‘Indianapolis’: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man

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)