The Rev. Thomas Conway, Waterbury native and heroic chaplain of the ill-fated USS Indianapolis, was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously on Friday for his selfless courage.
Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite presented the medal, the Navy’s second highest award, in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Local veterans and government leaders had been trying for years to obtain the honor for Conway, and Braithwaite apologized for the long delay in recognizing the chaplain’s extraordinary valor and devotion to duty.
On July 30, 1945, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis, scarred from an earlier kamikaze attack that killed nine sailors, was headed to the Philippines after stopping at the island of Tinian to deliver parts for the atomic bomb, “Little Boy,” later to be dropped on Hiroshima.