Is history. Historical questions can also answer questions in unravel mysteries out even decades after the events took place. Last summers identification of the wreck of the annapolis was aided by a just this month, the naval the navy was able to settle the question of the number of survivors because of Research Done and records housed at our facility in college park and the National Records center st. Louis. Some stories are easily told, some take 73 years to come to light. By preserving the records of our past, we ensure that the Building Blocks of our stories will be available and far into the future. Lynn vincent, a u. S. Navy veteran is their number one New York Times bestseller and coauthor of 11 nonfiction books. Best known titles are same kind of different as me and heaven is for real. A veteran journalist and author of more than a hot thousand articles, have estimated pieces of been said it before congress in the u. S. Supreme court. Sarah vladeck, the documentary filmmaker is one of the worlds leaders experts on the uss indianapolis. And became a seven become assessed of the story at the age of 13. Over the next few decades, she released a world a documentary film of the disaster uss indianapolis, the legacy. Shes published new research on the indianapolis on the proceedings, the official journal of the u. S. Navy. And has appeared as an expert commentator us the book is also listed on the New York Times bestseller list. So before they come to the stage, we will see a short film. If you roll the film now . I started in the navy when i was 16, and i saw ten battles. I saw the flag raising. On the 30th of july, we were hit by two torpedoes from a submarine. And we sunk. The next thing i know, the ship is right out from under me. I didnt know how to swim and the navy never taught me. There are all these sharks going around. It was chaos. We couldnt understand why we were not rescued. A lot of us lost the will to live. A lot of us thought we were just going to die. On that fourth day i said i hear planes, and we began to splash the water and yell and pray, everything. And seemingly, when it got to a point that had he gone any further he would have gone over, do you know what he did . He made a dive. How did i make it with nothing to eat, no water to drink, no sleep, for five nights . The lord was with me. If someone wrote this is fiction, no one would believe it happened. People dont realize the politics in the armed forces. All of the headlines were about the captain. Many a head should have rolled before they ever got to the captain. Its the story that hasnt been told. They dont want to recall this. Its too much. But i will tell it. I think it ought to be told. Id like to start this talk with a question for you all. By show of hands, who can tell me or who first learned the story of the indianapolis by watching the movie jaws . Raise them high. Raise them high. And what about other sources . Documentaries, the news . Show of hands, who else . Who hadnt heard about it until maybe the last week or two . A few. A few, yes. I heard about it when i was 13 years old. I 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 the ship that carried the bomb and was sunk. And i thought there has to be more to it than that. So i went to the library. At that time, there was no google. So if my dad told me to go look it up, i think it was in the encyclopedia. It was not in any major books. There was very little that we found about it. So we kept looking, found some stuff. But we thought someone has to tell the story someday. I figured by the time i was old enough, someone else would do it. I graduated college in no one had heard about. It no one was talking about it. Its still hadnt been made. Thats when i decided to look for the survivors of the indianapolis and thats when asked chiefs was around. I am dating myself. And so jean eaves said there was paul murphy and the chairman and secretary of the survivors organization. I called them up. And they invited me to a reunion. I said i would love to meet you and talk to you when they invited me to the reunion. Thats when i met some of the indianapolis survivors. It was a big year. It was the year that a lot of things happened with the captains records. And we will talk about that more this afternoon. But it was a very ceremonial year. There were a lot of events. That was the first time i spoke to these men and got to know them. They invited me to come back, and over the next couple years i got to know them and their families. And over a dannys breakfast a couple years later, i had just graduated college, and they said we want you to be our storyteller. You dont say no to that. When a world war ii veteran says they want you to be a storyteller, you go to task and 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. I thought you cant tell it unless you talk to the people who lived it. I started doing interviews in 2005. I wrote a screenplay and took it to a major network. They said this is the best thing we have seen since band of brothers, but it needs to be based on a book. I said i dont know how to write a book. I asked friends and family if they knew anyone who could write a book. Screenplays are very different, by the way. So through my mother and law, i was introduced to lynn vincent, who at the time had a few bestsellers. It was very intimidating. I didnt want to mess it up. I called her, hoping she would give me some advice. I actually emailed her saying can you call me. Im sure she had 1 Million People asking for five minutes. She just had a couple books come out, heaven is for real, same kind of different is me. I was very intimidated. That was our first phone call. What she didnt know, what sarah didnt know when she called, is that i am a navy veteran, number one. Number two, i was an investigative journalist or frye transitioned to books. And number three, i had been praying for an iconic world war ii story to. Right there are stories that are as iconic as indianapolis, but none that are more so. So when she called me i was like god is answering