ABANDON SHIP ! - Death of the U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS by Newcomb, Richard F

New York 1958, Henry Holt, 2nd US printing hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, Good/Good condition ( dj badly worn ) 305 pages, end paper maps, illus, glossary, appendice lists crew survivors. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------At two minutes after midnight July 29/30, 1945, in the South Pacific, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, Flagship of the Fifth Fleet, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. In exactly twelve minutes, a mass of choking smoke and blazing fury, she sank. But slithering and sliding over the oil-streaked decks, over 800 men went overboard-only to face one of the worst ordeals in Navy history.By a fantastic turn of fate and error, the Navy did not know the Indianapolis had gone down. There was no escort vessel to give the alarm, and on Guam and Leyte, no one had marked her absence. No lifeboats were launched and only a few life rafts. Three and a half days later, the Indianapolis had still not been missed. On the fourth day, after the sea, sun, and sharks had taken a frightful toll, a lone patrol plane out of Peleliu accidentally sighted the victims and mustered a huge rescue armada. Of the original crew of 1,196, only 316 survived. The curtain had dropped on the most shocking disaster at sea in the annals of the U.S. Navy.------------------------------------------------------------How did it happen? What did the men experience during those sun scorched days and desperate nights, clinging to water-logged lifejackets and bits of debris in the water? And how did the Navy explain away this colossal SNAFU? Here, for the first time, is the tense, minute-by-minute story of the Indianapolis affair, the incredible loss of life (only one-third of which was due to the submarine attack), the laxity of the Navy, and the travesty of a trial which followed. Captain McVay, Commander of the Indianapolis, charged with negligence, was court martialed in December, 1945. A precedent was thus set, for never before had a commander been court-martialed for loss of his vessel during wartime.