Indianapolis
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE THE USS INDIANAPOLIS “Denial is an integral part of atrocity, and it’s a natural part after a society has committed genocide. First you kill, and then the memory of killing is killed.” — Iris Chang, author of THE RAPE OF NANKING (1997), when the Japanese translation of her work was cancelled by Basic Books due to threats from Japan, on May 20, 1999. “Historical amnesia has always been with us: we just keep forgetting we have it.” — Russell Shorto HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1932 November: The USS Indianapolis (CA-35), a 9,800-ton Portland class heavy cruiser built at Camden NJ, was commissioned. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1936 November/December: The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) hosted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during a cruise to South America. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1941 Late 1941-Early 1942: During the aerial attack on Pearl Harbor the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) had been taking part in a training exercise off Johnston Atoll. Following that attack it was absorbed into a task force searching fruitlessly for the Japanese carriers from which the planes had been launched. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1942 Spring: The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) took up station in Alaskan waters. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1943 February: At Swansea on the coast of Wales, the Canadian “Liberty Ship” Fort Halkett (named in honor of John Wedderburn Halkett) was loaded with military cargo intended for Bône, Algeria. The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) sank a Japanese transport in Alaskan waters. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE The poem “Is Now,” by Mark Van Doren, expressed an exceedingly Thoreauvian attitude: Eternity is not to be pursued. Run, and it shortens; arrive, and it is shut: Forward or backward, nothing but the folds Of time, that you will tighten, fumbling them. Eternity is only to be entered Standing. It is everywhere and still. Slow, and it opens; stop, and it is whole As love about your head, that rests and sees. Eternity is now or not at all: Waited for, a wisp; remembered, shadows. Eternity is solid as the sun: As present, as familiar, as immense. TIME AND ETERNITY Late in the year: The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) became the flagship of the US 5th Fleet. In that role, into mid-1944, she would take part in operations against the Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas, and elsewhere in the central Pacific. In Vilna, Lithuania, in an effort to conceal their activities from the approaching Red Army, the German SS detailed some 80 of their Jewish prisoners to open mass graves at Ponary and burn the bodies of those they had been executing. As more of this concealment, those on this work detail would of course later themselves be executed. WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1944 September 15, Friday: Soviet forces occupied Praga, near Warsaw, but again came to a halt. American forces landed unopposed on Morotai Island in the Netherlands East Indies, but simultaneous 1st Marine Division landings on Peleliu (Palau) Island in the Carolines met fierce Japanese resistance. The naval operation was commanded by Vice Admiral T. S. Wilkinson, and the landing was preceded by several days of intensive carrier-based aircraft bombing and ship gunfire bombardment. The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35) participated in this operation. The Marine landing itself was commanded by Major General W. H. Rupertus. A naval task force under Rear Admiral D.E. Barbey landed Army troops under Major General J.C. Persons on Morotai Island in the Netherlands East Indies. The assault was supported by the cruisers and destroyers of Rear Admiral R.S. Berkey and aircraft from the escort carriers of Rear Admiral T.L. Sprague. Submarine Stingray (SS-186) landed men and stores on Majoe Island, Molucca Sea. Carrier Shangri La (CV-38) was commissioned at Norfolk, Virginia. Japanese naval vessel sunk: Transport #3, by submarine Guavina (SS-362), Philippine Islands area, 5 degrees 34 minutes North, 125 degrees 23 minutes East WORLD WAR II HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE 1945 February/March: The USS Indianapolis (CA-35), again flagship of the US 5th Fleet, joined in attacks on Iwo Jima, the Japanese home islands, and the Ryukyus. WORLD WAR II March 30, Friday: Indian troops took Kyaukse, south of Mandalay. Soviet forces captured Danzig (Gdansk). At Ravensbrück, Jewish women being led to execution struggled with guards. Nine escaped and were recaptured and killed. ANTISEMITISM Béla Bartók