Cruisers seem to be hard luck ships as a lot...................Several USN cruisers sunk off Guadalcanal in night action battle with the Japanese in 42' The USS Juneau with the Sullivan brothers aboard (all lost) and the USS Savannah off Italy in 1943, with the dubious distinction of being one of the first heavy warships knocked out of action by guided air-surface anti-ship missile ( Fired by a Luftwaffe Do-217 Bomber that managed to evade all the fighter cover and never suffered a scratch.............Another Bomber from the same squadron sank the Italian battleship Roma, as she steamed out of port to surrender to the Allies..............1 missile, 1 kill. The end of an era when a huge surface combatant, can be taken out by a single aircraft that it never even sees.)

 

I'll still blame the Navy for 90% of this. I'll bet we can trace most of the hate mail from the general public as a result of that public court martial. In other words.....no BS court martial and scapegoating-----no 'public' outrage and hate mail. The Navy (initially driven by King........Nimitz wanted NOTHING to do with this and spoke against a court martial......) caused most of that. And you know how these things go, Ken......there's always going to be a %%% of the population just itching to be pissed off at something......even if they otherwise don't care and don't know.

Can't speak for the actual family members of the lost crew. Some would have been pissed anyway......But probably MORE were in this instance because of (you guessed it), the court martial.

The reasoning behind not sending the Indy a couple of destroyers (at least) as escort on the way to Tinian is horses--t. I mean, even the Japanese wouldn't expect to see one of the 'heavies' floating around out there alone without escort.......No matter WHAT they were doing out there. And it was even more of a horses--t decision to refuse escort for the Indy after they dropped off the Little Boy bomb--AND MCVAY OUT-AND-OUT REQUESTED THIS ESCORT!!!---.........

Oh. There maybe should have been a few nut sacks nailed to the wall after this incident.......But McVay's was NOT one of them.

 

Been up in the mountains the last 3 days. Back a few hours and I'm ready to leave again!

I read a book on this in high school and wrote a theme paper on it. I think I still have the book in a box someplace. I don't see it on the book shelf, 'Abandoned Ship'. A later book 'In Harm's Way' is good too.

Some good sites....
http://ussindianapolis.org/
"Naval authorities then and now have maintained that the Indianapolis sank too quickly to send out a distress signal. A radioman aboard the Indianapolis testified at the September 1999 Senate hearing, however, that he watched the "needle jump" on the ship's transmitter, indicating that a distress signal was transmitted minutes before the ship sank, and sources at three separate locations have indicated that they were aware of a distress signal being received from the sinking ship. Its very likely that these distress signals were received but ignored as a Japanese trick to lure rescue vessels to the area"

I have read a couple of accounts where the SOS was in fact received, but that the OOD decided it was a Japanese ruse so decided to "sit on it".

The survivors of the Indianapolis hotly dispute a number of official US Navy reports and accounts of the ordeal and its aftermath.

https://www.history.navy.mil/resear...alphabetically/s/sinking-ussindianapolis.html

https://www.history.navy.mil/resear...y-charles-b-iii/mcvay-charles-b-iii-text.html

http://www.ussindianapolis.us/

She was not at Pearl during that attack. IIRC she was out at Johnson doing bombardment practice live fire. My Uncle (dad's brother) was on an Aircraft Carrier delivering Wildcats to Wake.

Home Port at this time of the war, was CincPac Guam.

After departing Tinian, she headed to Guam where she stopped long enough to do a standard crew transfer rotation and receive further orders.

From there she proceeded on to the P.I. (Leyte Gulf) on a TAD reassignment for training, after which she was to proceed to Okinawa. Guam had intelligence that at least two I boats were very close to the Indy's course to the PI , but this info was not shared with McVay. I'm trying to remember what I read in the early book, but I believe the Indianapolis was not Zigzagging because that was left to the discretion of McVay and he was on a very tight time schedule which would not allow zigzagging. Since no enemy activity was reported to him along his route....There are also reports that Japanese Submarine radio intercepts, decoded, indicated the sub had sank and "Idaho" class battleship in the area where the Indianapolis should have been.

Captain Bode (former commander of the USS Chicago: 01/17/1942 - 12/1942 ) shot himself in Panama after being censured by the Navy for failing to take appropriate actions in warning the fleet of enemy contact in the first Battle of Savo Island. Captain Ralph O. Davis (relieved Bode) was in command of the Chicago when she was sunk in the Battle of Rennell Island about a year later. Davis was given command of the New Orleans a couple of months later and was eventually promoted to Rear Admiral

South Dakota and Iowa class would have done much better against the long lance. Much heavier armor (the 'citadel' and a much more pronounced "torpedo / mine triple hull armor belt" below the waterline. Pennsylvania class had much less armor.

 

Kinda doubt even a Iowa class could survive 2 Long lance torpedo's to her keel center-span...............might survive, but have to be towed home for massive repairs or scrapping.
The Indy was no slouch herself...........12 minutes was all she could last.

 

The USS North Carolina was hit in the weakest part of her armor by a Long Lance and survived. She was hurt, but she survived and kept station in the fleet traveling at 29 kts.. By comparison, the Wasp and a Destroyer was sunk in the same torpedo salvo. The South Dakota Class and the Iowa class had much better armor and armor system......

From a book on US Battleships...

