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So listen in wherever you're at to veteransradio
.org and its podcasts. This interview is with
a education coordinator who's written on the
USS Indianapolis, the disastrous sinking of a
ship in World War II. A thousand or so men died
horrifically. So a little history and there's
a few lessons to be learned about what your government
tells you in this story. So listen in. We want
to welcome to veterans radio today Betsy Alexander.
She is the Resident historian at the War Memorial
and we're going to talk a little bit more about
that because that's kind of an unusual book both
job and location that we want to talk about But
what we're really focused on here today is an
article that she wrote about the USS Indianapolis
disaster and the men from Michigan who got lost
in that World War II sinking of a destroyer,
which was a big deal. Betsy, welcome to Veterans
Radio. Nice to be here, thank you. Well, you
know, as a resident historian, you get to kind
of pick and choose, I think, subjects maybe you
want to talk about. How did you decide that you
were going to write? Hell Gone Mad, which is
the story about Michigan's men of the USS Indianapolis
disaster. Well, it was an interesting thing that
happened. A lot of my stuff happens by happenstance.
I had some gentlemen show up at the front desk
and I got a call and it's like, Bessie, we don't
know what they want. They are looking for a plaque
or some artwork and they're looking for you.
And I went, okay. So the piece of artwork they
were looking for was a rather large piece of
the Indianapolis. It was an artist rendering
and it had supposedly signatures from some of
the survivors at the bottom. and it was supposed
to be here. And I looked in the usual spots where
this artwork would be kept at in the veterans
room and the hallways surrounding the veterans
room. And I came up with nothing. I went up to
the attic to see if somebody had stored it up
there to make me mad. Not up there. And I came
back down and I said, fellas, I'm sorry, but
I cannot find this. I will look for it. And they
said, the other thing we're looking for is this
plaque. this big plaque. And I said, what is
the big plaque? And they said, we know that you
have some here. It is for the young men who died
in the Indianapolis disaster from Michigan. And
they showed me a couple of press cuttings, very
old press cuttings. And I went, ooh, I would
not have something like that here. But that seems
like that should be fairly easy to find. And
so it's like, well, it's been missing for decades.
And here's where it originally was. And it was
supposedly in, they made it sound almost like
it was in, not a VFW hall, but a gathering hall,
because the people who were in charge of it were,
I think VFW or something at the time. They were
supposed to be the stewards of it until a new
place could be built for it downtown in the new
civic center. And so. I thought the obvious person
to call would be my buddy who's a curator at
the Detroit Historical because I thought if you're
going to demo a building back then and you had
something that looked valuable, because I always
have to play detective in my role, the first
place I would go to is there and secondarily
then to the DIA and say, we have a giant brass
plaque that might be worth something. We have
a bust. We have a big statue. We're getting rid
of the building. Do you want this thing? We'll
drop it off right now in your parking lot. So
I called my buddy, and he said, never seen it.
It's not on the accession list. If I ever see
it, I'll call you back. And I said, ace. That's
a great deal. He found it about two months later.
Oh, my. He found it. Back up. Why did these gentlemen
want to find it? Because they were the organization.
uh the legacy organization for the USS Indianapolis
and they were in from out of town and they were
like we really really really want to find this
this is you know the big connection to Michigan
who could have this well let's let's stop here
we'll have a lot of veteran radio listeners who
are not world war two age or world war two buffs
tell us about the USS Indianapolis and its role
in history at that point, and why this is memorable
today. The easiest way, and the most obnoxious
way to remind people of what it is, is remember
when you saw the film Jaws, and Quint starts
riffing on, oh, we're going to have the sharks
coming, and it's going to be like the Indianapolis
disaster. I was there, and he gets all crazy
looking. And a lot of kids and young adults saw
that when the film came out and went, I wonder
what that is, but they never checked into it.
That is the disaster that is discussed in the
film Jaws. This is a situation where the guys
were supposedly carrying very important parts.
It was basically the mechanism for the atomic
bomb for Hiroshima. They did not know that it
was on their ship. They were just told you're
doing a top secret thing. You're to go in this
stop, this stop. You're going to do it in record
time. And then when you're done with that, we're
going to send you off to do some drills over
in the Philippines. And they're like, OK, cool.