completed a 3d volume of Rumanian Folk Music. United States naval vessels damaged: • Heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), by Japanese Kamikaze suicide plane, Okinawa area, 26 degrees 25 minutes North, 127 degrees 30 minutes East • High-speed transport Roper (APD-20), by collision, Philippine Sea, 20 degrees 57 minutes North, 132 degrees 5 minutes East German submarines sunk: • U-2340, by Army aircraft, Hamburg, Germany. • U-96, U-429, U-3508, by Army aircraft, Wilhelmshaven, Germany. • U-72, U-329, U-430, U-870, U-884, U-886, by Army aircraft, Bremen, Germany March 31, Saturday: British and Chinese troops captured Kyaukme, 115 kilometers northeast of Mandalay, thus clearing the Burma Road from Mandalay to Lashio. The provisional government of Poland claims Danzig (Gdansk) as “an inseparable part of the Polish Republic.” French troops cross the Rhine at Speyer and Germersheim, north of Karlsruhe. Anton Webern and his wife leave their home near Vienna on foot, hoping to reach their house in Mittersill some 300 kilometers to the west. They reach Neulengbach, on the rail line to Salzburg. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams opened at the Playhouse Theater in New York. American forces complete the captured of the Kerama Islands in the Ryukyus. While operating in the Ryukyus, the USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was hit by a Kamikaze and would need to return to home port in California for repairs. United States naval vessels damaged: HDT WHAT? INDEX USS INDIANAPOLIS USS INDIANAPOLIS GO TO MASTER INDEX OF WARFARE • Heavy cruiser Pensacola (CA-24), by collision, Okinawa area, 26 degrees 10 minutes North, 127 degrees 19 minutes East • Light minelayer Adams (DM-27), by Japanese Kamikaze, Okinawa area, 26 degrees 12 minutes North, 127 degrees 8 minutes East • Seaplane tender (small) Coos Bay (AVP-25), by collision, Central Pacific area, 12 degrees 7 minutes North, 156 degrees 27 minutes East • Attack transport Hinsdale (APA-120), by Japanese Kamikaze, Okinawa area, 25 degrees 54 minutes North, 127 degrees 49 minutes East • LST724 and LST884, by Japanese Kamikaze, Okinawa area, 25 degrees 59 minutes North, 127 degrees 50 minutes East Japanese submarine sunk: Submarine I-8, by destroyers Morrison (DD-560) and Stockton (DD-646), Okinawa area, 25 degrees 29 minutes North, 128 degrees 35 minutes East Germany submarine sunk sometime in March: U-348, U-350, U-1167, by Army aircraft, Hamburg, Germany WORLD WAR II July 16, before dawn: Richard Harkey, a little boy, was waiting with his father for the train to arrive in Ancho, near Alamagordo, New Mexico, 200 kilometers south of Albuquerque, when he and his father heard a very, very loud blast. He tells us now that his father suspected that the steam locomotive on the train for which they were waiting had blown up, somewhere down the tracks. But they would find out that nothing ordinary was the reason for this particular very, very loud blast. The first atomic device, known as “The Gadget,” had just been detonated atop a tower at nearby Trinity test site, and a new world had just come into being.1 ATOM BOMB All life was ended within two kilometers of the gynormous explosion. The temperature at ground zero was three times hotter than the surface of the sun. The steel tower atop which the device had been placed was turned to gas. Windows were blown out at a distance of 320 kilometers. Light from the blast was apparent at a distance of 650 kilometers. 1. The Manhattan Project yielded three atomic bombs, each of which needed to be tested. The first of these bombs was a device known as “Gadget,” and because the Plutonium239 bomb mechanism was more complicated and failure-prone, was a test model of that device. The next bomb, this time a device meant to be dropped from an aircraft, was know as “Little Boy” and was our Uranium238 model. It would be tested in warfare over the city of Hiroshima, which had purposefully been left untouched so that the bomb damage could be accurately assessed. The U238 bomb did not have a test model not only because it was a very simple design but also because Oak Ridge had not yet enriched enough U238 to create two devices. The third bomb was the Pt239 model know as “Fat Man” and was the same design as the “Gadget” but prepared to be dropped from an aircraft. It would be tested in warfare over the city of Nagasaki, which had purposefully been left untouched so that the bomb damage could be accurately assessed and compared with the bomb damage resulting from our other design. We had to rush to get this one dropped before Japan had a chance to surrender unconditionally, as we simply had to obtain some objective basis for determining which of the two programs, the U238 program or the Pt239 program, should be continued in the postwar world, and which discontinued.