What is the episode about the USS Indianapolis sinking?
Did you see Oppenheimer?
I have not yet, actually. Wildly. Because I did want to see it. I really like Killian Murphy. I didn't mean that, I guess. This was like a fascinating and like really terrifying and horrifying time in history. No, it is interesting. So it's always really interesting to see how it's done in these things. And I heard great things about it.
But the whole goal of this project was to design a crazy atomic bomb that would give the Allies the destructive power they believed they needed to stop the Japanese army and end the war. By the summer of 1945, the Manhattan Project had succeeded. It created two atomic bombs, and they nicknamed them Fat Man and Little Boy.
The two bombs would eventually be dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively. As we know. In San Francisco, Charles McVeigh had been given the details of the Indianapolis latest mission, but only so many details. They had to transport the components of Little Boy, including the highly radioactive uranium that would ultimately make the bomb so destructive.
And in addition to the critical mission, McVeigh would be sailing with nearly 300 new crewmen. Many of them were new recruits to the Navy within the last 90 days. Oh, shit. So brand new. Not all the crew was new, but at least... A good chunk of it. 300 of them were brand new. Can you imagine?
That's your first working mission?
Yeah. Damn. From the moment the plans were made in Washington, D.C., everything about this mission was so highly confidential. Even Captain McVeigh, the literal captain of the Indianapolis, was only given the details necessary to just execute the mission, like execute the delivery, and that's it. Right. Like didn't need to know basis, essentially.
On the morning of July 16th, 1945, the Indianapolis departed San Francisco on the way to Pearl Harbor, where they were going to drop off any non-essential passengers and refuel. Right. The ship arrived in Hawaii on July 19th and refueled and then departed for Tinian, a small island in the northern Mariana Islands. And that's where the bomb was going to be assembled. Okay. Like on the island?
Like very complex, yeah. The missions and activities surrounding Fat Man and Little Boy were deemed top secret ultra, which is the highest level of clearance that few in the government or military would ever receive. According to author Lynn Vincent, ultra's dissemination was choke point narrow, closely held and tightly guarded. It seeped out daily to only a tiny group of Pacific Fleet commanders.
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