So they delivered the goods, not even knowing
they had dropped off this monumental thing. And
they were on their way then to these just ordinary
drilling exercises and a Japanese submarine.
who the U .S. government knew was cruising in
the area. There was four of them the government
knew about and did not tell the captain of the
ship, Captain McVeigh, saw them. And just after
midnight, nailed them one night. Let me put some
context around this in terms of dates. So this
is July 30th, actually, of 1945. They've dropped
off the parts for the atomic bomb that's going
to end World War II, so we're almost at the end.
There's 1 ,195 crew members on this heavy cruiser,
the USS Indianapolis. A lot of guys. A lot of
very, very young guys in their teens, mostly.
And the worst thing in the world happens They
get torpedoed. The ship gets torpedoed and sinks
quickly. in 15 minutes or less there's reports
between 12 and 15 minutes the first torpedo the
first two hit the ship and the first one tore
basically the whole bow off so the thing was
continuing to go and you're just filling with
water the second one a couple seconds later hit
the hit the ammo in a couple of other compartments
and it just went straight down so you had a really
very little chance of evacuating or or putting
over the lifeboats or anything. Correct. Very
few lifeboats were out there. Some guys had on
the inflatable vest. Most of the guys were trapped
below. I mean, it happened that quickly. Immediately,
the radios went out. They couldn't even call
down and say, you know, evacuate the ship. It
was just a complete, really fast disaster with
with guys who are also very green. They had just
picked up. Most of the crew were young, 17, 18,
19 year old kids. And they had just this was
their first couple of weeks of being in service.
So they had no clue what was going on. So as
I said, there's. roughly 1 ,200 men on the ship.
And not many survived. How many survived? It
got whittled down really quickly. They think
there was about, I think it was about 800 in
the water. I could be wrong on that. I'd have
to refer to my notes. Within the first 24 hours
in the water, it was down by a couple of hundred.
And they were just being, they were covered in
real heavy grade oil. which was actually sort
of a blessing because the guys apparently that
were in, that had less coverage were found easier
by the sharks. Yeah, one of the things that's
just horrifying about this is that it happened
so fast, as I say, maybe it's 800 guys and a
couple of hundred, two to three, I think it's
300, survive ultimately. The others succumb to
the elements and the elements include sharks,
which gives you that modern movie reference you
started with in Jaws. I mean, it's just horrific
to think about these guys out there floating
in the middle of the ocean. There were no distress
calls, no nothing. No nothing. And the government
abandoned them. They didn't show up where they
were supposed to be the next day for the drilling
exercises. Nobody went looking for them. So you
have a bunch of kids bobbing around in salt,
remember, salt water. So not knowing they were
Thursday, they start drinking the salt water
and literally, you know, besides your tongue
swelling up and your throat closing off and it
makes you mad. You go mad. So you had guys that
were, you know, seeing all kinds of crazy stuff
and I'm swimming to the ship there and swimming
off and drowning. So they were watching each
other do that and trying to talk sense into their
compatriots who were basically killing themselves.
A lot of the young guys after a few days out
there were so depressed, they just did kill themselves.
They let go and they went under. And then there
was, you know, because of the blood and the water
and guys with injuries, it was sharks. It was
tiger sharks and I believe white tip sharks.
And apparently it was... It was very ugly. And
thank God somebody finally about the third day
flew overhead and couldn't believe what he saw.
Yeah, that's I wanted to get to that point because
it's three days, like three days later, a plane
happens to fly by. What's going on down there?
Because they had no idea. No clue where the Minneapolis
was. And they had obviously lost contact. There
was no radio contact with them. It went down
so fast. It was almost accidental that they got
discovered. Yeah, yeah. He saw an oil slick.
So he went down and he happened to be fooling
around in the back of the aircraft trying to
fix an antenna that was trailing. And he happened
to look down. He saw an oil slick and he's like,
wait a minute. Do we have, you know, do we have
like a Japanese submarine down here laying oil?
I'm going to go down. So he went down to the
surface and started seeing guys bobbing. And
as he was calling back to the base, he's like,
I've got like 10 guys down here, wait a minute,
I've got like 60, wait a minute, I got like 100
some guys down here. They didn't believe him.
