USS Indianapolis found after 72 years

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Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?
What is your point?
 
My take on it is this is an excellent example of government bureaucracy at work . :-(

I understand the need for secrecy on the out bound trip . Not on the return trip .

May God rest their souls .

Wyr
God bless
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Interestingly the wreck remains property of the Navy and so there'd be no salvage/ financial reason for finding it. Mr. Allen did it out of his own billionaire curiosity/ goodness/ hobby.


Salvage? 18,000 feet under water makes things a bit tough to salvage, even if they wanted to.
 
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?
What is your point?


Yeah, I'm not really sure what the point was. Lots of civilians died in war. It's just the nature of war. The Japanese killed many civilians, the main one that comes to mind is the rape of Nanking with an estimated 40,000 to 300,000, but there were also civilians on Wake Island and many others.

The greatest loss of life at sea was the Wilhelm Gustloff, an estimated 9400 Germans drowned when the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet sub.
 
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?


You do realize that the Ford (or Chevy, Dodge, whatever) you drive has been "associated" with the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, in crashed, right?
 
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?


I wrote a long response, then erased it as I didn't want to get banned, but basically, you know a lot less about things than you think.

Had you lived in the same time frame, you would have personally dropped the bombs yourself, with a smile on your face. The Japanese were MONSTERS!

Back then we won wars. We didn't play patty cake. And if you will remember, they attacked us, a neutral country.

And where is your outrage at the conventional bombing of Tokyo, which killed far more people than the nuclear bombs did? Conventional bombs = OK, but nuclear bombs = bad???
 
Hard as it may be to imagine, the Japanese weren't always the camera toting tourists of today. The war in the Pacific was to the death. I read somewhere that there only a few hundred Japanese POWs Something like 250,000 Chinese were killed for helping a few of Doolittle's Raiders escape. Japan vowed to use sharp sticks in the hands of kids when the US invaded. Nothing the US experienced belied this rumor either.
Yes the bombs were horrific things to use on civilians. One of many horror weapons. Praise be that the world has moved on.
 
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
And where is your outrage at the conventional bombing of Tokyo, which killed far more people than the nuclear bombs did? Conventional bombs = OK, but nuclear bombs = bad???

I am not sure you are dealing with someone who understands History....wait...I am sure.
 
Last edited:
You must have the back story to understand the Indy tragedy...

Built as a treaty cruiser during the 1930's, her armor was reduced to meet the 10,000 ton weight limit.
By 1945, she was no longer a front line ship...

She left San Francisco loaded to the max, headed for war. Extra spare parts, food, ammo, etc, loaded.
Topside weight had been greatly increased, lookout platforms and I believe early radar had been added.
She now wallowed in turns...
Metacentrically unstable...

After delivering the fissionable core to bomb, she left for not only another port, but for another Division,
General MacArthur,'s I believe...

Only enough fuel was loaded to make the journey at max economy speed, very important.!
McVay could not have zig zagged, he would have run out of fuel.!

Most men were sleeping on deck, common in a natural draft ship,.
Once hit, the Indy rolled and sank in 3 minutes.
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?
What is your point?


Yeah, I'm not really sure what the point was. Lots of civilians died in war. It's just the nature of war. The Japanese killed many civilians, the main one that comes to mind is the rape of Nanking with an estimated 40,000 to 300,000, but there were also civilians on Wake Island and many others.

The greatest loss of life at sea was the Wilhelm Gustloff, an estimated 9400 Germans drowned when the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet sub.


Exactly , it is called war . Germany & Japan could have avoided it by not starting the war . But they did . So what happened following , is on their head .

My Father served in the Navy during WWII , in the Pacific . He came home . A lot of our sailors & troops did not .

Much larger shame is the Emperor did not end up dancing on the end of a rope . They tried to say he was only a figure head . Make no mistake , he was in charge , 100% , all alone .

Wyr
God bless
 
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?


I wrote a long response, then erased it as I didn't want to get banned, but basically, you know a lot less about things than you think.

Had you lived in the same time frame, you would have personally dropped the bombs yourself, with a smile on your face. The Japanese were MONSTERS!

Back then we won wars. We didn't play patty cake. And if you will remember, they attacked us, a neutral country.

And where is your outrage at the conventional bombing of Tokyo, which killed far more people than the nuclear bombs did? Conventional bombs = OK, but nuclear bombs = bad???



100% agree .
 
