The heavily criticized film entitled ...

He was Metrosexual before there was a metrosexual. That or he got the idea for a boy band way early.

 

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww

 

He's got a good Darwin tan on him...and budding boobs...

 

Sorting fact from fiction. As a followup to my previous post. I am reading two books on the USS Indianapolis tragedy (Abandon Ship by Newcomb and In Harm's Way by Stanton) and finding answers to those questions that bothered me watching the movie (s). I'm only about a quarter of the way through the books and am waiting for the national archives library to dig up a copy of Helm's Ordeal by Sea.

Captain McVay was not informed about what his ship was carrying. In fact he thought it was biological weapons. His commanding admiral and General Groves decided he did not need to know. He was briefed for less than an hour by that admiral Purnell and Captain Parsons (one of my personal heroes) on the importance of his mission.

The ship was chosen because she happened to be on hand in San Fransisco at the time that the mission came up and she fit the criteria tthat Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves and Admiral Purnell set months previous when planning the transfer of the material for Fatman from New Mexico to the staging area on Tinian. A fast Cruiser.

A lot is made of the absence of a destroyer escort in Men Of Courage. It was no big deal at that point in the war according to Newcomb. The USS Indianapolis was a flagship without the flag aboard, and so did not warrant an escort. She was navigating well below the line, that is to say in a sector where Japanese sub and aircraft activity was fairly rare. The decision to send her on her way without escort was made by the office of Vice-Admiral George Dominic Murray on Tinian. It was not deemed "necessary".

In Men Of Courage we are given the impression that Captain Hashimoto stayed around for up to a day after the sinking (perhaps in the hope of sinking any rescue ships that might show up). In fact submarine I-58 cleared the area after about an hour, having not seen any survivors in the dark.

According to Newcomb, out of 32 members none of the stewards, officer's cooks or stewards' mates survived. Mario Van Peebles (director of Men Of Courage) has at least six or eight survive the initial sinking and at least one rescued in the end. They are portrayed as African American. While on certain USN ships they were African American on the USS Indianapolis the mess crew were (as far as I can figure) all white, This was before desegregation. There were indeed two prisoners locked in the brig, but Men Of Courage fictionalizes their story and builds a racial antagonism between them. In view of the controversy surrounding the lack of roles for African Americans in Hollywood movies and the historical truth of African Americans having served in the navy (albeit as cooks and dish washers, which was the only rôle they were allowed) and Van Peebles himself being black, I can understand his decision to add subplots involving African American crew members. I only wish their stories were more compelling.

Two men (not one) accompanied the bomb and fissionable materials from Los Alamos to Tinian. One was Major Robert R. Furman, an engineer and weapons officer, the other was a doctor named James F. Nolan posing as a military captain. They drove down from Los Alamos to an airfield and flew from there to San Fransisco where the crate carrying the bomb parts was loaded onto a truck and the lead lined cylinder carrying the radioactive material (not a box as it is portrayed in the movie) was loaded onto another truck and driven to the USS Indianapolis for trans-shipment. In Mission Of The Shark Captain Dale Dye plays fictional major Green ( a composite of Nolan and Furman). In Men Of Courage there really is no equivalent character (s).

Without going into detail on each of the ship's officers real or fictionalized, I should mention that in both versions the Captain of the ship's marines is portrayed quite honoroubly (played by David Caruso in Mission) - this was Capt Edward Parke. Also the ship's doctor (played by Richard Thomas in Mission) doctor Lewis Haynes was one of the key survivors and witnesses to the events of Indy's sinking. He is absent from Men Of Courage. In both movies we are shown the ship's Chaplain working to exhaustion to keep the men alive (called Connor in one version and simply Chaplain in the other) - This was actually rev. Thomas Conway.