An American warship, the “USS Indianapolis” was hit by a Japanese torpedo in 1945.
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An American warship, the “USS Indianapolis” was hit by a Japanese torpedo in 1945.
It took only 12 minutes for her to sink.
The surviving soldiers had to wait for four days for help and during this time the attack of the sharks took place.
The ship played an important role in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima before it was hit by Japanese torpedoes. It had transported parts of the “Little Boy” on site.
The loss of the “USS Indianapolis” was the heaviest loss for the US Navy.
When the ship sank, 1200 crew members were on board and 900 managed to save themselves on – few – life rafts and otherwise only with life jackets on their bodies.
That was actually bad enough, but the water in the area was shark-infested.
The injured were given the few life rafts, the other men had to swim in the water.
Those who did not have a life jacket were also mostly given a place on a life raft.
Survivors say that at first the sharks only ate corpses. Presumably, this was the easiest prey. After all, why would they first attack prey that could still fight back?
But then the strategy of the sharks changed. A huge shoal attacked a group of living men – at night.
They kicked and screamed loudly to scare the animals away.
When a shark picked a victim, a piercing scream was heard and the water turned red.
First aid kits would have been a good thing. But they weren’t waterproof, so they were no longer usable.
One had a few food containers floating around and at first this was thought to be a fortunate circumstance.
One opened some of the canned food every day and distributed it.
The problem was that every time a man opened a can of Spam (canned meat), the smell of the cooked pork attracted the attention of the sharks.
So they stuck to malt milk tablets and cookies. Fresh water was almost non-existent.
The survivors had to hold out for almost 5 days.
Then a passing U.S. Navy plane happened to spot the men on a patrol flight.
It was a PV-1 Ventura bomber,whose pilot immediately informed his base about the survivors. Help was now on the way.
After nearly five days of thirst , hunger, , starvation, open wounds and constant shark attacks, the men of the USS Indianapolis were finally rescued.
Their numbers had dwindled from about 900 to 316 survivors, and of those, many were on the verge of death.
By the time the rescued survivors recovered from their ordeal, the war was over.
The commanding officer of the USS Indianapolis, Captain Charles B. McVay III, was among the survivors.
He was court-martialed and found guilty of negligence in February 1946 for failing to steer the ship on a zigzag course to avoid the attack that sank his boat.
The court recommended pardon. He committed suicide in 1968, nearly 20 years after his retirement.
Many survivors believed the U.S. Navy had scapegoated their captain.
Poor visibility during the attack made a zigzag course inadvisable. Captain McVay testified at the court-martial that even a zigzag course would not have thwarted the attack.
It was not until 2000 that he was posthumously acquitted of all charges.
After decades of searching, the wreck of the USS Indianapolis was found on August 19, 2017.
A team of researchers led by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, located the ship (or what’s left of it) at a depth of 5,500 meters in the Philippine Sea.
The hope is that this will help the family members of the victims get some closure.
The story was made into a film – starring Nicholas Cage – in 2016.