They still would not believe him when he was
calling back to the base. And he's like, move,
go, do something. It's hard to think, it's hard
in 2025 to put your mind in what it was like
in 1945. where there isn't kind of like all the
sophisticated gear and information and beacons
and radio wave signals for survivors and that.
I mean, it was a whole different time. And the
Indianapolis was on this secret mission to begin
with. And I guess the Navy didn't want to acknowledge
it was lost or out there. It actually took the
Navy a long time to let the U .S. public know
that the Indianapolis went down. Talk about that.
To me, that's crazy in a world of instant communication.
Some of the stuff they did was, I can only say,
evil. First off, they didn't tell the captain
that there was four subs that was cruising right
in there. So it's like, why would you not tell
the man to be extra careful? Why would you not
give him an escort, which they found after the
fact was available? He could have had an escort
with him. When they kept calling in other airplanes
and ships just started diverting and talking,
not even in code saying, wait a minute, the bases
aren't responding. We need to go. There's guys
in the water. So all of those people could have
been court martial that did that over the next
few days. When they finally had everybody picked
up and collected and back on land, the government
decided to wait until they could do the announcement
that the Japanese had surrendered so that the
main headline would not be. Huge disaster at
sea, biggest naval disaster ever. Guys are finally
back on dry land. The rest are lost. So you had
them down in the bottom part as the secondary
headline in the huge letters everybody was reading
was about the surrender, which was one of the
final insults, although they managed to continue
by then court -martialing the poor captain. Yeah,
I want to talk about that too, because it's in
your article. gone mad for the war memorial but
this whole idea that they sat on the disaster
and didn't didn't tell the families that had
where they had perished 900 some families or
the families the 300 some families where your
your son's still alive for like two weeks it
was it was the 15th of August 1945 because they
waited until after the atomic bombs dropped after
Japan finally surrenders, okay, now we'll slide
it out. I had never focused on that kind of manipulation
of public transparency. It was just really evil.
I mean, and they just, it's like they kept compounding.
So the government decides with all this going
on, then people are starting to go, wait a minute,
what was this other thing that happened with
these young kids? So they decide they're gonna
court -martial Captain McVeigh saying, well,
you didn't zigzag, and that's why you ended up
getting hit. And so you endangered the crew and
you've done terrible things, you know, whatever.
And it's like it was it was said at the time
that even if he zigzagged, the court marshal
should not have happened because he still would
have been hit. Now, to to really cap things off,
the U .S. government brought in is their chief
prosecution witness Captain Hashimoto, the guy
that torpedoed the ship. So you have Perry Mason
bringing in the murderer to talk about what would
not. And the guy, Hashimoto got in and he said,
they could have done anything on the planet.
They were so close. They were under five miles
away from me. I have them. I'm surprised every
torpedo didn't hit them. There was no way. This
man could have escaped. He did nothing wrong.
No zigzag, no nothing. They were going to die.
And that was government. McVeigh gets court martialed.
His career ends. It impacts the rest of his life.
Yes, very, very sadly. And his men. testified
for him all the reunions they just they still
thought he was the greatest thing they tried
from the get -go to clear his name going no this
this man should not have been court -martialed
they always called him captain even though he
had a paper you know pay grade he considered
himself a captain to one of the guys and that's
what they referred to him as finally when he
was 70 years old it just took too much of a of
an emotional toll he had not only survivor skill
But he had these mothers and whatnot who were
going, you killed my son, you horrible man. And
he walked out into his backyard and blew his
brains out. And today we maybe have more focus
than we had back then on veteran suicide, on
the emotional mental health impacts of service.
And obviously, when you're responsible as a captain
for 1200 men and only 300 come home. You can
only imagine what the burden that he had to carry
on. And then the government, the Navy, the service
he's given his life to piles on and says, it's
all your fault because you didn't steer the ship
the right way. Just an awful story. And by the
time the story gets Fixed isn't the right word,
but put back on the right path, it's too late.
