Rating: 
Summary: Tragic Disaster Written With Finesse
Review: Excellently written, this book is a page turner. I read it in one day. This is the gripping true account of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the bizzare chain of events which led to her demise and the lengths in which the United States Navy went to cover up their neglectful mistakes by using the Captain (who managed to survive) as its scapegoat. It is so unfortunate that the courtmartial was so widely publicized, while the overturn and clearing of Captain McVey's name and service record were downplayed to the point of obscurity. At the end of this book, my heart ached for ever single parent, spouse, sister, brother, child, friend/family member of each and every one of those brave men aboard her, and for those who perished and those who survived to endure years of mental anguish at the entire ordeal, the loss of their crewmates and the hours spent in those trecherous waters, forgotten, disregarded and overlooked by the entire Pacific Fleet. My compliments to the author who managed to recount this tragic disaster with such finesse!
Rating:
Summary: Tragedy at Sea and Ashore
Review: Fantastic book about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis it's crew and Captain. The accounts of the sailors and their ordeal of being lost at sea, battling sharks, thirst, hunger, one another and desperation is at once heartbreaking as well as uplifting. It's a true testament to the courage of the men who lived and those who died and the cowardice of the Navy brass who not only contributed to the sinking of Indianapolis but caused further loss of life due to incompetence ashore that delayed the rescue.
The final injustice is brought against Captain McVay who is eventually court martialed by his peers. The story of these sailors and their Captain is nothing less than haunting and we can only hope the current leaders in the Navy have learned a lesson never to be repeated.
Rating:
Summary: A work that coincides with today's headlines
Review: H.R. 4205, the National Defense Authorization Act, contains these words, "Captain McVay's military record should now reflect that he is exonerated for the loss of the USS INDIANAPOLIS and the lives of her crew." On July 13, 2001, Navy Secretary Gordon English placed the exoneration in Captain McVay's jacket, albeit, slightly a little late. Captain McVay took his own life in 1968. Mr. Newcomb combines the talents of historian, author, and sleuth, and he writes in an interesting style in that his historical characters become alive. It should be noted that forty years ago, he wrote another masterpiece entitled "Savo: the Incredible Naval Debacle off Guadalcanal." Despite its unwieldy title, it proved fascinating reading for a young lad, and it was recalled thirty-six years later and formed a basis for my work entitled "The Bode Testament" which can be found on this site. Thank you, Mr. Publisher, for bringing back "Abandon Ship," a must read. Recommended works would, of course, include Newcomb's "Savo," but would also, include Bruce Loxton's "The shame [sic] of Savo, "The Bode Testament," and the Warners' "Disaster in the Pacific."
Rating:
Summary: A work that coincides with today's headlines
Review: H.R. 4205, the National Defense Authorization Act, contains these words, "Captain McVay's military record should now reflect that he is exonerated for the loss of the USS INDIANAPOLIS and the lives of her crew." On July 13, 2001, Navy Secretary Gordon English placed the exoneration in Captain McVay's jacket, albeit, slightly a little late. Captain McVay took his own life in 1968. Mr. Newcomb combines the talents of historian, author, and sleuth, and he writes in an interesting style in that his historical characters become alive. It should be noted that forty years ago, he wrote another masterpiece entitled "Savo: the Incredible Naval Debacle off Guadalcanal." Despite its unwieldy title, it proved fascinating reading for a young lad, and it was recalled thirty-six years later and formed a basis for my work entitled "The Bode Testament" which can be found on this site. Thank you, Mr. Publisher, for bringing back "Abandon Ship," a must read. Recommended works would, of course, include Newcomb's "Savo," but would also, include Bruce Loxton's "The shame [sic] of Savo, "The Bode Testament," and the Warners' "Disaster in the Pacific."
Rating:
Summary: The sheer incompetence of the U.S. Navy
Review: I can honestly say that I've read this book. During World War II, the United States Navy had the Philippine Sea Frontier. The USS Indianapolis, an American heavy cruiser, delivered the final component for the atomic bomb. On its way to Leyte, on the night of July 30,1945, she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-76. Eight thousand men scrambled over the side. There weren't enough life rafts for all of them so some had to swim. By the time they rescued, there were only two hundred fifty men left alive. No one noticed her missing and reported the fact because of a policy that said no ship is to be reported in order to deny the enemy information as to its whereabouts. Ironically, this policy helped the Japanese more than Americans. After the sinking of the Indianapolis, this pigheaded, misguided, and upstrepious policy was discontinued. Charles B. McVay III, the captain of the Indianapolis, was court-martialed and found guilty on the testimony of the man who'd sunk his ship. He committed suicide in 1960.
