The horrifying story of the ship that delivered

In 1968 former US Navy Captain Charles B. McVay III stood at the back porch of his house in Litchfield, Connecticut after a spot of gardening His housekeeper Florence Regosia noticed he looked flushed and had a “glazed look” on his face She put out his lunch and left A few minutes late Captain McVay pulled out a gun and blew his brains out.

It appears the shame of one fateful day at the end of WW2 had finally become too much for McVay who was the commanding officer of the heavy cruiser USS Indianopolis, flagship of the massive Pacific Fifth Fleet,

In late July 1945, he was given one of the most important and secret tasks of the war: to ferry the business end of the atomic bomb to Tinian Island in the Marianas where a B29 plane called Enola Gay was revved up and ready to take off and drop it on Hiroshima

After successfully delivering the precious cargo, breaking maritime speed records in the process, Capt McVay and his 1,196 strong crew were returning to base in Hawaii when his ship sailed across the path of a marauding Japanese U-Boat.

The I-58 sub commanded by Lt Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto was far larger and more heavily armed than any similar craft owned by the US, or indeed Germany or the UK It could carry six huge torpedoes, each 48 feet long and weighed eight tons These ‘Kaitens’ as they were called had an underwater speed of 30 knots and carried 3,200 pounds of explosives in the warhead

The unique thing about a Kaiten, however, was not its size, speed or explosive power. What made them special was that each was piloted by a man, the underwater equivalent of the suicidal kamikaze.

Upon spotting a target, the pilot climbed through a hatch into the torpedo, the straps holding it to the sub’s decks were released, and he steered it toward the target There was very little chance that he would miss, and of course it was strictly a one-way mission.

Even though US Naval intelligence knew their were enemy U-boats in the area, McVay had been given no warning.

Lulled into a false sense of security, he had ordered his ship to sail in a straight line without taking the usual evasive precautions such as zig-zagging.

The Indianapolis was a sitting duck and hashimoto took full advantage Two torpedoes slammed into the