Well, it came full circle, really, when you had
the fellow who was the commander then of the
Indianapolis submarine. There's been a variety
of ships called the Indianapolis over time. And
that was Commander Toti, T -O -T -I. And he was
like, wait a minute. that this guy should not
have been court a court martial. And so he kind
of, you know, looking at it, Indianapolis to
Indianapolis, he started raising a ruckus saying
what this is complete nonsense what happened.
So he started doing all kinds of tests with modern,
you know, modern equipment and what they knew
now. And he proved and I spoke to him and I wrote
in the article right on what he told me he says,
I proved absolutely positively that there was
no way even if he zigzagged he was not going
to be hit the whole thing again he should have
never ever been court -martialed they were looking
for a scapegoat and everybody knew it nobody
on the other side got uh gotten in trouble none
of the military guys were not looking for them
or not telling them that that you know there
was four subs out there the sub two one of the
subs two days before he had already blown up
another american ship They knew the four subs
were out there. And then Hashimoto spent the
rest of his life, he became apparently a Shinto
priest, and he spent the rest of his life trying
to clear McVeigh's name. Here he is, the guy
that did it. It's like... I had nothing personal.
This was orders. But no, the guy was railroaded
by the government. And then you brought me in
to testify against your guy. So it just shows
how outrageous outrageous it was. It also and
wearing your mantle of historian here for the
Grosse Pointe War Memorial, it also shows you
how whatever we learn in the near term to a disaster.
may not be the real answer. We may not have all
the facts. And only looking back in hindsight,
and I think it was maybe in 2000, Congress exonerated
McVeigh. We're talking 60, 35 years later or
something, or 55 years later, he finally gets
exonerated. There's really this lesson to be
learned about how how much credence you put in
what we know today versus what we will know in
the future when historians like you dig into
things, talk to people, look at it from a different
angle. There's a lesson to be learned there,
isn't there? There is, and there's also, I mean,
you look at between Hashimoto and then the kid,
literally the kid that really. picked everybody
up through Iran whether they wanted publicity
because it was a high school kid for his history
day project said wait a minute I've heard about
this there's no information out there he had
just seen Jaws and he's like how come I can't
find information on the USS Indianapolis so he
went out and played detective and he interviewed
he had about 800 documents that he physically
went through he interviewed 120 of the survivors
at that point and he was like This whole thing
is fishing. He did his history day report, which
I'm surprised this didn't go to the nationals.
It lost out in Florida. And I'm very involved
in history day. So that's what I also zeroed
in. I was like, these are one of our kids. He
went and he proved that that this whole thing
was a bunch of nonsense and laid it out. And
he started making the rounds of the new shows.
And then it escalated up to like the David Letterman
show. And so people are like, well, what is this?
What is this thing again? This was Jaws. and
this young kid and blah, blah, blah. And they
started listening. So the right people got together
around him and said, look, we can get you. into
talk to Congress. Why don't you go and present
what you've got in Congress? Tony came in also
was pushing as part of that. Joe Scarborough
from Morning Joe was involved in this back when
he was in Congress and he laid out what the deal
was and the kid is actually probably the one
who pushed over the top getting McVeigh exonerated
and getting the full story out as to what happened
to these guys, compliments of the military completely.
watching the whole thing. Well, it is you write
about this 12 year old, he was 12 year old student
in Florida. Hunter Scott's his name. This is
1997. And he kind of gets this all restarted
again. It's really amazing story of how how that
gets going. And, and then we continue on. I see
you and you have pictures in your story, which
are really fascinating about the wreck of the
USS Indianapolis finally being found in the ocean.
Yep. Yeah, they thought that would never be fun.
It is so far down. It's way deeper than the Titanic
is. It is about as far as you can go down in
an ocean at the bottom. And because it's so far
down and there's like no movement or anything
down that far, it looks as if it just went down
yesterday. There's no rust or anything on it.
You can read very easily the number on the side.
It's like, oh yeah, that's That's the Indy. Everything
is right there and spectacular looking. So that
was, again, a bunch of civilians who went down.
This wasn't the army or the Navy or something
doing, you know, looking for it. These were a
bunch of civilians. And let's try to find this
when we've found some other wrecks. And again,
it was people going, wait a minute, we got it
now. See, this isn't right. Let's help. People
keep telling the story to try to put the thing
right. There's so many little facts that if you
gather them, they change the whole perspective.
