Churchill had studied the American Civil War and knew of the grit and determination of the American people—staunch woes for a country (Japan) that believed in a divine blessing, perhaps a Shinto blessing, to win the war and dominate and prosper. “The Japanese High Command had shown the utmost skill and daring in making and executing their plans,” Churchill wrote in The Hinge of Fate. “They started however upon a foundation which did not measure world forces in true proportion. They never comprehended the vast talent of the United States.”
Hashimoto next attended advanced submarine school to prepare for service as a commander and became lieutenant commander of I-58. He carried kaitens, or manned torpedoes—suicide bombs piloted by soldiers willingly giving their lives for the Emperor, the sea’s equivalent of the sky’s kamikazi. The sub was at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, repeatedly attacked by aircraft, seldom surfacing.
Hashimoto ordered I-58 to the Philippines, and on July 29, 1945, the sub was patrolling shipping lanes among Guam, Leyte, Palau, and Okinawa. They spied a heavy cruiser—the Indianapolis. The ship moved through the relative darkness of a half-moon, causing the captain of the Indianapolis, Captain Charles B. McVay III, to call off the evasive zigzagging pattern he had been advised to follow. The navigator shouted to Hashimoto and the I-58 crew, “Bearing red nine-zero degrees, a possible enemy ship.”
In such a moment of weighty decisions, Hashimoto was forced to adjudicate the type of ship, its course and speed, and ready his vessel for action. “There was a large forward mast. We’ve got her, I thought,” Hashimoto wrote in his postwar book Sunk. “She had two turrets aft and a large tower mast. I took her to be a large Idaho-class battleship.”
He had tentatively thought of sending two suicide kaitens with six conventional torpedoes. He sent the six conventional, holding the kaitens for a follow up to the salvo if needed, much to the bitter disappointment of the kaitens. He wrote of the torpedo launch:
… [T]here rose columns of water to be followed immediately by flashes of bright red flame. Then another column of water arose from alongside the Number 2 turret and seemed to envelop the whole ship—“A hit, a hit!” I shouted as each torpedo struck home, and the crew danced for joy.
Looking through the periscope at the blasts, Hashimoto knew at least three explosions occurred. More explosions reverberated over and through the sea, likely internal to the Indianapolis. The commander was quite sure no ship could escape the resulting horrible fate—the cruiser could not move; it would sink; men would die—many men would die. Hashimoto did not mourn the loss of enemy life, knowing he also was expendable and his responsibility rested with preserving the lives of his crew. Maybe that was his greatest responsibility? He wanted victory for himself and Japan; he wanted to defeat the enemy. But he wanted his crew to survive. The I-58, picking up the underwater detector signal from the Indianapolis, dove to evade the signal and to reload, preparing for the likelihood further commands were needed. Hashimoto acknowledged the pleas of the kaiten crew to send them on their final mission, but he didn’t want to spend their lives if the enemy ship was already sinking. Why sacrifice men when the job was already done, the enemy vanquished? When the submarine reached periscope depth, nothing could be seen. There was no flotsam—no evidence of a sunken ship. No signal or sign of hundreds of bodies afloat in the water, no wreckage. Nothing. They would eat, feast on the best they had—rice, beans, and tinned boiled eels and corned beef, a gratifying meal. A message was sent to Tokyo: “RELEASED SIX TORPEDOES AND SCORED THREE AT BATTLESHIP OF IDAHO CLASS—DEFINITELY SANK IT.”
What could not be seen through a periscope, only experienced in the hopeless dark of a nightmare, was the salt water surging overhead, the waves swelling, the piercing screams swollen with terror, guttural cries for the mercy of an angry or vengeful God, invoking their God’s benevolence to provide forgiveness and salvation. “Oh, my God, I’m heartily sorry, for having offended thee!” Brutal shouts, profane cries; pitiless begging and pleading and sobbing. Hashimoto saw none of this, nor the float path of the dead extending out from where the cruiser went down. (That path would stretch out twenty-five miles or more within days.) Those dead, dying, or fighting for survival were in a nightmare seascape of human suffering. One man grabbed another by the shoulders, but that sailor was gone, burned horribly beyond recognition. Another was shouting to watch out for the Japanese airplane, his mind warped from ingesting salt water, and growing hypothermia, shock, and fatigue. After some time in the water, clarity came to some, and they clutched anything that floated, pulling their head, shoulders, and, if possible, their torsos clear of the water. Some rolled their bodies prone on a piece of wood or metal or a kapok cushion. Cries for God, and mommy, too.
As reported in the book Fatal Voyage: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis by Dan Kurzman: “As soon as Captain McVay returned fully dressed to the bridge from his emergency cabin, Commander Flynn confronted him. ‘We are definitely going down,’ he said, ‘and I suggest we abandon ship.’ ” This time-proven military leader, Captain McVay, had just heard words he never imagined he would hear, ever: and next he spoke words beyond his own comprehension: “Abandon ship!”
It was so sudden. The ship was gone—disappeared, disintegrated from view. Sunk in fewer than fifteen minutes.
