A 600-foot heavy cruiser sets a trans-Pacific speed record, delivers the core components of the atomic bomb, and then vanishes from the US Navy's radar for four days with more than 1,000 men aboard, and nobody notices. This episode builds a biography of the USS Indianapolis and her final commander, Captain Charles B. McVay III, using declassified naval documents and ship schematics to understand how systemic failures happen.

We begin with her birth as a treaty cruiser whose armor was sacrificed for speed and eight-inch guns, her peacetime years as FDR's diplomatic flagship, and her Pacific combat record from the Philippine Sea to the Okinawa bomb hit that sent her home for repairs. Then we follow the secret mission carrying 85 pounds of enriched uranium bolted to the deck of the captain's quarters, the two Type 95 torpedoes from submarine I ...