Capt McVay can certainly be added to the list of causalities. McVay was stupidly and wrongly the subject of a Court Martial after the sinking of the Indianapolis. Capt. McVay had asked for Destroyer escorts and was denied. Destroyer escorts might have been able to detect the submarine that sunk the Indy. The testimony of the Japanese Commander of the submarine that sunk Indy also exonerated McVay.
After a good number of years suffering from mental health problems, McVay took his own life at 70. Certainly, Capt McVay suffered terribly with the loss of his crew and how a good number of them perished. After many years of efforts by survivors and others to clear his name, McVay was posthumously exonerated by Congress and President Bill Clinton on October 30th, 2000. This was small consolation after the U.S essentially rode McVay to his death.
Quote: Paul Murphy, president of the USS
Indianapolis Survivors Organization, said: "Captain McVay's court-martial was simply to divert attention from the terrible loss of life caused by procedural mistakes which never alerted anyone that we were missing."
In his book
Abandon Ship, author Richard F. Newcomb posits a motive for Admiral King's ordering McVay's court-martial. According to Captain McVay III's father, Admiral Charles B McVay Jr., "'King never forgot a
grudge". King had been a
junior officer under the command of McVay's father when King and other officers snuck some women aboard a ship. Admiral McVay had a letter of reprimand placed in King's record for that. "Now," he raged, "King's used [my son] to
get back at me."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._McVay_III
04-08-22, 11:23 PM
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