Indianapolis The true story of the worst sea disaster in U.S. naval history and the fifty-year fight to exonerate an innocent man

Review by New York Times Review

BRUCE LEE: A Life, by Matthew Polly. (Simon & Schuster, $20.) Among the first serious treatments of the martial arts star, this definitive biography follows Lee's move from America to Hong Kong and back again, his time as a child star in Asia, the reverse racism he experienced and his rise to prominence in the United States. Above all, Polly explores how Lee's fame helped reshape perceptions of AsianAmericans in the United States. THE OPTIMISTIC DECADE, by Heather Abel. (Algonquin, $15.95.) A back-to-the-land summer camp attracts a charismatic leader and a bevy of followers, who encounter the limits of their ideals in the Colorado desert. Our reviewer, Zoe Greenberg, called Abel "a perceptive writer whose astute observations keep the book funny and light even under the weight of its Big Ideas." INDIANAPOLIS: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man, by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic. (Simon & Schuster, $18.) Nearly 900 people died when the U.S.S. Indianapolis, a Navy cruiser, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1945, but the story has long been incomplete. Vincent, a Navy veteran, and Vladic, a filmmaker, offer a fuller view of the episode. FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. (Anchor, $16.) Drawing on the author's own experiences, this debut novel describes life in Escobar-era Colombia. Narrated by a young girl, Chula, and her family's maid from a nearby slum, the story captures the despair, confusion and chaos as the country's conflict raged. Our reviewer, Julianne Pachico, praised the book, writing, "You don't need to have grown up in Bogotá to be taken in by Contreras's simple but memorable prose and absorbing story line." DON'T MAKE ME PULL OVER! An Informal History of the Family Road Trip, by Richard Ratay. (Scribner, $17.) This playful account conjures up the era before air travel was within reach for many American families, and explores how the Interstate transformed people's relationship to the country. Part history, part memoir (Ratay recalls with fondness trips from his own childhood), the book is a love letter to the 1970s. A LUCKY MAN: Stories, by Jamel Brinkley. (Public Space/Graywolf, $16.) A finalist for the National Book Award, this collection explores race, class and intimacy in the lives of black men. In the title story, a man whose wife seems to have left him examines his expectations of what the world owes him, what he feels he can take from others and what it would mean if his good fortune ran out.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 9, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Anyone who has been captivated by the monologue delivered by Robert Shaw's character, Captain Quint, in Steven Spielberg's film Jaws, about his experience surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945 should read Vincent and Vladic's comprehensive, simply outstanding historical account. Sea battles, adventures, the secret mission to deliver materials for the assemblage of the atomic bomb to the Pacific Islands, tragedy, disaster, an epic ordeal sharks included in the open ocean, courtroom drama, political intrigue, and the uphill battle by the band of survivors to exonerate the ship's captain will all have readers unable to put this book down. The narrative is interspersed with dramatic foreshadowings of what is to come for the ship's crew. Through extensive use of official U.S. Navy documents, interviews with the involved sailors and brass, and a vast archive of secondary sources, Vincent and Vladic have produced a tour de force of true human drama. The book's useful charts, maps, and illustrations add depth and clarity to the emotional story. Indianapolis is a must-read for everyone interested in WWII and naval battles in any era.--James Pekoll Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Bestselling author and Navy veteran Vincent (Same Kind of Different as Me) and filmmaker and Indianapolis expert Vladic collaborate on a work that is simultaneously a gripping narrative, a convincing analysis, and a pitiless exposure of institutional mendacity. In 1945 the Indianapolis, alone, was torpedoed by one of the few Japanese submarines still operational and sank. Almost 900 men survived, but the ship had slipped off the Navy's tracking system, and it took four days before they were spotted, too late for more than 600 men who died from thirst and exposure or were eaten by sharks. Vincent and Vladic juxtapose the crew's harrowing ordeal with the Navy's desperate efforts to discover what had gone wrong and cover it up. The designated culprit was the ship's captain: court-martialed on skimpy evidence, found guilty of endangering the vessel, and eventually driven to suicide. A subsequent investigation led to his exoneration, but the systemic oversights and misjudgments that enabled this tragedy remained obscure until this investigation, which drew upon new sources clarifying how the file was amended. This exposé will be valuable for scholars and general readers alike. Agent: Rick Christian, Alive Communications. