Coauthors of indianapolis the true story of the worst sea disaster in u. S. Naval history and the fiftyyear fight to exonerate an innocent man. I often refer to the stories in the National Archives. We are not just a storehouse to billions of pages and miles of films that hold stories of our past. In these records, you can discover human lives and how the great and small events of history change them. Today, we will hear the stories of the men who sailed the uss indianapolis during world war ii. The cruiser sinking in july, 1945, just weeks before japans surrender in the war was the first the worst sea disaster in history. It can also help unravel mysteries even decades after the events took place. Last summers identification of the wreck of the indianapolis was aided by historians discovering a log Landing Craft had seen the indianapolis the night before she sank. Just this month, the navy was able to settle the question about the number of survivors because of Research Done in the records housed in our facility and our National Personal Records center in st. Louis. Some stories are easily told. Others take 73 years to come to light. Preserving the records of our past, we assure the Building Blocks of our stories will be available now and far into the future. Ann vincent, u. S. Veteran, is number one New York Times bestselling author of 11 nonfiction books, the bestknown differentkind of and heaven is for real. Sara vladic, and acclaim document refill maker, is one of the worlds leading experts on the uss indianapolis, having become upset with the story at the age of 13. Over the next two decades, she met and interviewed 108 of the ships survivors and in 2016 released an awardwinning documentary film of the disaster legacyindianapolis the. The official journal of the u. S. Navy, and appeared as an expert the usstor on indianapolis, live from the deep, which explored the ships records. The book is also listed on the New York Times bestseller list. So before they come to the stage, we are going to see a short film. If you will roll the film now. [video clip] i started into the navy when i was 16. I saw the flag raised. [indiscernible] were hitth of july, we by two torpedoes from a submarine. Thing i know, the ship is coming right out from under me. I never did know how to swim in the navy nevers navy never taught me how to swim. Cross your legs like that. It was chaos. We couldnt understand why we werent rescued. The guys decided, hell, we are going to die. On that fourth day, i said i hear planes. We began to splash water and yell and began to pray. Gotything and seemingly it to a point where had he gone any further, he would have gone over but you know what he did, he made a dive. Did i make it with nothing to eat, no water to drink, no sleep for five nights . The lord was with me. If somebody wrote this up as fiction, nobody would believe it happened. People dont realize the politics in the armed forces. All the headlines were about the captain. Many heads should have rolled before they ever got to the captain. The story has never been told. Those that want to remember, dont want to recall. I think it ought to be told. I would like to start this talk with a question. Who can tell me or who first learned of the story of indianapolis by watching jaws . Raise them hi. What about other sources, document race, the news . A show of hands . Who hadnt heard about it until maybe the last week or two . I heard about it when i was 13 years old and was watching a documentary with my father. It was about the pacific war and the story of the indianapolis was reduced to a single line, which was it was a ship that carried the bomb and was sunk. I thought there has to be more to it than that. So i went to the library. At that time, there was no google. My dad told me to go look it up. I think it was the grolier encyclopedia. It was not in any book. There is very little to be found about it. I kept looking and found some stuff but i thought somebodys got to spell this story someday. I thought by the time i was old enough to do it someone else would have done it. I graduated college from pepperdine and no one had heard about it, no one was talking about it, it still had not been made. So i decided to look for the survivors of the indianapolis and that is when ask jeeves was around. [laughter] dating myself. It said there was paul murphy and mary lou murphy, the chairman and secretary of the survivors organization. So i called them up. They invited me to a reunion and i said i would love to meet you and talk to you, so they invited me to the reunion. That was the first time i was able to meet some of the indianapolis survivors. It was a big year. It with your a lot of things happened with the captains record and we will talk about that more this afternoon. It was a ceremonial year, there were a lot of events and it was the first time i talked to these men and got to know them and they invited me to come back. Over the next couple of years, i got to know them and their families. Over a dennys breakfast a couple of years later, i Just Graduated College and they said we want you to be our storyteller. That. Nt say no to when a world war ii veteran says they want you to be there storyteller, you go to task. You do the work. At the time, i wanted to make a movie. I wanted to write a screenplay and i needed to interview these men in order to do the story. You cant tell it unless you talk to the people who lived it. I started doing interviews in 2005. A screenplay and ticket to a Major Network and they said this is the test thing we have seen since band of brothers, but it needs to be based on a book. I dont know how to write a book. So i asked friends and family, do you know anyone who knows how to write a book . Screenplays are very different, by the way. It ended up being my motherinlaw. I was introduced to lynn vincent , who at the time had a few bestsellers, so it was very intimidating and i did not want to mess it up. So i called her, hoping she would give me some advice. I emailed her first. I said can you call me i just need five minutes. She just had a couple of books realut heaven is for and same kind of