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Recollections of the sinking of USS Indianapolis (CA-35) by CAPT
Lewis L. Haynes, MC (Medical Corps) (Ret.), the senior medical
officer on board the ship.
[Source: Haynes, Lewis L. "Survivor of the Indianapolis."
Navy Medicine 86, no.4 (Jul.-Aug. 1995): 13-17.]
Delivering the [Atomic] Bomb
After our repairs were completed, we were supposed to go on
our post-repair trial run. But instead, on July 15th, we were
ordered to go to San Francisco to take on some cargo. I was amazed
to notice that there was a quiet, almost dead Navy Yard. We tied
up at the dock there and two big trucks came alongside. The big
crate on one truck was put in the port hanger. The other truck
had a bunch of men aboard, including two Army officers, CAPT [James
F.] Nolan and MAJ [Robert R.] Furman. I found out later that Nolan
was a medical officer. I don't know what his job was, probably
to monitor radiation. The two men carried a canister, about 3
feet by 4 feet tall, up to ADM Spruance's cabin where they welded
it to the deck. Later on, I found out that this held the nuclear
ingredients for the bomb and the large box in the hanger contained
the device for firing the bomb. And I had that thing welded to
the deck above me for 10 days!
As we got under way on July 16th, CAPT McVay told his staff we
were on a special mission. "I can't tell you what the mission
is. I don't know myself but I've been told that every day we take
off the trip is a day off the war." CAPT McVay told us his
orders were that if we had an "abandon ship," what was
in the admiral's cabin was to be placed in a boat before anybody
else. We had all kinds of guesses as to what the cargo was.
After refueling at an eerily quiet Pearl Harbor, we made a straight
run to Tinian at as much speed as they could economically go,
about 25 or 26 knots. Everybody was at Condition Able which was
4 hours on and 4 hours off. It was like going into battle the
whole way out. The trip from San Francisco to Tinian took a total
of 10 days,
When we unloaded our special cargo at Tinian I noticed a couple
of general Air Force officers handling these crates like they
were a bunch of stevedores. I was even more sure we had something
important.
We were then ordered to the Philippines for training exercises
preparing for the invasion of Kyushu. CAPT McVay asked for an
escort, but was told we didn't need one as it was supposedly safe
to go to the Philippines. What he wasn't told was that there were
Japanese submarines along the way and that Naval Intelligence
knew it.
Torpedo Hit
On July 29th I was pretty tired because I had given the whole
crew cholera shots all day. I remember walking through the warrant
officer's quarters and declining to join a poker game as I was
so tired. I then went to bed.
I awoke. I was in the air. I saw a bright light before I felt
the concussion of the explosion that threw me up in the air almost
to the overhead. A torpedo had detonated under my room. I hit
the edge of the bunk, hit the deck, and stood up. Then the second
explosion knocked me down again. As I landed on the deck I thought,
"I've got to get the hell out of here!" I grabbed my
life jacket and started to go out the door. My room was already
on fire.
I emerged to see my neighbor Ken Stout. He said, "Let's go,"
and stepped ahead of me into the main passageway. I was very close
to him when he yelled, "Look out!" and threw his hands
up. I lifted the life jacket in front of my face, and stepped
back. As I did, a wall of fire went "Whoosh!" It burned
my hair off, burned my face, and the back of my hands. That's
the last I saw of Ken.
I started out trying to go to the forward ladder to go up on the
fo'c'sle deck, There was a lot of fire coming up through the deck
right in front of the dentist's room. That's when I realized I
couldn't go forward and turned to go aft. As I did, I slipped
and fell, landing on my hands. I got third degree burns on my
hands -- my palms and all the tips of my fingers. I still have
the scars. I was barefooted and the soles of my feet were burned
off.
Then I turned aft to go back through the wardroom. I would have
to go through the wardroom and down a long passageway to the quarterdeck,
but there was a terrible hazy smoke with a peculiar odor. I couldn't
breathe and got lost in the wardroom. I kept bumping into furniture
and finally fell into this big easy chair. I felt so comfortable.
I knew I was dying but I really didn't care.
Then someone standing over me said, "My God, I'm fainting!"
and he fell on me. Evidently that gave me a shot of adrenalin
and I forced my way up and out. Somebody was yelling, "Open
a porthole!" All power was out and it was just a red haze.
The ship was beginning to list and I moved to that side of the
ship. I found a porthole already open. Two other guys had gone
out through it. I stuck my head out the porthole, gulping in some
air, and found they had left a rope dangling. I looked down to
see water rushing into the ship beneath me. I thought about going
out the porthole into the ocean but I knew I couldn't go in there.
Instead I grabbed the rope which was attached to an overhanging
floater net. I pulled myself through the porthole and up to the
deck above. I then went to my battle station, which was the port
hanger. My chief, [CPhM John A.] Shmueck, and a lot of casualties
were back there. I think the moon was going in and out because
at times I could see clearly, other times not. We were trying
to put dressings and give morphine to badly burned men when an
officer came up and said, "Doctor, you'd better get life
jackets on your patients."