With clarity came awareness that the men were not alone floating in the water. Shadows moved past their groups, as they had melded together into pods of five, twenty, fifty, as many as 170, the approximately 900 who survived the sinking now grouping together when possible and when their flagging strength allowed. Safety in numbers, of course, but also a feeling of security knowing they were not alone in what they faced. A shadow passed a weary man while another, floating in the current face down and clearly dead, suddenly convulsed seemingly in a spasm. No, the ocean itself surged and erupted, the limp body jerking under the surface, like an electric shock, then the body surfacing briefly, jerking down again. The body vanished in the dusky light, as dawn was now coming and forms were taking shape. A chorus of shouts became one high-pitched scream, gurgling out to a startling silence. The sharks had arrived and food was abundant. They were feeding, frenzying amid some groups of men, bodies disappearing, not all dead when the attack began but lost in a swirl of blood and foaming water.
Hours passed, the unforgiving sun beat its rays on the men, the 110-degree heat intolerable. The surface was covered with a fuel-oil skim, a choking thirst overwhelming the parched sailors. More shouting and splashing, then screams, then quiet. Other voices were threatening, shouts accusatory, violent splashes not sharks but sailors turning on one another, the insanity of dehydration and exposure erupting in a cacophony of violence. This attracted the sharks, of course, who quieted the thrashing men, one at a time, picking them off the surface. Some were taken in mid-thrust as they splashed at another sailor, shouting insane invectives—silenced.
One group that started as seventeen men in a loose circle was now reduced to ten, their twenty arms clutching wooden boxes and boards. Together they splashed the surface and kicked as two sharks circled, though one shark turned swiftly, seemingly angrily, and swiped a man’s legs, pulling the sailor’s torso under, the man spitting blood when he resurfaced, never shouting just gasping and spitting and finally lying back in the water, his head jerking down out of view. Another man lost.
What was coming next—a Japanese sub surfacing to strafe the men with machine-gun fire? Or would planes be dispatched to locate the wreckage and survivors? The likeliest scenario was the return of the submarine and certain death. Well, a sailor thought, get on with that! Don’t let us drown here or lose our minds to kill one another—the sad irony of surviving a sinking only to lash out and kill beyond awareness because you were driven by madness caused by thirst and hunger and pain. What was that? Another shadow? Damn sharks—take me! No, don’t you come near, I’ll kill you with my bare hands you rotten bastard! I’ll gouge out your lifeless black eyes and drink your blood! My God, that’s it—come near and I’ll eat you and
drink your blood!
The shark turned and dove, quickly angling up to attack from below. The sailor could see it clearly, could see its teeth bared. He spun around and tried to swim, fiercely thrashing his arms, gulping seawater, losing his breath, feeling searing pain in his legs, knowing there would be no fight, screaming, “Nooooo!” His last memory was watching the surface rise up as a second shark collided into this chest, knocking his torso backward while his legs were being pulled down, the pain so bad it brought euphoria, with him ascending now ever higher till he was above the water’s surface and flying now toward an island and safety, heading home. He missed home. How he missed home.
How long had it been? Why had no one come? Neither airplanes nor rescue ships nor an enemy sub, nothing had materialized—the men in the water were abandoned. Alone in the water, how could they possibly survive? There was no way to survive—no food, barely any fresh water stowed in the rafts, no painkillers, no medicine, no sleep. Only pain and deprivation beyond the limits of the human body and mind. And there were sharks prowling and patrolling the edges of the groups of men.
The human mind has great capacity. We can transport ourselves to calming nocturnal moments of wonder and joy. We can experience alpha and omega in the OM. We can allow our minds to be absorbed into the great wonder of existence, beyond our awareness to a deeper place of calm. To reach an absolute calm, a tranquility, a peace. We can rest and believe that some life force will repel all evil. Even the sharks aren’t evil, though they look it—they simply want to go on living and need to eat. You are not shark food—until they decide that they must eat and you are there. This is what Shinto has taught me, Hashimoto thought as he woke from his horror dream. I will live in that temple in Kyoto, one day I will help. But not today.
He rose from his bunk and went to the head to piss. His stomach churned from the rotten onions he had eaten earlier, simply to show his crew they were edible. Whosoever died on the American ship deserved to perish, because they wanted to kill me and my crew and all of Japan, he thought. Still, they are not they—I can’t hold them as a collective in my mind, he corrected his thoughts, I know many individuals were alone with their life forces and didn’t have any decision about dying. That man had to die. I did not want individuals to die. I want Japan to live, and we will live. However, there is no beauty here where I sit below the water in a steel tube that is a submarine, but I remember beauty and the gardens of my youth and the delicate flow of nature. I love Kami. I respect Kami. I know I am respected by my crew, although I also know they see me as old and therefore wrongheaded, but I will maintain respect for life throughout my own life. Down here, I feel only my responsibility to the Emperor. I am not in touch with Kami, but I will be one day. That day will come when I am ready, Hashimoto told himself.