different as me. She gave me fiveminute supper time and that was our first phone call. Not know when did she called was that im a navy veteran, number one. And im an investigative journalist before i transitioned to books and number three, i have literally been praying for an iconic world war ii story to write. There are world war ii stories that are as iconic as indianapolis, but none that are more so. When she called me, i was like god is answering my prayer. But all she wants is advice, what am i going to do . I did not want to force myself on her. After a few conversations, we agreed to team up and we had our first meeting. Sara i like to tell lives tell the story of the first meeting. She had written these very christian stories and we had only spoken on the phone and i thought i was looking for the woman in a sweater vest carrying a bible. [laughter] and she showed up on a harley. [laughter] and i knew from that point it would be a good working relationship and it was. From the beginning, it has been a blessing, has been an incredible experience. Im going to say for both of us. [laughter] great writing partners, but great friends. We have been eating our way across the southeast. I was going to say that sometimes we get asked, there have been other books written about indianapolis. Whats new . What are you going to do thats different . One of the things i like to say is there have been worthy books about indianapolis. By first was the 1959 richard newcomb. He was the first journalist to realize this was first of all a horrible tragedy, really a bookend to pearl harbor in terms of one began the war and the other ended the war. Second, he was the first to hadize that captain mcvay suffered a grave injustice. That triggered the survivors reunion. The first time they got together in indianapolis, the city, was in 1960. 30 years or so later, another reporter, and iron chinned journalist of the old school wrote another book. You have to remember that archives and records continue to be classified. Some things had been declassified by the time he wrote his book, but not everything, including the ultra program, which was the most intelligencefied program of the war. There remain things that were not rev a and im going to talk about the archives that were not revealed, and im going to talk about the archives in a moment. Then an author wrote a book called in harms way that recalled the horrific experiences of the survivors. Of it took place in water. Help tried to do was the indianapolis is much more than a sinking story. It has been recognized as a sinking story, a short story. How any of you every year on shark week, they roll out the indianapolis as the worst shark attack in history . Indianapolis was so much more than a sinking story. Whose depths strategized and plotted out the pacific war. You could argue she was one of the most important vessels in the pacific war. We tried to bring that out for readers. Would you like to talk about some other things that we did . Toone of the things we tried do was to go back to the original source material. Went to the archives. We went to college park and spent a lot of time there. We wanted to stay there forever. They let us have a sleeping bag in there, we would have stayed. We spent an incredible amount of time there. We went to the naval war college, the library of congress, and we were able to interview survivors, the rescue crew, and the families of those who were lost at sea in order to tell a firsthand account of what took place, not only during the sinking, but in service to the country. These are 16, 17, 18yearold kids running these vessels. Were participating in these battles. They were viewing distance from these, witnessing what was happening at this time. E wanted to go back to that we went to letters, the correspondence between husbands and wives because they were writing back and forth from the ship. There was a gentleman who is a dentist on board the ship. A, because he attack in march of 1945, the day before okinawa was invaded and the, because he struck the indianapolis. Nine men were killed and they went into dry docks to repair this and that was the first domino that sent the ship into the mission of carrying components for the atomic bomb. So when the ship was in dry dock, this gentleman went home and visited his wife who is very pregnant at the time. Was able to spend a little time with her. Three days after he was recalled back to the ship when his leave ended, earl junior was born. So they were able to receive some pictures where they delivered components of the bomb. They were been preparing for the invasion of japan. He received photographs of young girls a young girl who is born prematurely and ran around carrying the ship showing everyone about how excited he was about his brandnew son. Tose kinds of things we like incorporate into the story and the firsthand account. We wanted to get you to know those men in the ways we were privileged to in the years of interviews. Saraf the things mentioned, was when she heard of the indianapolis, it was reduced to just a line. Its the ship that carried components of the atomic bomb. But no one told that story. Highlythe most classified mission of the war. We found the private papers of a man named Robert Furman who was an army major and it just so happened that major furman was the chief Intelligence Officer for the entire Manhattan Project and he had run around europe trying to track down the state of german atomic science because the scientist on the american side were really worried the germans were going to beat the United States and being able to deploy and operational atomic bomb during the war. In his records were these handwritten accounts, day by day, moment by moment of transporting the atomic bomb, the components of the atomic bomb aboard uss indianapolis. So we see that mission in our book goes from his perspective, not just as an army officer, but how he got to know the Army Officers and Navy Officers on the indianapolis, but also from the perspective of the men. Many components of the atomic bomb were carried in two cylindrical canisters which were very heavy. One of them