In Harm's Way

Description

The USS Indianapolis was the last ship sunk during World War II. Savaged by a salvo of torpedoes from a Japanese submarine, the warship, one of the fastest in the US Navy, sank in a matter of minutes. One thousand two hundred men went into the water, and only 321 were to survive. This is their story. The Indianapolis was captained by the dashing and charismatic Captain Butler McVay, and his story is a tragic one. For a captain to lose his ship in combat is perhaps the hardest blow, but McVay was doubly marked, as he was held responsible for the loss and court-martialled - the only naval captain ever to be court-martialled for the sinking of his ship. Twenty years after the Indianapolis went to the bottom, tormented by the experience and the resentment of many of the families of those who lost their lives in the disaster, he took his own life. Those who also survived maintain that there was nothing he could have done to prevent the disaster, and continue to campaign to clear the captain's name. This book is also his story.

Doug Stanton lives in Michigan, and has worked as a creative writing and English teacher and at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan as writer-in-residence. He has also worked as a commercial fisherman, a caretaker of Robert Frost's house and travelled extensively as a contributing editor for Esquire, Men's Journal and Outside magazines. He has an MFA from the celebrated Iowa Writers' Workshop. In Harm's Way began as a lead feature story in Men's Journal which led to more letters to the editor than any other piece in the magazine's history.

The story of the 1945 sinking of the USS Indianapolis ... 1196 men went into the Pacific... their entire ordeal, from the intial fireball to the 1968 suicide of the captian, is spelt out here in vivd, horrific detail. Brilliant stuff. * Later * A thoroughly researched, powerfully written account of a nightmare at sea, one of the most poignant tragedies and injustices of World War II -- Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down Superb...it's the stuff about the men in the sea that'll make you weep. Four days without water, being picked off one by one by sharks...and no-one in the world even realising they are missing. Gripping * FHM * How could a WWII battleship carrying over 1,000 men be torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sink, leaving the survivors to bob in the Pacific Ocean at the mercy of elements and predators, without anyone realizing the loss for more than four days? Stanton not only offers a well-researched chronicle of what is widely regarded as the worst naval disaster in U.S. history, but also vividly renders the combatants' hellish ordeal during the sinking, and the ensuing days at sea as well as attempts to cope with the traumatic aftermath . . . absorbing, novelistic . . . illuminating and emotional without being maudlin * Publishers Weekly *