Rating:
Summary: Mr. President, Pardon Captain McVay
Review: I guess this is the wrong place for it. I should have put it on
the White House website. However, since it's here, as the
headline, it's too late now. Isn't it? Every year, The Discovery Channel has a week of shark documentaries called, appropriately enough, Shark Week. The sharks that
attacked the survivors of the Indianapolis were Great Whites. The sinking was mentioned by the late Robert Shaw's character, Captain Quint, in the 1975 movie JAWS.
Was it McVay's fault? No. It was the Navy's. The Navy assured McVay that he was in safe water. He wasn't. When
she was overdue at Leyte, nobody noticed. Except for a radioman who asked his superiors to check with Headquarters. That done, the reply to the inquiries from Leyte was the following: "We don't publicize fleet operations
because it would let the enemy know where our ships are."
The Japanese already knew. The survivors themselves were left to drown and be eaten by sharks. When they were
finally rescued, the Navy moved to cover its (...). It made Charles B. McVay III the scapegoat and moved to court-martial him on charges of failing to protect his ship. The captain of the Japanese submarine who sank his ship
said that zigzagging wouldn't have made any difference.
Rating:
Summary: It's all too true.
Review: I read this book when I was in high school and was captivated. I'm very anxious to see the updated material. My father always said that Captain McVay was a fine captain and he was just a scapegoat for the Navy. My father, Clarence Benton, was Chief Firecontrolman on the Indianapolis when it went down. I remember asking about the life raft he used when he was "in the water". He simply said, "There was no life raft; we were IN the water."
Rating: 
Summary: Abandon Ship
Review: In the middle Of the night on July 30th 1945, Just 2 weeks before the end of world war II, The USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanesse Sub half way between the Phillipines and Guam. Although 800 sailors would make it off the ship only a little more than 300 would survive the terrible conditions of the sea because the United States Navy failed to realize the the ship had even been sunk. When survivors were found nearly five full days later a search for a scapegoat was almost as immediate as the seach for more survivors. It was unfortunate for the captian of the Indianapolis, Captian Mcvay, that the scapegoating fell upon him, even though he was sent into potentialy hostile waters with out sub detection equipment or an escort leaving him and his ship defenseless against enemy submarines which the navy apparently knew were in the area. Abandon ship! is a well written account of the tragedy of the Indianapolis and it's aftermath. Originaly written in 1958 by Richard Newcomb, It suffers only a little from the fact that the material is a little dated and important facts were covered up and or classified as secrect until more recently. For example The navy timed the release of the reporting of the sinking at the very hour President Truman was announcing the Japanesse surrender. Newcomb writes that this was likly a coincidence, but would anyone realy belive that it was merely a coincidence today? Also the fact that the navy knew there was a Japanesse sub in the area from classified intellgence reports was covered up pretty well. One of the most interesting and moving parts of the book is the afterward (or more aptly a follow up) by Peter Maas, describing how a young 6th grade boy wacthing the movie "Jaws" set in motion a campaign to set the record of the Indianapolis and her Captian straight. I highly recommend this book to all an excellent read, on a disaster that far to few are aware of. An update: As of July 2001 Captain Mc Vay has been cleared of any wrong doing by the United States Navy, about 33 years late for the Captian who killed himself in 1968.
Rating:
Summary: Assigning blame for the Indianapolis debacle
Review: In the military then as now blame is assigned to individuals responsible. A responsible individual has resonable prior knowledge of a situation that could cause disaster, the authority, and the command ability to mitigate or change the situation.
The problem as the author so clearly spells out is a lack of clear regulatory authority at subordinate levels to report an overdue combatant ship and the lack of the Navy as a whole and the the Commander in Chief Pacific Area Command, Fleet Admiral Nimitz to properly account for his ships and personnel.
Clearly the system was flawed and should not have in anyway shape or form have landed on the shoulders of Commadore Gillette his subordinates or CPT McVay.
In my opinion Nimitz knew he was the guilty party and he and his staff should have been reprimanded and or Court Martialled.
Unfortunately, the political realities of the situation were such that no one, to include those in congress had the where withal or guts to blame a future Chief of Naval Operations and a War hero for this mistake.
One could try to argue that it was Nimitz's subordinate Operational staff that was at fault, that this reporting and tracking oversight were wartime expediencies, or even that the rival McCarthur-Nimitz system puts the blame even up to Roosevelt.