carried uranium, which at that time was among the heaviest of natural elements. Partnerrman and his secretly come a lot nonchalantly had this carried into their quarters and meanwhile, they made a big deal out of this automobile sized crate that they secured in the aircraft hangar aboard indianapolis. What they were trying to do is avert the attention of the crew. The crew knew that something really secret was happening and didnt know what it was. Nolanfurman and captain decided they would make a big production and post a marine guard around this crate to divert the cruise attention. Tell them what the crew did. These are teenagers and their curiosity led them to bedding on what was being transported in this entires crate. It was everything from rita haworths undergarments to scented toilet paper for general macarthur. None of them guessed what was actually in the crate. Theres another story, another part of the book that we bring into the story is the japanese perspective. Journals and notes of the, kazi he was in charge of the, kazi program. His letters and the letters of the young, kazi pilots who ultimately committed suicide in honor of their emperor. In addition, the home front, i jim here and audience, alger junior, his father served aboard the indianapolis and he has an incredible story and his family has an incredible story spoiler alert, he survived. When he came home, he married a japanese woman. We had the incredible privilege of interviewing their family in that she, at the time, was in School Learning and preparing about the invasion of japan and what they would be called to do, training these Young Students to fight with sticks for the invasion. They were going to fight to the end and what happened from the japanese side, the perspective of the atomic bomb and how happy they were it ended the war. After the war, Flash Forward a couple of years, James Belcher senior varied this lovely young woman and they have a family together. That,aling that came from that story on the homefront and that perspective, thats another that is aclude personal experience and perspective of how the indianapolis and what took place in world war ii carried on through present day. Continues after the rescue. The rescue is tremendously especially for people will you stand up, please . Jims father survived. [applause] for those of you who raise your hands who said you have just only recently heard the story, i saraoned indianapolis and mentioned the cosma kazi attack , kazi attack. No one aboard the ship knew what was in the crates. They made a speed run to pearl hours. 74. 5 it still stands today for that class of ship. They went to finian island in the northern marianas. They were there on july 26 and he received the photograph of the child he would never meet. Four days later, they set out on a routine mission. That time of, at the war, it was considered the backwater of the war. They did not send an escort ship with indianapolis. , they were usually accompanied by destroyers or destroyer escorts to protect against enemy submarines. Evendid not send an escort though he had intelligence that a group of four attack submarines was heading down to. His facility they determined to sink as Many American ships as they could because they knew the war was going to end one way or another. It was just a few hours ago this week was the 73rd anniversary of the sinking. Commander mochitsura shipmoto encountered the and fired a spread of six torpedoes. Two of them hit the annapolis. One of them blew the bow mostly off the ship and the second one hit indianapolis amidships, about 300 of the crew of 1195 men went down with the ship, including, we believe Lieutenant Commander henry, the dentist, and about 900 men made it into the water alive. They stayed there for five nights and four days. Momente can explain in a why that happened. But after those five nights in four days, only 316 men survived. Rescued beginning on august 2, 1945. Afterwards, the navy has to decide who to pin this on and what they decide is to courtmartial the captain, even though they did not give him the proper intelligence or an escort ship. One of the things we did a fresh was to examine the primary source documents for the. Ourtmartial of captain mcvay and without 73 years of interpretation, we found what we believe is the smoking gun as to why captain mcvays ahead. Artial was rushed because of the primary sources waspersecution of mcvay worse than we thought. Then comes a fiftyyear year effort to exonerate the captain. That effort was led by the survivors themselves and a young boy who learned about indianapolis and did it, talked about it for his School History project and brought much attention to the story in the late 1990s, 50 years after the fact. Third person who is critical to helping exonerate the captain ofas the indianapolis and we are lucky enough to have captain bill tody with us today. [applause] sara we mentioned in harms way that was written in 2001. When that was written, none of the exoneration had really happened. It was underway, but there was not a conclusion by the time doug wrote his book, so we had the privilege to tell the story of what takes place between 1998 1960 when the earnest effort began all the way through 1998 where it really started to take ground. Then into present day, where exonerate captain mcvay in 2001. At that was a huge effort by bill tody and senator warner, warner, senator bob smith, a lot of back and forth. It was not smooth sailing. Forgive the pun. It was an effort by many to get to this point where the captains name could be cleared. It was decades of fighting because every time and exonerated exoneration effort would mounted, the navy would push back and say this courtmartial was legally justified. So first the survivors and then captain mcvays son, they wrote to president reagan and Vice President bush. Each time they were told the courtmartial is legally sound. Number two, president s dont have the ability to overturn a navy courtmartial. So those letters happened in the 80s. In the 90s, remember i told you about dan kurtzman. He found what he considered another smoking gun. That was also in the