USS Indianapolis CA-35

Named in honor of Indianapolis, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis CA-35 had her keel laid on 31 March 1930, was launched on 7 November 1931, and was accepted by the Navy and commissioned on 15 November 1932. She measured 610 feet 4 inches in length, 66 feet 1 inch at the beam, and drew 24 feet 10 inches of draft when fully manned and ready for sea. She had eight White-Forster boilers driving four Parsons geared turbines, with 107,000 rated horsepower delivered through four propellers, and her design flank speed exceeded 32 knots. Her main armament consisted of nine 8-inch guns in three turrets and a secondary armament of eight 5-inch guns. She began her thirteen-year career as the flagship of the Scouting Force, and later the Scouting Fleet, prior to World War II, and she served several times as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal Ship of State. Throughout most of World War II she served as flagship of the Fifth Fleet under the command of Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, USN, who was raised in Indianapolis. In the Pacific she earned ten battle stars for operations including the Bougainville and Salamaua-Lae raids in February 1942, the Aleutians operations in March 1943, the Gilbert Islands operations in November 1943, the Marshall Islands operations at Kwajelin and Majuro Atolls and Eniwetok in 1944, Asiatic-Pacific raids on Yap, Palau, Ulithi, and Woleai in 1944, the Marianas operations including the Battle of Philippine Sea and the capture of Saipan and Guam in June 1944, the capture of Tinian Island in July 1944, the Western Caroline Islands operations in September 1944, raids on the Japanese home islands of Honshu and Nansei Shoto and the capture of Iwo Jima in February 1945, and the Okinawa Gunto operation in March 1945. At Okinawa she was hit by a kamakaze, causing 38 casualties. Following repairs, she was chosen to deliver the world’s first operational atomic bomb to the island of Tinian on 26 July 1945. At approximately 14 minutes past midnight on 30 July 1945, while transiting unescorted from Guam to Leyte Gulf, Indianapolis was struck by two torpedoes fired by the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58 and sunk. She was the last United States surface ship lost in World War II. From Tinian the first atomic bomb was flown by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay and dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. The atom bombs brought about the early end of the war, saving an estimated two million lives that would have been lost on both sides in an invasion of the Japanese home islands, and the Empire of Japan surrendered unconditionally on 14 August 1945.

Indianapolis city (balance), Indiana · United States