So Shmueck and I went up a ladder to the deck above where there
were some life jackets. We got a whole bunch of life jackets and
went back down and started to put them on the patients. I remember
helping a warrant officer. His skin was hanging in shreds and
he was yelling, "Don't touch me, don't touch me." I
kept telling him we had to get the jacket on. I was putting the
jacket on when the ship tipped right over. He just slid away from
me. The patients and the plane on the catapult all went down in
a big, tangling crash to the other side. I grabbed the lifeline
and climbed through to avoid falling. And by the time I did, the
ship was on its side. Those men probably all died as the plane
came down on top of them. All the rescue gear and everything we
had out went down, patients and everything together.
Into the Water
I slowly walked down the side of the ship. Another kid came and
said he didn't have a jacket. I had an extra jacket and he put
it on. We both jumped into the water which was covered with fuel
oil. I wasn't alone in the water. The hull was covered with people
climbing down.
I didn't want to get sucked down with the ship so I kicked my
feet to get away. And then the ship rose up high. I thought it
was going to come down and crush me. The ship kept leaning out
away from me, the aft end rising up and leaning over as it stood
up on its nose. The ship was still going forward at probably 3
or 4 knots. When it finally sank, it was over a hundred yards
from me. Most of the survivors were strung out anywhere from half
a mile to a mile behind the ship.
Suddenly the ship was gone and it was very quiet. It had only
been 12 minutes since the torpedoes hit. We started to gather
together. Being in the water wasn't an unpleasant experience except
that the black fuel oil got in your nose and eyes. We all looked
the same, black oil all over -- white eyes and red mouths. You
couldn't tell the doctor from the boot seamen. Soon everyone had
swallowed fuel oil and gotten sick. Then everyone began vomiting.
At that time, I could have hidden but somebody yelled, "Is
the doctor there?" And I made myself known. From that point
on -- and that's probably why I'm here today -- I was kept so
busy I had to keep going. But without any equipment, from that
point on I became a coroner.
A lot of men were without life jackets. The kapok life jacket
is designed with a space in the back. Those who had life jackets
that were injured, you could put your arm through that space and
pull them up on your hip and keep them out of the water. And the
men were very good about doing this, Further more, those with
jackets supported men without jackets. They held on the back of
them, put their arms through there and held on floating in tandem.
When daylight came we began to get ourselves organized into a
group and the leaders began to come out. When first light came
we had between three and four hundred men in our group. I would
guess that probably seven or eight hundred men made it out of
the ship. I began to find the wounded and dead. The only way I
could tell they were dead was to put my finger in their eye. If
their pupils were dilated and they didn't blink I assumed they
were dead. We would then laboriously take off their life jacket
and give it to men who didn't have jackets. In the beginning I
took off their dogtags, said The Lord's Prayer, and let them go.
Eventually, I got such an armful of dogtags I couldn't hold them
any longer. Even today, when I try to say The Lord's Prayer or
hear it, I simply lose it.
Later, when the sun came up the covering of oil was a help. It
kept us from burning. But it also reflected off the fuel oil and
was like a searchlight in your eyes that you couldn't get away
from. So I had all the men tie strips of their clothing around
their eyes to keep the sun out.
The second night, which was Monday night, we had all the men put
their arms through the life jacket of the man in front of him
and we made a big mass so we could stay together. We kept the
wounded and those who were sickest in the center of the pack and
that was my territory. Some of the men could doze off and sleep
for a few minutes. The next day we found a life ring. I could
put one very sick man across it to support him.
There was nothing I could do but give advice, bury the dead, save
the life jackets, and try to keep the men from drinking the salt
water when we drifted out of the fuel oil. When the hot sun came
out and we were in this crystal clear water, you were so thirsty
you couldn't believe it wasn't good enough to drink. I had a hard
time convincing the men that they shouldn't drink. The real young
ones -- you take away their hope, you take away their water and
food -- they would drink salt water and then would go fast. I
can remember striking men who were drinking water to try and stop
them. They would get diarrhea, then get more dehydrated, then
become very maniacal.
In the beginning, we tried to hold them and support them while
they were thrashing around. And then we found we were losing a
good man to get rid of one who had been bad and drank. As terrible
as it may sound, towards the end when they did this, we shoved
them away from the pack because we had to.
The water in that part of the Pacific was warm and good for swimming.
But body temperature is over 98 and when you immerse someone up
to their chin in that water for a couple of days, you're going
to chill him down. So at night we would tie everyone close together
to stay warm. But they still had severe chills which led to fever
and delirium. On Tuesday night some guy began yelling,
"There's a Jap here and he's trying to kill me." And
then everybody started to fight. They were totally out of their
minds. A lot of men were killed that night. A lot of men drowned.
Overnight everybody untied themselves and got scattered in all
directions. But you couldn't blame the men. It was mass hysteria.
You became wary of everyone. Till daylight came, you weren't sure.
When we got back together the next day there were a hell of a
lot fewer.
