Charles B. McVay
Seamen carry that magnetic inertia, that swaying motion caused by waves on boats, inside them. That letting go inside, always inside. A journey to the heart of the ocean is a journey without return. Because once you take this direction, you sign a kind of eternal commitment. The sea is above everything. And then that indefinable thing that travels in the blood and is handed down from generation to generation gets inside you.
Waves have always coursed through Charles’ veins. Before that, they coursed through those of his father and grandfather. Ever since he was a child, he has felt this connection with the sea’s ferocity. The first time he was photographed in his father’s admiral’s hat, he knew that this, and no other, was his destiny. And destiny, like the ocean, once you’ve signed up to it, cannot be dodged. That was why nobody was surprised when Charles entered the naval academy in Maryland. They all knew he’d end up occupying a high rank in the United Stated Navy. He didn’t disappoint anyone, except for that girl with wheat-coloured hair and green eyes he’d promised never to abandon. Her name was Mary Jane, and she and Charles had shared those afternoons of childhood and adolescence that never return, but are never forgotten. Bike races on paths across golden fields of rye, afternoons of fishing with bright scales and worms, sunsets in the shade of orange trees weighed down with blossom… Until one good day Charles announced he was leaving for Maryland to become a ship’s captain and so forgot the promise he’d made to Mary Jane. She hated him and wept until her tear-glands burst. The sea was above everything, and there was nothing the girl could do. Nothing, except forget him for ever.
In 1944, Charles was put in command of the USS Indianapolis, having devoted more than two decades of his life to the United States Navy. This was a reward for all those years of hard graft. A reward that came with a heavy load of responsibility. At the height of the war, the waters of the Pacific were not exactly a safe place. One year after being named captain, the Indianapolis was handed a mission on Iwo Jima, the strangest island nature has ever dared to conceive. On those twenty square kilometres of volcanic earth lost in the middle of the Pacific was where one of the bloodiest battles in World War II took place. The prelude to Okinawa.
Charles knew what he was up against. But he’d learned not to show the slightest sign of fear or doubt. The order was to invade the island of Iwo Jima, and that was exactly what they were going to do. The Japanese, who’d guessed that sooner or later the American fleet would turn up in search of conquest, had turned the island into a veritable fortress that was impossible to sink. They’d worked in secret with various machines, silent as ants. Using the natural caves and huge cavities that already existed in that porous land, they’d perforated the volcanic subsoil, endowing it with all kinds of artillery pieces and creating a vast, intricate labyrinth of interconnected galleries. Some with an exit to the surface, others without. They’d drawn up plans of the labyrinth and committed them to memory. This was their territory, and nobody was going to take them by surprise.
When the Americans glimpsed Iwo Jima, they thought it was an inhospitable piece of the moon’s surface that had fallen from the universe by accident and got stuck, suspended on the sea in a kind of balancing act. Topped by Suribachi, the large 160-metre volcano that dominates the whole island, Iwo Jima had a strange, undulating surface in the shape of a pear. It was all covered in lava, ash, sulphur powder and fine black sand with an unusual texture. The ground opened up in cracks emitting foul vapour that spread all over the island. The vegetation that had managed to take root in that hostile territory was all small: dwarf-like trees with twisted, impossible shapes, scrawny plants with fierce, prickly leaves… No sound, except for that of the sea and wind, ran over that piece of land, a silence that gave it an inhospitable, abandoned appearance. It was a ghost island in every sense of the word.
The Americans disembarked on Iwo Jima and started advancing over the volcanic terrain. What at first sight seemed to be an easily conquerable piece of land turned out, mostly because of the island’s abandoned appearance, to be a real problem. The ground was in fact a thick, dense mass into which the soldiers’ boots sank at every step. It was like walking on snow; making any progress on that terrain was exhausting. The chains of the amphibious tanks couldn’t latch on to anything solid, they slid around and sank. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the fact that, hidden in caverns and galleries, watching the enemy’s movements and ready to launch a surprise attack, hundreds of Japanese – or ‘yellow monkeys’, as the Americans used to call them – lay in wait. In the folds of the earth and numerous cavities that existed in that undulating soil, the Japanese had hidden weapons and hand grenades. They were molehills that had been armed to the teeth. When the bullets and firing commenced, there was no going back.
From the sea, the Indianapolis saw various Japanese ships moving about on the radar. Bombs and missiles started flying, lighting up the island in an impromptu rain of bellicose fireworks. The Americans suffered in the conquest of that island. It took them weeks. Japanese resistance was stronger than anyone had ever imagined. But there is no rest in war. Barely had the American soldiers recovered from the battle when they were sent to fight on Okinawa. The Indianapolis formed part of the amphibian fleet that brought Okinawa to its knees. At no time did Charles McVay regret being in charge of the ship. Not even when that kamikaze pilot crashed into the hull, taking the lives of thirteen men. The crew observed a five-minute silence, buried their tears in the marine expanse and abandoned the battlefield. This fact would change the destiny of the USS Indianapolis, which was obliged to head to the port of San Francisco for repairs.
