Abandon Ship!

Peter Maas talked about Richard F. Newcomb’s book Abandon Ship!: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy’s Greatest Sea Disaster, published by HarperCollins. This book, originally published in 1958, was the first chronicle of the events leading up to the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in the Pacific on July 30, 1945, the horrific aftermath at sea, and the contested political consequences in the U.S. The captain of the ship, Charles McVay, survived and was court-martialed for, among other charges, failure to issue a timely warning to abandon ship. Mr. Maas wrote an introduction and afterward that updates the case including how the scapegoated captain was finally cleared in 2000. After his remarks Mr. Maas answered questions from the audience. close