“Knowing how the men in the water died is not the same thing as knowing why they died.” In the book Left for Dead, 880 men died during the sinking of the U.S.S Indianapolis. There are many reasons why this ship went down and these sailors died, but the two main reasons are: they did not have an escort or sonar technology and the ship was rushed into service. The sinking of the Indy was a tragedy, but could it have been stopped? The Indianapolis was an older ship that was not equipped with sonar, and therefore had no way to detect enemy vessels. Sonar allows the ship to detect objects on or under the surface such as enemy submarines. Escort ships have sonar and missiles to fire if they found an enemy vessel in the water. This is why Captain Mcvay asked the Navy for an escort, but he …show more content…
The Indy also left port early and was not prepared to sail. Another factor was that the Indianapolis was rushed out to service. The ship had just been attacked in Okinawa by an air strike and was at Hunters Point naval shipyard for repairs. Before the repairs were complete, the Indy got a new mission; It was to deliver a special package to Tinian Bay. This package was the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killing 146,000 people. The U.S.S Indianapolis did not have appropriate ventilation, causing the ship to be sailing under “Condition Yoke Modified.” This meant that all the hatches were open, allowing the ship to sink faster, killing more men. Because the Indy was rushed out to service, they were not able to finish repairs and had no time for a shakedown cruise. This meant they did not know if all the apparatus would work. Also, they had 250 new sailors on board and over 100 passengers getting in the way, meaning that these men did not know standard abandon-ship-drills for the Indianapolis. If they would have had more time the extra 100 men would not be on board and
Soldiers traveling by convoy from Fort Ord to Travis Air Force Base had to combat thick fog, coupled with Christmas traffic making the 150-mile trip very difficult. Upon arrival to the base, not all of the aircraft were configured the same, which was not surprising because most of the aircraft were pulled from different bases all over the nation of short notice. Equipment had to be repacked and the aircraft had to be reconfigured along with amending the flight manifests to fit all of the troops and equipment. Due to inclement weather at Fort Bragg, the Paratroopers arrival was also postponed. These delays were not taken into account during the planning period, which ultimately delayed departure.
used by the boat was essential for communication and the safety of its passengers. The Titanic,
cannons on one side of the ship to free them from the mud holding the ship.
on this built in compass sense to guide them in the open ocean. Another use for
SS Arctic was a paddle steamer which ran transatlantic and mail steamship service during the 1850’s. Due to foggy conditions, SS Arctic collided with French steamer Vesta near Newfoundland in September 1854. There were not enough lifeboats on the ship and when it was apparent that the ship was going to sink the crew of SS Arctic were the first ones to occupy the lifeboats instead of following the women and children first policy. As a result of which, out of 400 people on board only 24 male passengers and 61 crew survived and none of the women or children could survive this tragedy.
At this time the crew was doomed. The sinking of the Fitzgerald was very rapid and it is said that it is likely they did not know the seriousness of their condition. Indeed, after the wreck a mangled lifeboat was found. The conditions of these lifeboats left people to suggest or assume that no one attempted to leave the ship. No distress signals were ever even issued.
Why did they only have 20 lifeboats? What did they think they would use them for?
Ship out to sea – had doubts but sent it out anyways (avoided error). James belief would react differently following the method of knowing the truth- which could have drove to the decision of either (passionate about either the welfare of the passengers or the destination of the cargo) depending on ones individual ethic. Despite the doubts of the boats safety- ship owner muted the ideas with past events of successful trips-on insufficient evidence. The authority of the mechanic over the authority of communal rumors.
Jon hired a group of specialized divers and bought a ship and submarine. The submarine went to the last known location and dove 400 feet down the Atlantic Ocean. After one week of searching for the plane, a ship looking for wreckage from the spaceship Challenger, found a TBM avenger covered in barnacle and coral. The cruiser immediately called Jon and his crew to the scene. “The only problem Jon had was to lift the plane to identify it, but it was covered in coral which will be hard to lift” (Myre 210). The ship Jon bought had a 50 ton crane on board. The plan was to lift the plane 400 feet out of the ocean with the crane. After 4 hours of carefully carrying the plane, the coral on the plane severed the steel wire, sending the plane to the bottom of the ocean. The next day, Jon and his crew sent out to find the plane, and attempted to lift it up again. His mission was a success and the plane was identified as the captain’s plane.
For starters, the U.S.S. Indianapolis was a real ship. In fact, it was the first naval ship to deliver a fully operational atomic bomb from Guam. after the delivery on July 30th, 1945, at 12:14 am the Indy was hit by two out of the six torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine. With 1,196 crewmen on board the Indy, 900 managed escape into the water, by the sun rise of the first day of being stranded shark attacks began and for five days men were picked off by the beasts and by 11:00am on the fifth day out of the 900 remaining men who escaped the attack only 317 men would survive to be saved. The author used these events in the book as this takes place when Patrick watched as the torpedoes made huge gaping holes in the hull of the Indy.
All 29 sailors perished with the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10th 1975. If you want to learn more about the ship you can visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. A place where they proudly displayed the recovered ships bell in remembrance of the lost sailors and a place that is close to the final resting place of the ship.
Ultrasounds use the same concepts that allow sonar on boats to see the bottom of the o...
On The week when the ship has went to the ocean that the weather was really really bad at that time. The weather was really crazy and the waves were going back in fourth really hard, the storm was so strong it could have ripped the ship into half but that didn't happen but they say that all the people on the ship fell off to there doom and maybe some found land and never found a way back. On that day the weather was very dark and there was lighting going to air the thunder was really strong and some say that the thunder hit the ship and the crew members all died but this is a hard theory because there was no thunder marks on the ship when it sailed at land and the people checked the