You started with a bit of a mystery of the missing
plaque. Yep. What happened to the plaque? The
missing plaque. So Bill finds the plaque in the
back of the, I call it the bubble car garage
in the very back of the, at Fort Wayne, the collections.
big old collections building down for the Detroit
Historical Society. He found that plaque and
next to it was the other plaque I had asked him,
if you ever find the plaque for Fred Elger, let
me know. And he goes, Betsy, I found both of
them together. And I'm like, oh, my God. So it's
like, OK, what are you going to do with the plaque?
Because people need to see it. And obviously,
he gets to make the final call because he's holding
the plaque now. So we give him the entire story
of the plaque. We know, like I said, this wasn't
even in their records because they used to just
take stuff in willy -nilly when it was under
different management, when it was a city. And
so there is a, we had a plaque unveiling a couple
of weekends ago at the Detroit Historical Society.
You can go down now and go to the arsenal of
democracy section up on the second floor. And
you can see the USS Indianapolis plaque that
was for the 70 some young kids from Michigan
who went down and it was paid for. or by the
parents of the boys who died. It's very sad to
see. Oh, thank God it didn't get melted down.
I mean, you sort of go, oh no, did that get melted
down somewhere along the line? And you have that
again in your article, a picture of it, which
is sort of moving. And it becomes, did you ever
find the other piece that the... the folks came
to the front door and asked about which is the
yes with the signatures I got a call from one
of my buddies who was in our facilities department
he's like hey betts I'm in the I'm in the bathroom
right now and there's a ship and you know I've
always wanted you know this kid loves ships and
shipwrecks and stuff and I said take a picture
not of you in the bathroom but take a picture
of what you're looking at send it to me right
now so he texted to me I said Where are you?
What bathroom are you in? He was in where the
facilities guys go wee -wee, you know. Oh. I
don't go in here. That's where the dudes do their,
you know, whatever. And I said, that thing is
coming off the wall. Thank you very, very much.
And so I got a hold in of Jeff Ortiz and the
guys. I said, we found it. It's in the. the maintenance
guy's bathroom so that's hilarious so it was
like i was i was mad you don't put you know something
like that which is almost a sacred artifact into
the Lou for a bunch of guys. So they asked them
if they could show the piece of artwork. So that
was also at the at the unveiling ceremony. I
lent them that. So that was on an easel. People
could look at that. The gentlemen who have signed
it are all deceased now. And we rehung it. I
spoke to our CEO and I said this is going somewhere
respectful. So it is right outside of our veterans
room now in the corridor going into the Fred
Elger where there's other military and historical
things up on the wall. So everybody now can see
it. So let's use the last few minutes here. Let's
talk about the Grosse Pointe War Memorial and
its historic and continuing honoring of men and
women who serve in the military. When the Elger
House was dedicated and given over free of charge
by Mary and Elger, she said, you can have this
as long as it's for two purposes. Half of the
mission is to honor veterans and those who never
came back and to put on programs, keep their
memory alive, try to serve them. And the other
half is for community stuff, classes, speakers,
learning how to paint, things of that that are
cultural. That's what you're supposed to be doing
with my house. Here is my estate. And so what
we try to do internally is we have a veterans
community, a veterans committee part of some
of us who are interested in veterans affairs.
And we try to do something every month for veterans.
We have a vet to vet meeting. And then every
other month, we have a speaker. So we alternate.
The guys can just get together and hang out and
talk about what they're up to. And some of them
are politically active in that. and they talk
about what they're trying to push through. And
then other times we have speakers. One of the
really fun ones we had was Carl Marlantis. He
was an absolute hoot. I adored him. And he had
the audience like cracking up, but he had great
stories. And it's, you know, veterans of every
war. We actually have a couple of World War II
guys that are here that are an absolute delight,
real heavy on Vietnam veterans. So I work with
a lot of them and we get only small numbers of
Desert Storm and Afghan. It's like the younger
guys don't seem to want to get that involved.
But Vietnam, yeah. We've certainly experienced
that in a variety of things in Veterans Radio.