Originally Posted By: andyd
Hard as it may be to imagine, the Japanese weren't always the camera toting tourists of today. The war in the Pacific was to the death. I read somewhere that there only a few hundred Japanese POWs Something like 250,000 Chinese were killed for helping a few of Doolittle's Raiders escape. Japan vowed to use sharp sticks in the hands of kids when the US invaded. Nothing the US experienced belied this rumor either.
Yes the bombs were horrific things to use on civilians. One of many horror weapons. Praise be that the world has moved on.


Read about the little dictator in North Korea . He is threatening nuclear was against us , South Korea & Japan . And from the sounds of it , anyone else that does not agree with him , .

Al the while , continuing to test his missiles & " devices " .

Wyr
God bless
 
Originally Posted By: Vern_in_IL
You people do understand that this ship was associated with the murder of numerous innocent civilians?


And so are you.
 
Originally Posted By: mattwithcats
You must have the back story to understand the Indy tragedy...

Built as a treaty cruiser during the 1930's, her armor was reduced to meet the 10,000 ton weight limit.
By 1945, she was no longer a front line ship...

She left San Francisco loaded to the max, headed for war. Extra spare parts, food, ammo, etc, loaded.
Topside weight had been greatly increased, lookout platforms and I believe early radar had been added.
She now wallowed in turns...
Metacentrically unstable...

After delivering the fissionable core to bomb, she left for not only another port, but for another Division,
General MacArthur,'s I believe...

Only enough fuel was loaded to make the journey at max economy speed, very important.!
McVay could not have zig zagged, he would have run out of fuel.!

Most men were sleeping on deck, common in a natural draft ship,.
Once hit, the Indy rolled and sank in 3 minutes.




The Indy may have been chosen for the mission of charring part of the " device " because of speed ?

I may be wrong , but I thought on her return voyage , she was sent back to the states ?

Thanks , :)
 
Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Had you lived in the same time frame, you would have personally dropped the bombs yourself, with a smile on your face. The Japanese were MONSTERS!

Back then we won wars. We didn't play patty cake. And if you will remember, they attacked us, a neutral country.

And where is your outrage at the conventional bombing of Tokyo, which killed far more people than the nuclear bombs did? Conventional bombs = OK, but nuclear bombs = bad???


Well at the time, the US was a major oil exporter and Japan got most of it's oil from the US. After they invaded China, the US started an oil embargo so they had the choice of either going home or greatly expanding the war. The military in charge choose to expand their military. Lots more civilians died from other causes than from the two atomic bombs.

As for the emperor not swinging from a rope, that was actually an understood part of the surrender. The initial demand was for unconditional surrender and they didn't do it. When it was made clear that the emperor would be allowed to stay, they surrendered. That bit probably saved a bunch of lives on both sides as many died every day.
 
Everything I ever read about Hirohito was that he had been isolated from any actual participation in the military by the cabal of ultra militarists who conducted the war from the build up all the way to the surrender. Whether or not, MacArthur wanted to normalize Japan as fast as possible before the Sovs moved in. He did and they did and 70yrs later the Japanese invade with real estate agents. Nobody misses the old days. They were horrible. I'd like to think that we as humans will get over these tribal conflicts and co-operate with each other some day soon.
 
I grew up with a guy whose dad had been a POW of the Japanese in WWII. He could never lead a normal life. He would wake up thinking reality was him being in a dream state and start screaming because he thought it meant he'd be taken away for more senseless brutal torture for his captors' amusement at any moment. Even electroshock therapy had no effect for him.

This was decades before PTSD was an acronym.

Watch a documentary on the Bataan Death March some time that includes interviews with survivors. Some break down on camera stating if they had known what they were going to go through they would have comitted suicude before being captured.

Not all casualties are fatalities.

The Japanese were deep into working on biological WMD instead of fissionable materials. Flea farms with bubonic plague and mosquito farms with malaria.
 
"The Indy may have been chosen for the mission of charring part of the " device " because of speed ?"


Correct. In the book I read a long time ago (forgot the title), the Indy was much faster than the specs stated. The chief engineer also had a key or some mechanism to override the max speed governor and with that they set a new record from San Francisco to their destination. They also did not want to attract attention so no escort vessels. Even the plotters tracking navy vessels didn't know the mission and that was part of the confusion in the end.
 
I was thinking , if she was built with reduced armor weight , that may have resulted in a faster ship .

A faster ship would have been more difficult for a sub to hit , if she was in open water and running flat out .

WWII diesel electric subs were slow , day time running on batteries , submerged .

It was SOP to surface at night to run the diesels , recharge batteries & also be able to run faster on the surface .

The Germans had subs with snorkels during the latter part of WWII , that allowed them to run the diesels while submerged . Do not ever remember reading of the Japanese having any snorkel subs ?

Thanks , :)
 
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