I've read the books.  They say that Radioman Miner saw the antennae meter move.  But I really don't believe that only three stations would have heard the SOS, and that all three then disregarded it.  I have reasons to explain perhaps how the three claims were made but would like to hear if others have views on the basic issue first.

(huamai is a Maori[New Zealand] word, not sure what it means, but it is a street name in a small town near where I park.  Zoe)

I'm very curious to hear about your thoughts on this.  I have no reason to believe that it happened other than what Doug Stanton and Hunter Scott (and others) discovered in their research but if you have a different view, please share it. 

The Hunter Scott "research" appears to consist of receiving either phone calls, or letters, (from the books, it is not clear which?).    

Hetz (Nelson's book), or Hertz, (Maas in Newcomb's) claims an un-named officer disregarded the SOS as a hoax.  But the Japanese could not have sent an encrypted message, and could not have named Indianapolis in a plain-text message.  He also blames another un-named officer for removing the log pages.  The radio message was (he says) "relayed though channels" whatever that means?  And the radio technician is un-named.   Nothing of what he says, not even his service status has been verified.

Young claims that Jacobson was drunk, and replied "No message at this time..."  An SOS does not require a reply, it requires action.  The kindest explanation for Young's claim is that he is confusing some other event.  He also does not name the radio tech.

Donald Allen (according to Nelson, this is the most telling!) does name both Gibson and Gillette (both safely dead by 1998), but expects us to believe that Gibson dispatched the tugs (un-named), and then did nothing.  Didn't inform CINCPAC,  nor the air-sea rescue teams!   And of course, the ashen-faced radio tech is not named.  Allen is called a driver in Nelson, and an officer by Maas?  Probably neither IMO.

Maas reveals that at least one other hoax claim was made in a letter to Congress.  My view is that all three claims - made some 53 years after the events, are hoaxes, an outrageous slur on the standards and history of US Navy rescue policy.  Nothing of what any of them say can be verified.   Sadly, similar false claims are being made all the time by sick attention-seeking individuals .

SIGINT did intercept the I-58 message from the same area, three hours after the sinking.  Sadly, nobody, at any level of the Navy, considered the possibility that any ship could sink without sending an SOS.  Tragic.

From what I have just read, an SOS was sent but was ignored by Commodore Jacob H. Jacobson U.S.N. A man by the name of Clair B. Young USNR delivered it personnally to the Commodore. You can find this info and a lot more info on http://indymaru.tripod.com. My Uncle was Lost at Sea. He may not have survived even if rescue had come sooner but a lot more of the Sailors and Marines would have had a better chance of surviving.

Yes!

The letters seem impressive. But don't ring true. Claims that cannot be verified, and which require the complicity and silence of numerous people are usually dismissed as Conspiracy Theories. In Young's case, there are two or more radiomen, the messenger and Jacobson to remain silent.
I am disappointed that none of the book-authors have bothered to research the radio aspects - technical matters, protocols, and practices. ie, would the antennae meter fluctuate if the cables to the aerial was severed (as Stanton avers)? Would any signal go anywhere without an aerial? At the base stations, would the incoming messages be written on a pad, then decoded on another pad, and both kept as records? We know the exact text of many of the messages relating to the events because there is a written record of them. That should apply also to Young, Hetz and Allen's claims.

 I wonder where the receivers that did intercept the I-58 message was? Guam maybe? Pearl Harbor, where the SIGINT were based? I also wonder where the USS Cecil J Doyle was on 30 July, since 4 days later it was steaming away from the sinking area, so might have been quite close beforehand?    Japanese radio knew about the searching on the Thursday, so where were those receivers?  These US and Japanese radios should also have received any distress messages, if transmitted.

Newcomb notes that little attention has been paid to the SIGINT reception and disregarding of the I-58 message.  More should be, IMO.

-- Edited by huamai on Monday 27th of June 2011 03:25:14 PM

Survivor Jack Minor passed away in 2008.  However, he was always very clear in his belief that the distress signal WAS sent.