We laughed as men shared rumors over the mysterious cargo loaded onto the USS Indianapolis during World War II — whiskey bottles to celebrate the war’s end? Or floral scented toilet paper for General Douglas MacArthur? In truth, the container was filled with parts for the Little Boy atomic bomb.
But tears pricked my eyes as I listened to men talk about surviving shark attacks, dehydration and desperation while bobbing in the South Pacific after the sinking of their heavy cruiser in July 1945.
Despite an unplanned intermission created by technical difficulties, the nearly 200 people who gathered upstairs at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis Thursday evening offered a standing ovation to Sara Vladic, director of the 2016 film “USS Indianapolis: The Legacy,” and retired Navy Captain John Woolston, one of 16 living survivors of the tragedy.
After delivering parts for the atomic bomb, the ship was en route to the Philippines — without a destroyer escort requested by the captain—July 30, 1945, when, shortly after midnight, a Japanese submarine fired six torpedoes, hitting the target with two. It took only 12 minutes for the ship to plunge beneath the water, taking about 300 of the crew’s 1,195 men with it.
About 880 men floundered in the water, many with eyes burning and stomachs heaving from ingesting oil. They scrambled to pull on life jackets and grab nets and life rafts so they could survive until they were rescued.
But nobody knew they were there.
The men hung on, praying desperately for rescue, as they watched their friends and fellow sailors perish, one after another. Screams pierced the air before a shark dragged another vulnerable sailor to a watery death. Dehydration and saltwater poisoning claimed others, some of whom lost their minds before they died.
Like Herb Elton Borton, the uncle of Quentin Robbins of Woodland, who, according to survivors, told others he was tired of waiting so he removed his life jacket to go below for a cup of coffee. That was their fourth — and final — day in the water.
At 10:25 a.m. Aug. 2, Navy Lt. Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn, flying a PV-1 Ventura, spotted the men while on a routine patrol. The men interviewed on the film all called Gwinn and his crew their “angel.” Gwinn dropped a life raft and radio transmitter, and the Navy dispatched planes and ships to help with the rescue.
One of the first to arrive was Lt. R. Adrian Marks, who defied standing orders and landed a PBY (seaplane) on the open ocean, where he and his crew pulled 56 waterlogged and dehydrated sailors from the water. Some sprawled along the wings to make room for more.
Others took off their life jackets to swim toward the seaplane, only to sink and drown when overcome by weakness, some survivors reported.
Only 317 of the men on the Indianapolis survived. Many on the film gave God the credit. Woolston, 93, said he survived “with a helluva lot of good luck.”
Vladic first grew interested in the USS Indianapolis when she was 13, and decided at 21 to create a film about the disaster. Seventeen years later, she finished the documentary that features survivors recounting in their own words what transpired aboard the ship, in the water, and after their return to the States, where tragedy continued to unfold as the Navy covered up the disaster for two weeks.
Captain Charles B. McVay III, who survived in the water, was court-martialed after the war for failing to issue the “abandon ship” order in a timely manner and failing to zigzag en route to the Philippines. The Japanese submarine commander testified on his behalf, contending that his torpedoes would have sunk the ship even if it had zigzagged.
The captain, who after his court-martial received constant attacks from some family members of those who perished, committed suicide Nov. 6, 1968. More than three decades later, Congress and President Bill Clinton posthumously exonerated him and cleared his name Oct. 30, 2000.
In addition to the honor of meeting Woolston, I shook the hand of the only child of WWII hero Desmond Doss, the conscientious objector who refused to carry a gun but wanted to serve his country as a medic, the man who earned the Medal of Honor after single-handedly rescuing 75 Americans during the Battle of Okinawa. Doss, whose story was featured in the fabulous film “Hacksaw Ridge,” died in March 2006 at 87, but his son, Desmond Doss Jr., lives in Ilwaco, and he’s a friend of a man whose father survived the sinking of the Indianapolis.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