In fact it was a jealous Operational Command treating the Service Commands within the Navy as second class citizens that allowed for the mistakes made. This policy was created by, implemented and enforced by Admiral Nimitz with the tacit approval of Admiral King, then CNO.
To put the blame for this tragedy anywhere else is to disregard the facts and imply that Admiral Nimitz was not in Command but a puppet of his situation. That he shrugged off his responsibility and then allowed Forrestal to blame Gibson is a dispicable yellow mark on an otherwise great career.
The book is definitely worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Old Tale, New Outrage
Review: It is a tribute to "Abandon Ship" that fully 43 years after its first appearance this work has been reprinted and marketed for a new generation. For nearly half a century Richard Newcomb's straightforward account of the sinking of the Indianapolis served as a rallying point for the four hundred American sailors who survived nearly a week of terrible exposure in the South Pacific, as well as for a small but determined group of supporters and politicians who have maintained that the U.S. Navy's inquiry into the matter was nothing more than scapegoating and administrative whitewash. It did not hurt the book nor the cause of the Indianapolis survivors that Hollywood later told the story in dramatic fashion. In the 1975 movie thriller "Jaws," the salty shark hunter Quint reveals to his crew during a late night bender that he himself was a survivor of the torpedo attack that forced 1100 American sailors into the tropical waters of the South Pacific. Typical of the bad luck that has dogged the Indianapolis for years, Quint's cinematic narrative is rife with errors: most of the sailors died of exposure, not shark attack; the Indianapolis had already completed its mission of delivering the atomic bomb to Tinian at the time of its demise; and the ungodly delay in rescue operations was not due to security concerns, as Quint believed, but rather to communications and operations snafus. Newcomb's original account of the sinking of the Indianapolis is drama enough. The Indianapolis had completed the delivery of the two atomic bombs to the island of Tinian and was en route to Leyte for routine training when it was cut in half by two simultaneous suicide torpedo strikes launched from a Japanese submarine. The ship sank within fifteen minutes, but under existing naval policy, its failure to reach Leyte was not noted for five days, delaying the dispatch of search and rescue craft and causing hundreds of unnecessary deaths. Perhaps because of these operational flaws in its command structure, naval inquiry not surprisingly shifted attention to the twin questions of whether the commander had demonstrated negligence in not taking evasive actions and later in failing to issue an "abandon ship" command. Newcomb, working with material then available, is unequivocal in his judgment that the Navy's sanctions against Commander Charles B. McVay and other officers were politically motivated and brutally unfair. It is hard to imagine that the U.S. Navy actually procured the commander of the Japanese submarine to testify against McVay. Newcomb suggests that the visibility of the ship's atomic mission, as well as the tragedy's proximity to V-J Day, may have been precipitating factors in these unusual disciplinary proceedings. He portrays McVay as a competent officer whose very conservatism would make him an unlikely candidate to veer from the standard operations book for unnecessary risk. The injustice of the Indianapolis tragedy-the excessive loss of life and the misplacing of blame-emerged from time to time into the public consciousness for some years after the book's 1958 appearance. McVay, a stoic man, committed suicide in 1968. In the late 1990's investigative reporter Peter Maas stumbled upon the Indianapolis story while researching another naval tragedy. By this time Newcomb was retired in Florida, but Maas discovered that his book was revered by the 160 or so Indianapolis survivors still alive. In the reissue of this book in 2001, Maas adds both a new introduction and a lengthy chapter summarizing his own examination of declassified documents and a new congressional investigation that concluded in October 2000. He notes ruefully that even at this late date the Navy lobbied the Senate for a sanitized resolution that in essence exonerated both McVay and the Navy. "Abandon Ship" is a gripping tale. Aside from the fact that Newcomb has [at times awkwardly] included the name, rank, and history of just about everyone on the ship, the story moves at a compelling clip. It is a tribute to the author's fairness that the reader is compelled to weigh conflicting evidence in the matter of weather conditions, available intelligence, and navigational options available to McVay. Maas, not surprisingly, reflects a more rough and tumble contemporary journalistic style than his genteel predecessor, but there are no ugly fault lines in the text. Neither investigator fully penetrates naval or congressional skullduggery, in 1958 or 2000, but both do their best to force some measure of public accountability. One cannot read the book today without thoughts of September 11, 2001. "Abandon Ship" is a sad reminder that not every national tragedy has been met with the equanimity that becomes America.
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