Project 888
Everyone aboard USS Indianapolis CA 35 was thought to be alive - until the telegram arrived.
In Mayfield, Kentucky Jane Henry picked up the phone receiver to hear Uncle Buck ask: "Did you get a telegram?" Speaking on the downstairs phone, Jane's father replied, "No, no telegram." Uncle Buck: "The Indianapolis sunk. Earl is missing." (1) Jane let the receiver fall turning to her sleeping baby boy.
As Mayfield's Postmaster Jane's father unlocked the post office door. The telegram lay on the teletype. It had arrived late August 13th after closing time. Jane hesitated but slipped it from her father's hand.
Jane's mood became disbelief and darkness.
Jane had no knowledge of the ship's sailing from Mare Island or premonition of the tragic sinking of Indianapolis but others did:
From Mare Island near Valentine's Day 1945 Lt. Commander Kasey Moore wrote to his wife, Katherine, regarding his duty station: "I like the mid-watch 12 midnight to 4 a.m...it is a wonderful time-quiet, dark...I love the sea, the clouds, and most of all, the moon path. It is a silver path from the ship to Infinity...Several times of late I have seen you in the moon path. You are dressed in black and crying uncontrollably...I know my imagination is playing tricks, but I worry what this means...You hold out your arms to me--and then disappear." (2)
Near Chattanooga, Tennessee Mary Phillips, mother of Aulton Phillips F2C, awoke around midnight on July 29, 1945 yelling to her husband, "something is wrong with Aulton!" (3)
The night of July 29, 1945 near Houston, Texas Thelma Roberts, age 18, woke her mother to describe images of a ship sinking, on fire, with its fantail in the air. Seeing her husband, Charles Roberts swimming with outstretched hands, Thelma offered her hand guiding him onto a raft. (4)
When last at home Theodore Ott, Yeoman 1c, handed his scrapbook to his wife saying that he was nervous about this mission. (5)
On the day he left from Pattonville, MO to board Indianapolis, Chester Bright S2C, age 17, turned to his father saying: "I want to take a long trip around Pattonville because I will never see it again." (6)
The first telegram was sent to the person listed as the crew member's next of kin listed on their Registration "Draft" Card or Navy Reserve documents - someone who would always know their whereabouts. The date of arrival of the first telegram varied but the dreaded announcement was the same--MISSING in Action!
Regrets, disbelief and horror emerged.
As Indianapolis sailed from Hunter's Point under the Golden Gate Bridge on its fatal mission, Paul Knoll's father's ship passed Indy as it was coming into port. Paul's father reflected: I missed seeing my son one last time. (7)
At the time of the sinking Robert Harold King, S2, was only 20 years old with a 4 month old daughter, Karen. His wife Virginia gazed at the telegram. The date of the sinking was her birthdate. (8)
Frederick and Ruth Harrison dated five years before marrying on August 3, 1944. When Ruth joyously received the telegram she anticipated it was an early Happy Anniversary wish. (9)
Ronald McBride's, S1, was the youngest of 11 children. His sister took the telegram to his mother who was visiting relatives out of town. Mrs. McBride collapsed and was returned home by ambulance. (10)
Lieutenant Colonel John Colvin Emery read the telegram in disbelief. The damaged Indianapolis was thought not to return to sea, the information that guided Emery to use his USS Navy contacts to get his son, William Friend Emery, assigned to USS Indianapolis in April 1945. He approached his wife telegram in hand. (11)
879 families received a telegram announcing "MISSING".
For these stunned families, the wait began - for the second telegram.
END NOTES
(1)Knoxville, TN Katherine Moore, wife of Lt. Commander Kasey Moore, had called the parents of LCDR Earl
Henry asking if a telegram had been delivered. Katherine did not revealed the tragic new of her telegram.
Out of despair Mrs. Henry passed the task to her brother-in-law, Uncle Buck, to call her daughter-in-law Jane
Henry, in Mayfield, KY. Uncle Buck and LCDR Henry had shared a dental office in Knoxville prior to WWII.
Read bio of Lt Commander Earl Henry in LAS Crew section.
(2) Goodbye, Indy Maru A Navy Wife Remembers, Katherine D. Moore, Lori Publications, Inc. 1991, page 112, Letter from Kasey Moore to his wife written near February 14, 1945 and marked URGENT. Read bio of Kasey Moore in LAS section.
(3) Rebecca Dalrymple writes the family history of her Aunt Mary Phillips' nightmare. See bio for Aulton Phillips F2C in LAS Crew section.
(4) Thelma Roberts described her visual nightmare in a ZOOM video interview with Marilyn Henry and Michael Emery. Read bio for Charles Roberts, F1C in LAS Crew section.
(5) Dawn Ott Bollhoefer enters this quote from father, Theodore Ott, Jr. from his family lore. Dawn Ott inherited her grandfather's scrapbook. Read bio for Theodore Gene Ott, and read The Cost of War for families written by his granddaughter Dawn Ott Bollhoefer.
(6) Chester Lee Bright S2C, biography, Lost at Sea but Not Forgotten, Mary Lou Murphy, 2008, Printing Partners Inc., Indianapolis, IN; republished with permission.
(7) Paul Knoll, COX, biography; published by the Indiana War Memorial in 2015; re-published by permission in bio section.
(8) Harold King's biography; published by the Indiana War Memorial in 2015; re-published by permission in LAS Crew section.
(9) Frederick Harrison's biography, published in Lost at Sea But Not Forgotten, 2008. Mary Lou Murphy, Printing Partners, pages 35-36
(10) Ronald McBride, S1, published by the Indiana War Memorial in 2015; re-published by permission in LAS Crew section.
(11) William Friend Emery, S1C. Biography published in Lost at Sea But Not Forgotten, 2008, Mary Lou Murphy, pages 20-25. Read bio of William Friend Emery in LAS Crew section.