Coxswain Louis Harold Erwin told the History Project of the Library of Congress:
I’d just come off the eight to 12 watch, stood—stood my watches on the five-inch gun. And I just got in my hammock, and this big blast hit. And the ship give a big lisp, so we—I was out of my sack, and I said this ship’s going down. And we all carried these big knives on the side, and our life jackets was—he kapoks was put in big bags up there and tied along the railings and different things, and we start—took our knife out, cut the kapoks down and started passing them out. So we never did hear abandon ship. All the communication was knocked out. And we kept seeing a group of people in the water, so we said we better hit it or we’re going down with the ship. So I run down the side. A few more of my buddies run down the side and we dove in. And the first night—this happened about 12 minutes past midnight. All the rest of us, we heaved and lost everything we had on our stomach drinking that salt water, swallowing that saltwater and oil. And the next morning, why, of course, I’d swam just as far as I could, and I looked around, and I just saw the tail end of the USS Indianapolis going straight down.
[T]hat first night was real light. That’s when you swam as fast as you can to get away from the ship, I could look back and see the fantail of the ship going down, and you could see that. But many of the nights it would get awful dark. And of course, when the sharks attacked, that would be—that would be earlier, feeding time, sort of time, and you could hear screaming at night or different things when they was getting someone. Sharks would swim within five to six feet from you, knowing all the time that they could get you.
And we tried to all gather in the water and keep ourself (sic) together where the sharks wouldn’t get us, but the group I was in, about 250 to 300, after first day we’d lose a few, second day a few, just kept on. About the third day, why, I looked around, just about all of them was gone.
The Oceanic whitetip shark is a requiem shark, meaning it produces live offspring, is migratory, and lives in warm, deep oceans (as opposed to shallower, inshore areas). According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Oceanic whitetip sharks are moderately large sharks with a global distribution. This stocky shark is easily distinguished from other sharks by its unmistakable whitish-tipped first dorsal, pectoral, pelvic, and caudal fins. It has a large rounded first dorsal fin and very long and wide paddle-like pectoral fins with a short, bluntly rounded nose and small circular eyes. The oceanic whitetip shark is a pelagic species that lives near the surface in warm waters (usually over 20 degrees Celsius) in the open ocean, usually well offshore. [They] are found worldwide in warm tropical and subtropical waters between 20° North and 20° South latitude, but can be found up to about 30° North and South latitude during seasonal movements to higher latitudes in the summer months.”
They eat whatever they find. Survivor reports indicate that tiger sharks likely joined the feeding frenzy.
In the water in the straights of Leyte, hundreds of men continued their struggle. Most knew intuitively from their inborn survival instincts that they needed to belong to a group and were eager to be a part of the whole. Every once in a while, an oil-faced sailor would erupt with epithets leading to violent action; every once in a while, a man died at the hands of a delirious shipmate. In the throes of delirium, once, the sailor was taken down by a shark, the thrashing and convulsing an attractant to the apex predator underneath. No part of that man resurfaced; he was consumed below. The other sailors were glad not to see remains—they couldn’t bear another reminder of eminent death surrounding them.
How their destiny now was intertwined with the reality of death. Growing up on a farm in Iowa, walking the fields through harrow furrows, kicking at cornstalks trying to force pheasants into the air to bag dinner for his family, his father a wretched drunk passed out behind the barn, the boy now the provider for his two younger sisters and his mother overwrought with nerves, barely able to keep the cast-iron pan steady on the cook stove so terrible were her tremors (maybe she was drinking too?), he felt the familiar isolation now of being in a vast sea with no direction and little hope. What did it mean to survive, anymore; he had been trying to survive his entire life and was responsible for the survival of others, as he felt he now was too. He was an ensign, the lowest rank of officer but a commissioned officer nonetheless, making his own way only to be swept up in the war machine and now dropped, discarded, into the south sea like so many unwanted bundles and scraps. NO! He would not submit to that morbid thinking, he would persevere and prevail and survive. He would return to Iowa with his Naval commendation or Purple Heart for the wound he received as the ship went down. The wound … his leg ached so, and it made him more tired than hungry or thirsty. If only he closed his eyes for only a moment. He splashed water on his head and tried to wipe the oil from his face, grinding his knuckles into his eye sockets. He could see clearer; he would sleep better; he would now close his eyes and let sleep drift over him. It felt so good and easy. He would wake up and be somewhere else. He would sleep and float away.
Survivor Giles McCoy was interviewed for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project on November 14, 2002; he talked about being in the water after the USS Indianapolis went
down:
[T]he weather was rough, windy and a there was a lot of waves; there was so much oil (fuel oil) on the surface that I swallowed a whole bunch. When you swallowed [fuel oil] it made you sicker than the devil. You just vomited all the time until your insides felt like they were coming out; it just got so bad. Anyhow, I was floating out there and I came across another group of men and got with them. One of them was a bosun’s mate that was a good friend of mine that I had done duty with; his name was Gene Morgan. Gene was straddling a five inch powder can, he didn’t have a life jacket. I got up to him and he recognized me. I said, “Gene, you can’t survive on that powder can. We don’t know how long we are going to be out here.” He said, “Well, that’s all I got!” We had to wait until a dead body floated by with a life jacket on; I took it off the body and said a prayer to it and let it go. I put [the jacket] on him and then I left him.
Unspeakable Horror Page 3