my prayer. But all she wants is advice. What will i do . I didnt want to force myself on her. But after a few conversations, we agreed to team up and then we had our first meeting. I like to tell the story of the first meeting. It sets the tone. As i mentioned earlier, she had written heaven is for real and same kind of different as me, both very christian stories. We had only spoken on the phone. I thought when we show, up i was looking for the woman in the sweater set carrying a bible. She showed up on a hurly. So i kind of knew from that point that this would be a good working relationship and it really was. From the beginning, it has been a blessing. It has been an incredible experience. I will say for both of us. Not only great writing partners, but great friends. It has been a blast. We have been eating our way across the southeast. We have been having a good time. Go ahead. I was just going to say that sometimes we get asked. There have been other books written about indianapolis. Whats new . What are you guys going to do thats different . One of the things i like to say is there have been worthy books written about indianapolis. The first one was in 1959 by richard new come. He was the first journalist to realize that this was, first of all, hey horrible tragedy. Really a bookend to pearl harbor in terms of one began the war and the other end of it. Second, he was the first to realize that the skipper of the indianapolis had suffered a grave injustice. That was the first book. That triggered the survivors reunions. The first time they got together for a reunion was 1960. And then 30 or so years later, another reporter, and iron change earn a list of the old school name dan wrote another book. You have to remember that archives and records continue to be classified. And somethings had been declassified by the time dan wrote his book. But not everything, including the ultra program. That was the most highly classified Intelligence Program in the war. So there remained things that werent revealed. I will talk a bit about the archives in a moment. Then in 2001, and author named doug stanton wrote in arms way. That was the first book to explore the horrific nightmare experience of the survivors. How many of you have read that . That was a good book. About 80 of it took place in the water. What we try to do was help people remember. Indianapolis is much more than a sinking story. For decades, it has been recognized as a disaster story, a sinking story, a shark story. How many of you every week, every year on shark week they rolled out the indianapolis as the worst shark attack in history. But indianapolis was so much more than a shark story or a sinking story. She was the flagship of the fifth fleet, the ship from whose decks admiral raymond strategized and plotted out the pacific war. She was one of the most important vessels in the pacific war. So we tried to bring that out for the readers. Would you like to talk about some other things . One of the things we tried to do to go back to the original source material, there were other books. There were 70 years of interpretations and sharing of stories and a bit of the fish got bigger. That sort of thing. We really wanted to go back to primary sources to do this story, or to do this book. To do that, we went to the archives. We went to college park and spent a lot of time there. We wanted to stay forever until they kick this out. If they would let us play sleeping bag in there, i think we would have stayed. We spent an incredible amount of time there. We went to the naval war college. We went to the library of congress. And then also we were able to interview over 107 of the survivors, rescue crew, and families of those who were lost at sea, in order to really tell the firsthand accounts of what took place, not only during the sinking, but in service to the country. These battles stars, remember, these are 18yearold kids commanding these vessels,. Not commanding, but running them. They were steering the ship. They were actively participating in these battles. So those perspectives, firsthand accounts of what was taking place during okinawa and he would jima, and because they were at the front of the picket lines. They were in viewing distance of these events and witnessing what was happening at that time. We wanted to go back to that. We also went back to the letters, the correspondence between husbands and wives or girlfriends and sailors as they were writing back and forth on the ship. What was happening on the home front . There was a gentleman by the name of Lieutenant Commander earl henry who was the dentist on the ship. He had gone home. There was a kamikaze attack in march of 1945. It was the day before okinawa was invaded. The kamikazes struck the indianapolis. Nine men were killed. 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. When the ship was in dry dock, San Francisco area, this gentleman went home and visited his wife who was very pregnant at the time. He was able to spend a bit of time with her. Three days after, he was recalled back to the ship when his leave ended. Earl jr. Was then born. So there is the letters between earl and his wife, earl senior and his wife. And he was able to receive some pictures right before the final mission where they had just delivered components of the bomb and were then going to prepare for the invasion of japan. So he received photographs of young oral who was born prematurely. He ran around the ship showing everybody his brand new son. Those kinds of things, we like to incorporate into the story. And we wanted you to get to know these men in a way that we were privileged to in the years of interviews. So it is a look through the lens of these men, at what was taking place and 1945 all the way through exonerating the captain. Speaking of the bomb mission, holding up and lifting up libraries, one of the things that sarah mentioned before was when she first heard of the indianapolis, the bomb was reduced to just a line in a documentary. Thats true and books as well. Its the ship that carried