Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "The Sultana Explosion, a maritime disaster" video.

Almost parallels the story of the USS Indianapolis.
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I was referring to the lack of coordination that led to a heavy loss of life.
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Dehoe, I said the incident ALMOST parallels the Indianapolis, but you claim there were no parallels. As Pelican stated, both ships sank. There was a heavy loss of life. The men lost were military members. The lack of proper coordination was a major contributing factor. And like the Indianapolis, the end of the war overshadowed what otherwise would have been deemed a major incident. If you don't like my use of the word "parallel", then please recommend one that would be more descriptive.
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dehoe, the Indianapolis was not in the thick of battle when she was struck. The war was practically over by that point. And yes, I know the difference between battle and non-battle. I spent 30 year in the Air Force.
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RQ, both the Japanese Navy and their commercial fleet were in ruins and the home islands were facing starvation and relentless firebombing raids as the Allies prepared for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan. Japan was training and ill-equipping militia forces at home while well over a million of their soldiers remained trapped in China and Southeast Asia, essentially cutoff from Japan. Though their ability to feed and equip a significant force in the field had been severely curtailed, it would have been more accurate if I had said the war at sea was practically over. Japan only had 38 operational submarines and fuel was in short supply. There was very little threat of attack, and coupled with poor inter-theater communications, contributed greatly to the disaster. The resulting heavy loss of life could have been mitigated had better command and control been exercised. A similar avoidable tragedy had occurred the previous year during Exercise Tiger in preparation for the D-Day landings. Once again, human error exacerbated the problem. These are the types of similarities I am talking about.
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Ralf, I'm not talking about the actions of the skipper of the Indianapolis. I'm talking about the protocols the US Navy had in place at the time, which would not have prevented the sinking, but did contribute to the magnitude of the disaster. I spent years working command and control. Keeping track of personnel and resources is critical when failure to do so can result in loss of life and property. That was the fatal flaw in Navy operations during this period. As with most airplane accidents, there is usually a chain of events that leads to downfall. In this case the critical issues included failure to notify Captain McVay that a Japanese submarine was operating in his area of transit, using assumptions rather than actual reports to plot a ships position, failure by the losing command (Marianas) to confirm the ship had arrived in port, false reporting of her arrival by the gaining command (Leyte), failure of the gaining Port Director to report and investigate the ship being overdue, and failure of three independent radio monitoring stations to report the ship's distress signal (one station commander was drunk, another did not wish to be disturbed, and the third thought it was a Japanese trick). These are command and control shortcomings which should not have existed this late in the war. The Sultana overcrowding may have been motivated by greed, but it was a general failure of command and control that allowed the disaster to happen.
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