There were also mass hallucinations. It was amazing how everyone
would see the same thing. One would see something, then someone
else would see it. One day everyone got in a long line. I said,
"What are you doing?" Someone answered, "Doctor,
there's an island up here just ahead of us. One of us can go ashore
at a time and you can get 15 minutes sleep." They all saw
the island. You couldn't convince them otherwise. Even I fought
hallucinations off and on, but something always brought me back.
I saw only one shark. I remember reaching out trying to grab hold
of him. I thought maybe it would be food. However, when night
came, things would bump against you in the dark or brush against
your leg and you would wonder what it was. But honestly, in the
entire 110 hours I was in the water I did not see a man attacked
by a shark. However, the destroyers that picked up the bodies
afterwards found a large number of those bodies. In the report
I read 56 bodies were mutilated, Maybe the sharks were satisfied
with the dead; they didn't have to bite the living.
Rescue
It was Thursday [2 Aug] when the plane spotted us. By then
we were in very bad shape. The kapok life jacket becomes waterlogged.
It's good for about 48 hours. We sunk lower down in the water
and you had to think about keeping your face out of water. I knew
we didn't have very long to go. The men were semicomatose. We
were all on the verge of dying when suddenly this plane flew over.
I'm here today because someone on that plane had a sore neck.
He went to fix the aerial and got a stiff neck and lay down in
the blister underneath. While he was rubbing his neck he saw us
The plane dropped life jackets with canisters of water but the
canisters ruptured. Then a PBY [seaplane] showed up and dropped
rubber life rafts. We put the sickest people aboard and the others
hung around the side. I found a flask of water with a 1-ounce
cup. I doled out the water, passing the cup down hand to hand.
Not one man cheated and I know how thirsty they were.
Towards the end of the day, just before dark, I found a kit for
making fresh water out of salt water. I tried to read the instructions,
but couldn't make sense of it or get it to work right. My product
tasted like salt water and I didn't want to take a chance so I
threw it into the ocean. I then went to pieces.
I watched the PBY circle and suddenly make an open-sea landing.
This took an awful lot of guts. It hit, went back up in the air
and splashed down again. I thought he'd crashed but he came taxiing
back. I found out later he was taxiing around picking up the singles.
If he hadn't done this, I don't think we would have survived.
He stayed on the water during the night and turned his searchlight
up into the sky so the Cecil J. Doyle (DE-368) could find
us. The ship came right over and began picking us up.
The Cecil J. Doyle had a big net down over the side. Some
of the sailors came down the side of the netting and pulled our
rafts alongside. They put a rope around me; we were too weak to
climb up. When they tried to grab hold of me I remember saying,
"I can get up!" But I couldn't. Two sailors dragged
me down the passageway. By the wardroom pantry, someone gave me
a glass of water with a mark on it and would only give me so much
water. I drank and when I asked for more, he said that was all
I could have this time. Then the skipper asked me what ship I
was from. I told him we were what was left of the Indianapolis.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a shower. I remember corpsmen
or seamen cleaning off my wounds, trying to wash the oil from
me and dress my burns. I remember trying to lick the water coming
down from the shower. They put me in a bunk and I passed out for
about 12 hours. I recall the first bowel movement I had after
I was picked up, I passed fuel oil. The other fellows found the
same thing.
The Cecil J. Doyle took us to Peleliu. We were taken ashore
and put into hospital bunks. I remember they came in and got our
vital statistics -- we had discarded our dogtags because they
were heavy. They changed our dressings. Some of the men got IV's
[intravenous solution], though I didn't, While there I began to
eat a little and get some strength back.
Then after 2 or 3 days at Peleliu, someone came in and said that
I was going to Guam. The next thing I knew, they hauled me out
on a stretcher and onto a hospital ship.
The commanding officer of the ship, a friend of mine, was Bart
[Bartholomew, Surgeon General of the Navy, 1955-1959] Hogan. Bart
came in and said, "I know you don't feel well but you're
going to have to go before the Inspector General. I'm going to
send a corpsman in and I want you to start at the beginning and
dictate everything you can remember about what happened because
as time goes on you're going to forget and things are going to
change."
So I sat down and dictated off and on for 3 days on the way to
Guam. When I'd get tired I'd fall asleep and then I'd wake up
and he'd come back.
When we landed, Bart gave me a copy of what I dictated and I took
it when I went to the Inspector General's office. I told my story,
answered their questions, and gave them this report unedited,
saying, "Here it is. This is probably as accurate as I can
be." And that document is the file at the Inspector General's
office. All the people who wrote books about the Indianapolis
used it.
Normally, I don't have the nightmares. Last night, I didn't sleep
well. And I won't sleep well tonight. But eventually my mind will
turn off and I'll be all right. It's like when I try to say The
Lord's Prayer or I sit down and try to talk to somebody about
it. I'm all right as long as I stay away from talking about individuals
-- my friends... I was on that ship over a year and a half and
we were all close friends and we'd been through a lot together
and I knew their wives and their families. As a doctor you get
more intimate than normal.
1 September 1999