The U.S.S. Indianapolis by Sara Vlasic and Lynn Vincent
Just finished reading a book about the ship The Indianapolis.
Anybody who has seen the movie Jaws has heard actor Robert Shaw (“Quint”) deliver the grim and gripping monologue about the WW II sailors returning from delivery of the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Eleven hundred men went into the water and only three hundred came out.” Sharks.
But there is so much more after that, after the Indianapolis sank, and after the survivors were rescued, about how the military tribunals decided to and did court-martial the Captain of the Indianapolis. The remaining crew members of the doomed ship fought for 50 years, even after the Captain died, to clear his name and correct his record.
A 13 year old boy wrote his history report about the disaster, and later testified in Congress, but only after a long fight to even “be heard” in Congress, along with many others who wanted the court-martial decision challenged and changed.
It’s well worth the read. The story itself is dark and astounding, but it also reveals the sketchy politics we rarely see, how a seemingly straightforward prosecution may not be straightforward at all.
The complex story doesn’t bounce along like a novel, but it certainly held my attention.
Anybody who has seen the movie Jaws has heard actor Robert Shaw (“Quint”) deliver the grim and gripping monologue about the WW II sailors returning from delivery of the bombs destined for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Eleven hundred men went into the water and only three hundred came out.” Sharks.
But there is so much more after that, after the Indianapolis sank, and after the survivors were rescued, about how the military tribunals decided to and did court-martial the Captain of the Indianapolis. The remaining crew members of the doomed ship fought for 50 years, even after the Captain died, to clear his name and correct his record.
A 13 year old boy wrote his history report about the disaster, and later testified in Congress, but only after a long fight to even “be heard” in Congress, along with many others who wanted the court-martial decision challenged and changed.
It’s well worth the read. The story itself is dark and astounding, but it also reveals the sketchy politics we rarely see, how a seemingly straightforward prosecution may not be straightforward at all.
The complex story doesn’t bounce along like a novel, but it certainly held my attention.