'The side protection (torpedo defense) and the triple bottom systems provide protection against underwater threats such as torpedoes, mines and near-miss explosions. Both of these multi-layered systems are intended to absorb the energy from an underwater explosion equivalent to a 700 pound charge of TNT. The Navy derived at this amount of protection based on intelligence information gathered in the 1930’s. At that time, US Naval Intelligence was unaware of the advances the Japanese had made in torpedo technology. One of these advances was the Japanese 24 inch diameter "Long Lance" torpedo, which carried a charge equivalent to 891 pounds of TNT. A Long Lance torpedo essentially defeated the USS North Carolina’s side protective system. The ship was hit by chance at its narrowest and therefore most vulnerable part of the side protection system.

"An Iowa Class battleship would have taken lighter damage from the torpedo due to an improved torpedo protection system over the North Carolina Class. The side protection system consists of four tanks on the outboard side of the hull extending from the 3rd deck to the bottom of the ship. The two outboard tanks are liquid loaded with fuel oil or ballast and the two inboard tanks are kept void. The liquid layers are intended to deform and absorb the shock from the explosion and contain most of the shards from the damaged structure. The innermost void is expected to contain any leakage into the interior ship spaces. The armor belt is designed to stop fragments that penetrate the second torpedo bulkhead. This method should contain the damage and protect the machinery and other vital spaces. Torpedo bulkheads #1, #2 and the inner holding bulkhead are 5/8" thick steel. Bulkhead #3 is 12.1" thick armor tapering to 1" thick at the bottom and is attached to a 1.5" special treated steel (STS) plate. Additional tests in 1943 showed certain structural defects in the system. Changes were made to BB65 and BB66 that would have improved system performance by as much as 20 percent, but unfortunately, neither ship was ever completed."

By the way, there had been plans to put an additional armor belt to the keel. This was discarded however because they realized that the extra width it created would prevent the Iowa Class from fitting in the Panama Canal.

 

All this is great in theory, but in the heat of battle and Mr. Murphy aboard, things can goes sideways in a hurry.
The HMS Hood got new armor during a re-fit that was supposed to allow her to go toe to toe, and come out on top against a Bismark class battleship..............she lasted 3 minutes.

 

We ain't got time to sink.......

 

That's not what I heard people saying during that last hurricane....

 

Sometimes we just have to rely on the designers to get something right. Murphy is just another way of saying luck has run out or a flaw has been exploited. The Bismark being hit by one torpedo which essentially did nothing and a 2nd torpedo aft that for all intents and purposes doomed her, Hood being hit by a near vertical shell where she had no to minimal armor to protect her, Arizona being hit in a similar fashion by an aerial bomb, North Carolina being hit by Long Lance and living to continue the fight while the same Salvo sunk the Wasp and a destroyer........
http://www.hmshood.com/
http://www.hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/bismarck1.htm

None the less, the Indianapolis was a "treaty Cruiser" totally lacking in the armor needed to take that kind of punishment. She was designed and originally designated as a Light Cruiser partly because of her lack of Armor and never made it to her design tonnage. She was only designated a Heavy Cruiser because of the earlier Washington Naval Treaty that the WW1 "powers to be" came up with to prevent an arms race.

 

Hood was doomed as soon as she entered Bismarck's Range, and the Prince of Wales barely got away before Bismarck claimed her.
Bismarck's doom was the freak hit by the torpedo, dropped from a wood and canvas bi-plane that was going 120mph SLOWER than Bismarck's AAA gunners were trained to fire on. You kinda are dead meat no matter how awesome your battleship is, if it can only steam in a circle with a jammed rudder.

Murphy is a b***h.

 

Or it just shows how vulnerable a surface battlewagon is to airplanes and submarines when they're un-escorted......or improperly escorted.

That's one reason Billy Mitchell was court-martialed. The battlewagon-loving 'brass' didn't want to consider that a sergeant flying a $5,000 plane carrying a crude bomb or torpedo could harm.....let alone sink......a nice, shiny $50-million (I'm trying to kinda-sorta use 1930s valuations here.....) armored ship crewed with a thousand or so men and commanded by cream of the crop Annapolis graduates.........

 

The USS Juneau was an AA-CL (Anti-Aircraft Light Cruiser with 12 5" guns [6x2]).

It was only there, because after the Battle of Savo Island where 4 allied cruisers were sunk (3 US; 1 Australian), the allies were very short of cruisers in the South Pacific.

The Italian battleship Roma was sunk by a German radio controlled glider bomb, but the Savannah was not, it was badly damaged.

There's a memorial to the Juneau at the cruise ship dock in Juneau AK

The Hood was never refit, so it never received any new armor, she went into the battle with the Prince Eugen and Bismarck with her original 3" deck armor intact.

Admiral Holland onboard Hood began the battle by firing at the Prince Eugen, he mistook her for the Bismarck, because both ships looked similar and the Prince Eugen (extant off Kwajelain!) was leading the Bismarck.

First hit was scored by Prince Eugen near the Hoods mainmast. Second hit scored by Bismarck in the same general location. The aft magazine exploded, then the flames burned thru the hull, setting off the forward magazine.

After being nuked at Bikini, Prince Eugen was towed to Kwajelain. Because she was "too hot" to board to make repairs, she capsized and is still there today.

btw: In 2002, while perusing the books at the Imperial War Museum gift shop in London, I was amazed to discover that the Hood had been located. She had broken into 3 pieces. Bow and stern are intact and upright, the center section is upside down.

 

Prince Eugen had quite the career after the Battle of Denmark strait, late in the war her big guns stopped the Red Army in it's tracks outside Baltic sea ports, and allowed tens of thousands of civilians to escape the wrath of Stalin and escape to the west.

 

Russian submarines sank three of the ships packed with refugees, one of which (Wilhelm Gustloff) cost the lives of 9,000+ people.