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, commanded by Captain Charles McVay III, was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Most of the ship's 1,195 crew members survived the initial attack, but many would perish during the four days it took the U.S. Navy to rescue survivors. Most of this work by Vincent (coauthor, Same of Kind of Different as Me) and filmmaker and historian Vladic covers events leading up to and including the attack. Later chapters deal with the immediate investigations, Congressional hearings, and the exoneration of McVay, who was originally court-martialed. In many ways this work is similar to Dan Kurzman's Fatal Voyage, but it provides updated information on hearings that occurred after Kurzman's publication. While mostly a balanced account, attending to both the American and Japanese sides of the story, with particular focus on Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, the narrative tends to get caught up in minutiae and unnecessary anecdotes and sensationalism, offering a decent update to Kurzman's work. VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in the final days of World War II, particularly naval activity in the Pacific theater, and anyone curious about McVay and his vessel.-Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Indianapolis PROLOGUE THE SHIP SHE WAS BORN FROM soil as American as the men who sailed her. Ore mined near the Great Lakes and in the Tennessee Valley. Transported by barge and train to steel mills in Detroit and Pittsburgh. Machined and welded and hammered together in Camden, New Jersey, by tradesmen from across the forty-eight states. From her keel--forged red-hot and laid in 1930--she rose amid clang and clamor and showering sparks, unfolding bow to stern in 147 bands of high-strength steel, her superstructure climbing toward the sun until, in 1932, she parted water for the first time and was christened USS Indianapolis. Indy was grand but svelte. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made her his ship of state and invited world leaders and royalty to dance under the stars on her polished teak decks. When war came, many of the sailors she carried into battle were still teenagers. They slept in bunks three high, went to chapel on Sunday mornings, and shot dice on the fantail on Sunday afternoons. They danced to Glenn Miller and sang along with the Andrews Sisters. They referred to Indy as their first love and the Queen. At least one of their wives called her "the other woman." Indianapolis was the flagship of the World War II Pacific fleet--the largest naval fleet in the history of the modern world. Along her centerline she carried three 250-ton turrets, each hefting three eight-inch guns that could reach out eighteen miles to rake beaches, destroy pillboxes, and punch through the armor of enemy ships. Her hull bristled with two dozen 40 mm Bofors guns, some radar-aimed for lethal precision, along with thirty-two machine guns that could cloak a mile-wide circle around her in a hail of 20 mm rounds. From her decks, Fifth Fleet commander Admiral Raymond Spruance would build an island bridge that stretched west from Pearl Harbor to Japan and was mortared in the blood of nations. By the summer of 1945, the Pacific war was churning toward its fiery climax. A new weapon had been born, a "destroyer of worlds." During the last week of July, under the command of Captain Charles B. McVay III, Indianapolis delivered the core of this weapon to its launch point, completing the most highly classified naval mission of the war. Four days later, just after midnight, a Japanese submarine spotted Indy and struck her with two torpedoes. Three hundred men went down with the ship. As Indy sank into the yawning underwater canyons of the Philippine Sea, nearly nine hundred men made it into the water alive. Only 316 survived. The sinking of Indianapolis was the greatest sea disaster in the history of the American Navy. It was also a national scandal that would bridge two centuries. There would be a controversial court-martial. An enemy witness. Lies and machinations by men of high rank. Broken lives. Suicides. Decade after decade, the survivors would fight for their captain, battling to correct a vulgar injustice. As Indy's story rolled forward, spanning thirteen presidents, from FDR to George W. Bush, it would inspire a filmmaker named Spielberg, an eleven-year-old boy named Hunter Scott, a maverick lawmaker named Bob Smith, and Captain William Toti, skipper of her namesake submarine. Men fought over her for decades, and no victor emerged for fifty years. Indianapolis is a war grave now. But don't think of her that way. Roll the film backward. Watch her rise. Excerpted from Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U. S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man by Lynn Vincent, Sara Vladic All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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