"The Creative Process of Writing
is a Liberating and Therapeutic Experience"
www.virtualwritingcoach.com
July, 2009
In This Issue:
1. Preview
2. Publisher's Note
3. The USS Indianapolis
4. Helpful Hints
1. Preview
The Writer's Connection explores the creative process
of writing and the interplay between thoughts, feelings,
and actions. We are an interactive community of authors
and readers who share ideas to enhance our knowledge,
skills, and experiences in writing fiction in any genre,
but our emphasis remains mystery and suspense thrillers.
Published monthly, the Newsletter offers writing tips
for authors, coaching suggestions, editing, and marketing
information.
Topics are presented from the perspective of Keith Barton
and represent only his ideas on producing your first manuscript,
and are provided to the general public. Because we are
an interactive community of writers, other viewpoints
are welcomed and may be printed in future monthly newsletters
with permission from Keith Barton.
2. Publisher's Note
July, 2009
Dear Writer's Connection Subscriber,
This month's newsletter features: The USS Indianapolis
3. The USS Indianapolis
Everyone remembers the Enola Gay's flight over Japan and dropping the bomb on Hiroshima that led to
Japan's ultimate defeat to end WWII. What you may not remember is how the bomb was transported to
the island of Oahu under a cloud of secrecy that was unknown even to the Captain of the USS Indianapolis.
The events that transpired the last two weeks of July 1945, will forever be etched in the minds of the
families whose fathers and brothers were forgotten at sea, after a Japanese class sub sunk the Indy on
July 30, 1945 and the harrowing experience of 317 men left in the South China Sea near the Marianas
Islands for five days, before their ultimate rescue. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Captain Charles Butler McVay III graduated from the Naval Academy in 1932, his father an Admiral in
WWI. He was taciturn and rule-bound, but duty always beckoned him to put country before family and self.
Our story begins in San Francisco on July 15, 1945 with a strange cargo in black box that was guarded
by 32 marines on board the Indy. The crew was unaware of its contents that would later become part of
"fat boy" who killed 160,000 Japanese on August 6, 1945, with the first atomic bomb dropped on a civilian
population.
The Indy was a cruiser built in 1945 to celebrate FDR's birth place, Indianapolis, IN.
The ship's course would take it from San Francisco to Oahu and then to Tinian and Guam, where it was set
to sail to Leyte, Philippines, to continue to fight the Japanese after it left its precious cargo on
Tinian where the B-29 Enola Gay would fly to Hiroshima, to drop the bomb that would end WWII. But the
900 crew members of the Indy would never see the end of WWII. Three hundred sailors were immediately incinerated
when a Japanese torpedo crashed into Indy's forward section.
The Indy sank in twelve minutes, without the
required number of lifeboats and vests to keep the crew from drowning in the oil slick waters four miles
above the ocean floor. Six hundred sailors and officers drowned from dehydration, drinking salt water
or being torn apart by sharks that nibbled on them for four days. Half-torsos in life preservers bobbed
in the 110 degree heat; other sailors were plucked from their vests by hungry sharks like ping pong balls.
Captain McVay survived to learn that his fate was a court marshal for not "zigzagging" in enemy waters
and failure to abandon ship earlier than the twelve minutes it took the ship to sink. He was able to keep
his rank and a desk job until his retirement in 1949 but nineteen years later put a 45 caliber bullet through
his head because he could no longer live with the nightmares of that fateful night of July 30, 1945.
The Navy blamed one man for the loss of the Indy, despite the fact that SOS messages were ignored in
Leyte. The docking roster never listed the Indy four days late and no destroyers accompanied the Indy
into enemy waters, against naval protocol. The Captain was later exonerated in 2001 through the efforts
of the Indy survivors, all now in their eigtties, who still meet in Indianapolis for a bittersweet reunion.
Doug Stanton's book,
In Harm's Way, tells this remarkable
story from the vantage points of the ship's doctor, LCDR
Lewis Haynes, Marine Sargeant Giles McCoy, and Captain McVay.
The Indy tragedy is of course the loss of 900 lives at
sea. The larger tragedy is the U.S. Department of
Navy's attempt to cover up their own ineptitude and pin
the blame on the Captain McVay who lived the horror along
with his 316 surviving shipmates, long after the Indy sank
in the warm waters in the South China Sea.
For naval historians,
Stanton's book is superb in its vivid narratives from
three points of view, but all with the same disheartening
conclusion of the men who sacrificed their lives needlessly
for a cause they knew not. Captain McVay's eerie prophecy
was that his ship would go down without getting an SOS
off. In his own words before the sinking,
What will happen then?
Helpful Hints:
- Narrative nonfiction has the unique advantage of putting the reader
in the scene. What other books have you read that mirror this same literary
approach and how entertaining did you find the stories?
- Most books are from one point of view (POV). Multiple points of view
allows the reader to get inside the minds of those recalling the events
from their POV. Ultimately, for the USS Indy there were 1200 POV;
sadly only 317 remained.
- Pick a time in your life when you suffered a surprising setback.
How do you remember it years later and do others who shared this event
remember it in the same way?
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The Writer's Connection
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About Keith Barton, Ph.D.
Dr. Barton received his Ph.D. in 1972 from the University
of Texas at Austin and has been a practicing therapist
for over thirty years. He is currently enrolled in MentorCoach
and is accepting new clients.
He has been an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina,
consultant to Fortune 500 companies in executive development, founded
and managed Texas Community Living Ventures, Inc., in 1986 for providing
group home services to persons with mental retardation. Keith founded
and has been running a clinical practice in Northwest Houston since 1990.
He writes part-time with the goal of completing one novel
a year. His desire to coach others derives from his passionate
interest in helping others become attuned to their creative
powers of storytelling.
Dr. Barton has training in coaching, cognitive and family
therapy and health psychology. He has published articles,
made presentations and conducted workshops about:
Anxiety and achievement
Stress management
Self-esteem
Communication skills
Marital/relationship enrichment
Wellness issues
The relationship between psychology and spirituality