And we're talking about Betsy L .A. Alexander,
who's the historical education coordinator for
the Grouse Point War Memorial. But we sort of
think some of the younger guys, time will come
where they have the time to be more involved
versus they're being involved with their family
and their jobs and their careers. I think we're
gonna see that change a little bit as long as
the torch stays lit at places like the Grosse
Pointe War Memorial. And if you're out there
and going, I don't know about this place, it's
beautiful, a beautiful house, beautiful, house
is the wrong word, mansion, event space right
on Lake St. Clair. The website is warmemorial
.org where you can go and look at it. A lot of
weddings occur there, those sorts of private
events as well. But Betsy, as we close out here,
tell us about some of the other areas that you've
written on and that you've focused on. I certainly
see that you have your POWMIA shirt on. And I've
looked at some of your other articles. So elaborate
a little bit. I try to feature a lot of the POW,
MIA guys. It's like the Vietnam veterans were
treated poorly enough, but to completely forget
about people. who never came back from any war
is just absolutely unconscionable. So I'll do
profiles on fellows, usually they're Michigan
guys. If there's a recovered plane or something,
I'll try to profile each guy in the crew and
what happened to them. And then how they ended
up, who was recovered and who wasn't. Just so
that people can read. One of the guys that I
profiled that was from, I believe Desert Storm
that died. I didn't know it. I used to work with
his mother and she plays bridge here. And all
of a sudden she said, my name is Roma. And I
went, are you Trane's mom? And she did this.
She went, yes, that was my son. And I went, I
just wrote about your son and she lost it. And
so I showed her, you know, the article, but I
just, I try to keep anything that has to do with
the veterans or particularly the people we're
still waiting to bring back. I try to keep them
in people's minds because people, it's like out
of sight, out of mind. Who cares? And it's like,
there are people that still care. Whether - And
there are something like 88 ,000 men primarily
who are MIA. I mean, it's a big number. It's
surprising it's such a big number. It's huge.
Some of the stories are unbelievable. And I end
up usually a story will start out with, okay,
this guy looks interesting. And then I start
going down the rabbit holes, like, wait a minute,
his son was born. five days after he was killed
and now the son has always had issues because
he never met his dad and he feels like he has
to live up to something so he ends up talking
to his old co and his co says here's the map
go walk where your dad did so the kid goes to
vietnam with his dad's map i mean it's just it
ends you never know what you come up with writing
about these guys it's amazing well that's that's
the beauty of uh being uh the historian is you
get to do that research and find those stories
and twists and turns that have been kind of lost
to time, but are too important to really lose
to time. You got to get them down on paper or
you got to get them in a digital format so that
they're there for the future, don't you? And
the families want to turn over things to you.
It's like somebody's interested again. Oh my
God. Nobody was interested. We thought we were
forgotten. Trane's friend from high school apparently
has a bunch of stuff he wants to lay on me. There's
a book that we're going to be doing. Most of
the book is going to be done by a lady named
Lisa Lark. We're going to try to profile everyone
from the Civil War. forward that happens, they
want to keep it just a gross point. I wanted
to do all of Michigan, but I got out and voted
on that. But I'm going to reprofile, train, and
get some of the tchotchkes that his friend has,
or might be like, you know, athletic sweaters
and stuff like that. Because then once people
see that, then they bring back and go, these
were guys. This was somebody's kid. This was
somebody's husband for three weeks and then he
was gone, you know. Once you start seeing the
stuff or handling the stuff, it's just, it gets
really heavy. It's really heavy to write about
the blood loan when you start touching their
stuff. Yeah, it really brings it alive. Betsy
Alexander from the Grosse Pointe War Memorial,
we appreciate the time that you've given the
veterans radio today to talk not only about the
USS Indianapolis disaster in World War II, But
bringing it forward to what's still being done
today to make sure we don't forget all these
men and women who are in service of the country.
I really appreciate it, Betsy. Thank you. Thanks
for having me on. And I want to thank everybody
for listening to Veterans Radio today. I am Jim
Fossone. It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans disability lawyer at Legal Help
for Veterans. And you can reach us at 800 -693
-4800. or legalhelpforveterans .com on the web.
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