Week 72: Carlos LaPaglia and the USS Indianapolis

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In the summer of 1945, despite Germany’s surrender World War II raged in the Pacific.  Allied military units trained for the invasion of the Japanese home islands which was expected to be expensive, bloody, and lengthy.  On July 16, the cruiser USS Indianapolis left San Francisco with cargo that it was hoped would avert the need to invade Japan.  Chandler resident Carlos LaPaglia was a sailor on Indianapolis at this historical moment.

Carlos was born on the family farm at Dobson and Pecos Roads in 1920, the second of four children.  In 1942 he enlisted in the Navy, and was assigned to duty in the Pacific Theater as a gunner’s mate.  He shipped out on Indianapolis, and saw combat action at the Carolines, Saipan, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Tinian, Peleliu, and Okinawa before damage from a Japanese bomb forced the ship to port for repairs. 

After repairs Indianapolis was loaded with a top secret cargo – the components and uranium to create the first atomic bomb used in warfare.  The crew had no idea what they had onboard.  In a 2010 oral history, Carlos’ brother Chuy stated “They preached to them that, those packages, whatever happens, save those packages…they didn’t know what was in there.”  After ten days speeding unaccompanied across the sea Indianapolis arrived at Tinian.  Carlos recalled that the cables used to lift the cargo out of the ship were not long enough to set it down on the pier.  He couldn’t remember how that was resolved, but of course it was because the atomic bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima less than two weeks later.

From Tinian, Indianapolis travelled to Guam where the ship picked up new crew members, resupplied, and refueled before heading back to Okinawa.  One of the members of the refueling crew was another Chandler resident, Corley Haggarton, who may have been the last person to see Indianapolis afloat as he cast her off.

The night of July 29-30, 1945, was incredibly hot.  In order to find respite sailors, including Carlos, bunked on the deck.  Shortly after midnight Indianapolis was struck by two torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine.  The explosions ripped a massive hole in the ship and knocked out all electrical power.  Not only was Indianapolis doomed, her crew had no way to communicate what had happened or radio for help.  The ship went down in mere minutes.

Another sailor, Tom Reid, recalled to author Thomas Helm that he had been fast asleep in a hammock on deck.  When the torpedoes hit he sought out his friend, Carlos LaPaglia, and together they stepped off the deck and into the water to escape the sinking Indianapolis.  Carlos would later credit sleeping on deck with saving his life.  He thought that if he had been in his sleeping quarters he would not have escaped.

With the sinking of the ship, the real ordeal for the survivors of Indianapolis began.  No one in the US Navy was aware of the fate of the ship.  The sailors were left to float in the middle of the ocean with no food or water for days.  Many died from exposure, dehydration, and hypothermia.  Carlos remembered that in the late afternoon every day sharks would circle the wreckage and pick off men on the outskirts of the group.

The survivors were rescued by chance.  The pilot of an anti-submarine aircraft stumbled upon the wreckage during the course of a routine patrol.  He radioed for help, set his plane down, and began picking up survivors himself.  It was night before the first rescue ship arrived.  All told, Carlos and the rest of the Indianapolis survivors were in the water for five days.  Only 317 of the 1,196 crew members survived.

Carlos was one of the lucky ones.  He suffered from exposure, but made a full recovery.  He was discharged from the Navy in November of 1945 and returned to the family farm in Chandler.  He passed away in a car accident in 1956.