| Rescue |
| At about 10:25 a.m., Thursday morning, 24 year old Lieutenant
Chuck Gwinn, piloting his Lockheed Navy "Ventura" PV-1 bomber based on the
island of Palau, about 300 miles south of the location where
Indianapolis went down, was on routine antisubmarine patrol. It was
his second flight of the day; earlier while attempting to reel out his radio
antenna, it broke away. He returned to base at Palau, installed a new one
and immediately took off to start his antisubmarine patrol. On that second
patrol, Gwinn was in the rear of the plane working with his crew to solve
a binding problem with the antenna winch. He was leaning out of the plane,
guiding the wire, when he chanced to glance down at the ocean and changed
the fate of 317 men. Gwinn had spotted a huge oil slick. Thinking because
of the large oil slick that an enemy sub had just submerged beneath his plane,
he dropped down several hundred feet for a depth charge run. The bomb bay
doors were open, ready to drop depth charges on the suspected enemy sub.
Gwinn glanced out the window just as he was about to release his depth charges
and there, spread out over the ocean, were hundreds of delirious men waiving
to get his attention. Immediately Gwinn regained altitude and radioed his
base a Palau. "Many men in the water." and gave his latitude and longitude.
He orbited the location answering questions from Palau. After some hours
were wasted getting through the bureaucracy (they refused to believe him
and some thought it was a prank) a Catalina PB-Y flying boat was eventually
dispatched. At her controls was a 28-year-old Navy pilot from Frankfort,
Indiana, named Adrian Marks. En route to the scene reported by Gwinn, Lt.
Marks over flew the USS Cecil Doyle, whose skipper was a close friend.
Marks informed the skipper of his mission. On his own initiative, the
Doyle's captain, Graham Claytor, diverted from his orders to proceed
to Leyte Gulf, where his ship was to take part in the invasion of Japan,
to lend assistance. |
| At this point, his fuel state near critical, Gwinn headed for
his home base, little knowing the part fate had played in his life or the
lives of the 317 American sailors and marines. |
| Arriving at the survivors' location, Marks began dropping rafts,
and supplies. While this was underway, his crew informed him they were seeing
men being attacked and eaten alive by sharks! |
| Abandoning standing orders, Marks landed his plane in the open
sea (Marks later related he knew the day might come when he'd be forced to
make an open sea landing so he had planned for the eventuality -- now he
prepared to put his theories to the test). In a daring maneuver, he landed
between swells in a power-on-stall-tail low, nose high. Although many hull
rivets popped out from the force of the landing, his PB-Y made it! He taxied
his plane as close as he could to the first large group of men and immediately
began taking survivors aboard. Some nearby survivors were so weakened by
their ordeal, that when they slipped out of their kapok lifejackets, they
drowned while attempting to swim to the plane. |
| Learning the men were from Indianapolis, a thoroughly shaken
Marks frantically, and now in plain English, repeatedly radioed for help.
The Cecil Doyle replied she was on the way. When the PB-Y's fuselage
was full, the crew carried men onto the wings. All night long, Marks and
his crew fought to get as many men as possible out of the shark-infested
sea. |
| Adrian Marks and his gallant and courageous flight crew saved
56 men that day. A record that has never been equaled for a sea plan of that
size since! |
| Lieutenant Mark's PB-Y was a floating unflyable hulk. Marks stripped
the plane of all instruments and secret gear. He then transferred himself
and his crew to the Doyle and asked her skipper to destroy his plane
by gunfire, lest it fall into enemy hands. |
| Responding to Marks' calls for help, the destroyers, Cecile
Doyle, (DE-368), Talbot, (DD-390), and Dufilho, (DE-423),
converged on the scene. The Auxiliary Ships Ringness, (APD-100)
Bassett, (ADP-73), and Register, (APD-92) also came to the
rescue of the remaining Indianapolis crew. Following medical treatment
on Guam, the 317 weary, but deliriously happy, survivors were returned to
the US aboard the escort carrier, Hollandia, (CVU-97) |
| Interestingly, the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
(DANFS) states, "Captain Charles B. McVay, III, USN, commanding officer of
Indianapolis at the time of her sinking, was vindicated from any blame concerned
with the loss of his ship." ... actually, Captain McVay is the only military
officer in American history court marshaled for the loss of his ship in wartime
-- and certainly the only captain to have the man who sank his ship used
as a witness for the prosecution. The personal torment and blame by the families
of the men who were lost eventually led to Captain McVay to take his own
life. His men, the survivors, have continued with Kimo McVay to petitioning
congress for a reversal of the court marshal. |
| All personnel involved in the failure to report the ship's absence
from Leyte were exonerated, after all the evidence had been
carefully weighed. |
