Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Indianapolis
Summary: sinking not noticed
Message-ID: <1990Aug31.031008.24755@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 31 Aug 90 03:10:08 GMT
References: <1990Aug29.014602.7783@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 44
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: budden@trout.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)

The rescue mission was not mounted promptly for the survivors of the USS
Indianapolis because it was several days before she was noted
as missing.  

Indianapolis was one of the 'treaty cruisers' whose tonnage was limited
by the Washington Naval Treaty and therefore not considered a heavy
like the post-Treaty CGs.  Her nickname was Swayback Maru due to the
topside configuration that was somewhat influenced by the Treaty.  
Commonly used as a flagship and as a dispatch boat for these reasons.

Indy had just delivered the atomic bomb to Tinian -- the heat was off
mission-wise.  She was dispatched to the Philippines, did not have any
escort (CGs commonly had no organic ASW in WWII), and was told to
proceed at economic speed (~16 knots, no zig-zag).  In short, fleet
ops judged that there was no submarine threat in the sector.

When the ship was torpedoed, no distress call was dispatched (don't
recall why).  Tacloban was a pretty busy anchorage so a lone ship
not appearing was simply not noticed -- the Navy had no formal 
movement reporting scheme at the time.  The people in the water were
spotted by a chance encounter with a PBY some days after the sinking.
That brought in a substantial search for those few left.

The Indianapolis sinking led directly to the Navy's movement reporting
system which is supposed to attract attention to overdues.  It
also spawned the US Merchant Ship reporting system (USMER) which was
supposed to do the same for the merchant fleet.  Independently, the
Coast Guard has put in place the AMVER (automated merchant vessel report)
system which had a lot of similar functionality, although it's focus
was on notifying potential aid when notified of distress.  AMVER is
also international rather than just US flag.  
    In the late 70s, the US merchant vessel Poet was lost carrying wheat across
the Atlantic to Egypt.  One of the findings was that the USMER system
wasn't working and the overdue was not flagged promptly.  As a
result, the USMER system was discontinued entirely and AMVER was
expanded (didn't take much) to meet the USMER requirements and
remove a duplicate reporting burden from US flag ships (one of the
probable contributing causes).  

Rex Buddenberg