![]() ![]() They were critically top heavy with new electronics, light antiaircraft weaponry, and fire control gear. Rushed to completion and commissioned on November 15, 1932, she and her sister ship, the USS Portland, were modifications of the Northampton-class cruisers. It was a unique, top-secret assignment for the 13-year-old Indianapolis. The ship would be carefully tracked during its voyage, and if anything happened to her, it would be known within hours. Purnell, the naval member of the Manhattan Project’s Military Policy Committee, told McVay that if the ship ran into trouble the cylinder was to be saved at all costs. Marine guard, and the cylinder was placed in the flag lieutenant’s cabin. ![]() As soon as a big gantry crane quickly lowered the cargo aboard the ship, the crate was secured to the deck and surrounded by a U.S. Moored at the dock and making ready to get underway was the fast, heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), commanded by 46-year-old Captain Charles B. Army trucks unloaded a precious cargo-a large crate and a two-foot-long metal cylinder containing a uranium projectile and components for the “Little Boy” bomb, destined to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and usher in the atomic age. There was tight security and feverish activity on the dock at the Hunters Point Navy Shipyard in San Francisco Bay around 3 am on Monday, July 16, 1945.
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