USS Indianapolis

Upon their rescue by different vessels, the Indianapolis survivors were scattered at various Pacific bases. Captain McVay was taken to Guam where he faced a board of inquiry ordered by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (CINCPAC) which convened on August 13, one day before the sinking of the ship was announced to the public (simultaneously with the announcement that the Japanese had surrendered, thus insuring minimum press attention).

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Conceding that they "were starting the proceedings without having available all the necessary data," the board nonetheless recommended a general court-martial for McVay. Admiral Nimitz, however, did not agree and on September 6, six weeks after the disaster, wrote to the Navy's Judge Advocate General opposing a court-martial and stating that at worst McVay was guilty of an error in judgment, but not gross negligence. Nimitz recommended a letter of reprimand which constituted a slap on the wrist but was far from career-ending punishment.

In a CINCPAC report, Nimitz pointed out that the rule requiring zigzagging would not have applied in any event since McVay's orders gave him discretion on that matter and thus took precedence over all other orders (a point which, unbelievably, was never made by McVay's defense counsel during the subsequent court-martial).

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Overriding the opposition of both Nimitz and Admiral Raymond Spruance (for whom the Indianapolis had served as Fifth Fleet flagship), naval authorities in Washington, specifically Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, directed that court-martial proceedings be held against McVay, and the trial was scheduled to begin on December 3, 1945, at the Washington Navy Yard.

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Captain McVay was notified but not told what specific charges would be brought against him. The reason was simple. The Navy had not yet decided what to charge him with. Four days before the trial began they did decide on two charges. One, failing to issue orders to abandon ship in a timely fashion. And, two, hazarding his vessel by failing to zigzag during good visibility.

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Captain McVay was denied his first choice of defense counsel, and a Captain John P. Cady was selected for him. McVay was also denied a delay to develop his defense, and thus Cady, a line officer with no trial experience, had only four days to prepare his case.

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It's difficult to understand why the Navy brought the first charge against McVay. Explosions from the torpedo attacks had knocked out the ship's communications system, making it impossible to give an abandon ship order to the crew except by word of mouth which McVay had done. He was ultimately found not guilty on this count.

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That left the second charge of failing to zigzag. Incredibly, the Navy brought the commander of the Japanese submarine, Mochitsura Hashimoto, to testify at the court-martial which was held at the Washington Navy Yard. Hashimoto implied in pretrial statements that zigzagging would not have saved the Indianapolis but was not pressed on this point during the trial itself.

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One prosecution witness which they wished they had never called was a veteran Navy submariner named Glynn Donaho. A four-time Navy Cross winner during the way, Donaho was asked by McVay's defense counsel whether "it would have been more or less difficult for you to attain the proper firing position" if the Indianapolis had been zigzagging under the conditions which existed that night. His answer was, "No, not as long as I could see the target." It was either deliberately ignored by (or passed over the heads of) the court-martial board, and it was not pursued by McVay's defense.

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There was also information withheld from McVay's defense counsel. It involved the testimony of a Captain Oliver Naquin who had been in charge of the routing instructions for the Indianapolis from Guam to Leyte. When asked about the risk of enemy submarine activity in the ship's path, Naquin replied "it was a low order" and "the risk was very slight." Being responsible for sending the Indianapolis across the Philippine Sea without a destroyer escort, Naquin's response served him well. Later it was learned that Naquin was aware of the submarines in McVay's path, had not told McVay and denied McVay's request for a destroyer escort.

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Perhaps the most egregious aspect of McVay's ultimate conviction for failing to zigzag, however, was in the phrasing of the charge itself. The phrase was "during good visibility." According to all accounts of the survivors, including eye-witness accounts of survivors only recently declassified and not made available to McVay's defense at the trial, the visibility that night was severely limited with heavy cloud cover. This is pertinent for two reasons. First, as stated in an earlier section, no Navy directives in force at that time suggested, much less ordered, zigzagging at night with visibility limited. Second, McVay's orders were "to zigzag at his discretion." Thus, when he stopped zigzagging, he was simply following procedures set forth by Navy directives.

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It is reasonable to assume from the evidence that a decision to convict McVay was made before his court-martial began. The survivors of the Indianapolis are convinced that he was made a scapegoat to hide the mistakes of others, mistakes which included sending him into harm's way without warning and failing to notice when the Indianapolis failed to arrive on schedule, thus costing hundreds of lives unnecessarily and creating the greatest sea disaster in the history o the United States Navy.

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McVay was found guilty on the charge of failing to zigzag. The court sentenced him to lose 100 numbers in his temporary rank of Captain and 100 numbers in his permanent rank of Commander, thus ruining his Navy career. In 1946, at the behest of Admiral Nimitz who had become Chief of Naval Operations, Secretary Forrestal remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to duty. McVay served out his time in the New Orleans Naval District and retired in 1949 with the rank of Rear Admiral. He took his own life in 1968.