withheld information that would have prevented this catastrophe. This is a must reading for those who believe that justice must be served. It is too bad that the recognition of this event and its aftermath have come so late. It is too bad that the Naval Department still refuses to recognize fully the injustice that it did to a true war hero and his family. It is a superb book.

The story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, is a sad memoire of senseless loss of life during war time. The first half of this book goes into details about the ship itself, the crew and even the frame of mind of the enemy submarines captain that torpedoed the Indianapolis. The hours and days that following the sinking were documented on the pages as well as statements made by survivors. The second half of the book recounts the proceedings of the court martial of the Indianapolis' Captain, McVay. So many things went wrong ,from the search and rescue,to the speed of the sinking and the inability of officers to call for "abandon ship". Of the 800 some odd men that made it off the ship, only slightly more than 300 survived the ordeal, which is what the book is here to explain. A good narative with shocking revelations, it's a fast and easy read.

This book tells the story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the tradgedy that befell its crew. Largely due to Navy blunders, the ship was sent out unescorted and was torpedoed by a Japanese sub. Many men were killed, not only in the initial attack but due to sharks. It was only sheer luck that a Navy plane happened to find the remainder of the crew. By that time, only about 300 men out of 1,200 survived the hellish experience. Trying to get a scapegoat for its own stupidity, the U.S. Navy court-martialed the captain of the ill-fated ship. This book is a great chronicle of a story so strange that Hollywood couldn't have come up with it. Read it and understand what it was like to go down on a ship and wonder if you'll ever be rescued.

Returning from its mission of delivering vital componants for the bombs that were to eventually hasten the second World War, the USS Indianapolis was doomed. Given orders to head to port, and not to take evasive actions, the Indianapolis was spotted by a Japanese submarine and torpedoed. This book is a very complete chronicle of the events leading up to and following the horrendous ordeal of the survivour of the Indanapolis. What makes it that much more remarkable, it was first published in 1958, when it was much more difficult to obtain records from the Navy and when people weren't as likely to speal ill of the armed forces. Richard Newcomb, pieces the facts and the recollections of some of the 316 survivors. What emerges is a portrait of a captain, following orders, not receiving full intelligence in regards to enemy submarines in the area, and the difficulty in penetrating the cloak of secrecacy ( and protection of self-interest) in the Pacific theatre. The court marshall transcripts are riviting and the appearance of Mochitsura Hashimoto, the commander of the attacking Japanese submarine is unprecedented. The list of survivors at the end of the book is stark reminder of the sheer numbers that were lost (I wish there had also been a list of the men lost). Anyone who has watched Jaws, remembers the scene when the shark hunter, Quint, rolls up his sleeve and recounts the horrible tale of the USS Indianapolis, the men picked off one by one by by injuries, the elements and the sharks. This is the real horror. What makes this tale even more riviting is the efforts of author Richard Newcomb to keep the inquirey open, and to seek a real justice for the ship's commander Charles McVay III. The addition of a middle schooler Hunter Scott, who picked the Indianapolis as a history project, and despite his youth, could see that justice was lacking, kept the quest alive. What is most striking is the fact that after all these years the truth remains the same. These men didn't have to die, the Navy treated McVay as a sacrifical scapegoat, and that the militery is still unwilling to admit its full responsibility ring loud and clear.

This account of the loss of the USS Indianapolis on July 30, 1945, is a book that will tear you apart. I had an overwhelming sense of empathy as the author takes us thru the awful ordeal that 1196 souls (not, for pity's sake, 8000, as an earlier review has it) on the ship went thru when the torpedoes struck just after midnight on that fateful day, just two weeks before the war ended. While close to a thousand survived the sinking, only 316 survived the ordeal that followed before rescue. Chills went up my spine as I rejoiced with those suffering men when it fianlly became clear that they would be rescued. This book cannot be read dry-eyed, and you will remember it long after other reading you have done has faded from memory. (The book lists the survivors. I wish that the publisher had added a list of the non-survivors, tho I have noticed there is a website with a complete list of the men aboard that fateful and horrendous night.) This is as compelling an account as I have read for a long time.

What an awesome story! I very rarely read anything with military themes, but on a lark I picked up a copy of Abandon Ship! during a trip to the local public library, thinking I'd try it, but I probably wouldn't make it through the entire book. On the contrary, once I started the book, I couldn't put it down until I had read every word, including the afterward and the appendices, lingering over the roster of survivors. The book is a gripping and troubling tale of the loss of the USS Indianapolis to Japanese torpedos at the end of WWII, the Navy's failure to make any attempt to rescue the crewmembers for over four days, and the Navy's subsequent efforts to place all the blame for the incident on the shoulders of the Indianapolis's Commanding Officer, Charles McVay III, in order to avoid revealing the many blunders and oversights that led to the sinking and the grossly delinquent rescue effort (drunken officers ignoring SOS calls, failure to inform McVay of submarine threats, failure to track ship movement . . .) I was apalled that certain Navy brass would be so nonchalant about the Indianapolis's situation and that certain Navy brass compromise all integrity by punishing McVay for a trumped-up nonsense charge of failure to steer a zigzag course, in order to keep their own naval records unblemished. Even more unthinkable is the fact that the Navy called an unwilling but necessarily cooperative Commander Hashimoto, the captain of the Japanese submarine that sank the Indianapolis, to testify against McVay at his courtmartial. The book ultimately hints that the courtmartial of Captain McVay was an act of Admiral King, who was using the courtmartial of McVay to seek revenge against McVay's father, Admiral Charles McVay II, who had formally reprimanded King for an incident involving bringing women into unauthorized spaces when King was a junior officer under the senior McVay's command.

As an added bonus, the 2001 edition of the book contains a foreward and afterword that discuss the efforts of Hunter Scott, a schoolboy who took on the task of exonerating Captain McVay as a school history project aftrer hearing about the incident in the movie Jaws.

I recommend this highly to anyone who thinks that miltary brass always does the right thing. Many do, but the handful that do not can cause one to lose all faith in the system. Fortunately, a young schoolboy was able to vindicate Captain McVay four decades after the incident.

As a teenager in the early sixties I caddied for Charlie McVay frequently at the Litchfield Country Club, in Litchfield, CT. We thought then that we knew the story of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and we thought then that we knew the man who had been held responsible for the tragic loss of life, hours before the end of World War II. But it wasn't until Richard Newcomb's Abandon Ship! that any of us who knew McVay were able to understand the Admiral's profound pathos. The military's bungling, its cover-up, its stonewalling, its court martial of an innocent man, culminating in its gross miscarriage of justice, are more often the stuff of fiction. But it wasn't fiction, and Newcomb gives us every damning detail to prove it. Peter Maas provides an afterward showing how McVay was eventually exonerated, 32 years too late to save the the Indianapolis' last victim, my old friend, Admiral McVay, who shot himself to escape his grief. Abandon Ship! is for anyone who values truth, and who is engaged by tragedy.

Fantastic book about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis it's crew and Captain. The accounts of the sailors and their ordeal of being lost at sea, battling sharks, thirst, hunger, one another and desperation is at once heartbreaking as well as uplifting. It's a true testament to the courage of the men who lived and those who died and the cowardice of the Navy brass who not only contributed to the sinking of Indianapolis but caused further loss of life due to incompetence ashore that delayed the rescue.
The final injustice is brought against Captain McVay who is eventually court martialed by his peers. The story of these sailors and their Captain is nothing less than haunting and we can only hope the current leaders in the Navy have learned a lesson never to be repeated.