components of the atomic bomb. But no one ever told that story, which is really strange to us. That was the most highly classified Naval Mission of the war. When we were at the library of congress, right here in the city, we found the private papers of a man named robert firm in. He was an army major. It just so happened that major ferment was the chief Intelligence Officer for the entire manhattan project. He had run around europe trying to track down the state of german atomic science because the scientists on the american side were really worried that the germans were going to beat the United States in being able to deploy an operational atomic bomb during the war. In ferments records were all of these handwritten accounts, day by day, a moment by moment of transporting the atomic bomb. So we see that mission in our book both from his perspective, not just as an army officer, but how he got to know the officers, the Navy Officers on indianapolis, and also from the perspective of the men. The money components of the atomic bomb were carried into cylindrical canisters, which were very heavy because one of them carried uranium, which at that time was among the heaviests natural elements. Major ferment and his partner kind of secretly and nonchalantly had those carried into their corridors. Meanwhile, they made a big deal out of this automobile sized crate that they secured in the aircraft hanger aboard the indianapolis. What they were trying to do is divert the attention of the crew. The crew knew that something really secret was happening and they didnt know what it was. And major furman and captain nolin decided they would make a big production and post a marine guard to divert the crews attention. Tell them what the crew did. These are teenagers, again. Their curiosity led them to bedding. They took bets on what was being transported in this giant craig. There was everything from Rita Hayworths underwear to scented toilet paper for general mcarthur. Of course, none of them guest what was actually in the crate. There is another story or another part of the book that we bring into the story, the japanese perspective. We have the journals and the notes of admiral, who was the kamikaze in charge of the kamikaze program. His letters and the letters of the young kamikaze pilots who ultimately committed suicide in honor of their emperor. In addition to that, as we mentioned on the home front, i have here an audience. Jims father served in the indianapolis. His family has an incredible story. Spoiler alert, he survived. His father survived. And when he came home, he married a japanese woman. We had the incredible privilege of interviewing their family. At the time, she 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. And what happened from the japanese saddened their perspective of the atomic bomb and what that meant and how happy they were that it ended the war. After the, war Flash Forward a couple of years and james senior marries this lovely young woman and they have a family together. That is another part of it that we include that is really kind of a personal experience and perspective of how the indianapolis and what took place in world war ii carried on through present day. The story continues after the rescue. The rescue is tremendously exciting, especially for people like gm whose father survived. Jim, will you stand up . Jims father survived the sinking of the indianapolis. For those of you who raised your hands and said you just had only recently heard this story, i mentioned indianapolis as a flagship of the pacific fleet. Sarah mentioned the kamikaze attack. On july 16th, 1945, indianapolis and captain mcvay were tapped for the bomb mission, as i mentioned. No one on board the ship knew what was in the crate and canisters. They made a speed run to pearl harbor, 74. 5 hours. That is a record that still stands today for that class of ship. And then they went to tinian island in the northern mary on us. They arrive there on july 26th and thats one commander earl henry received those photographs of the child that he would never meet. Four days later, they set out from guam to lay tea on a routine mission. In those, days at that time of the war, that wrote, rod petty, was sort of the backwater of the war. It was considered the rear. The aid did not send an escort ship with the indianapolis. In those days, cruisers did not have sown our or any kind of under Water Protection equipment. They were usually accompanied by destroyers to protect against enemy submarines. They did not send an escort with captain mcvay, even though the navy had intelligence that a group of four attack submarines was headed down into the southern philippine sea. It was sort of a lastditch offensive mission they. Were determined to sink as Many American ships as they could, because they knew the war was almost over and one way or the other, japan would be on the losing side. A few minutes after midnight, on july 30th, 1945, really just a few hours ago, this week was the 73rd anniversary of the sinking. The japanese Lieutenant Commander encountered the indianapolis 280 miles from the nearest land. He fired a spread of six torpedoes, two of which hit. One of them blew the bow mostly off the ship. The second one hit the indianapolis mid ship. About 300 of the crew of 1195 men went down with the ship, including, we believe, Lieutenant Commander henry, the dentist. About 900 men made it into the water alive. They stayed there for five nights and four days. We can explain in a moment to why that happened. But after those five nights and four days, only 316 men survived. Beginning on august 2nd, 1940, five they were rescued. Afterwards, the navy has to decide who to pin this on. What they decided to courtmartial the captain, captain mcvay, even though they didnt give him the proper intelligence. Even though they didnt give him an escort ship. One of the things that they did a fresh was to examine the primary source documents for the courtmartial of captain mcvay. Without 73 years of interpretation and because of the Nationa