USS Indianapolis

The INDY

It is SHARK WEEK on the Discovery Channel and the first show was a documentary of the worst encounter between humans and sharks in history, the sinking of the USS INDIANAPOLIS.

I first heard of the INDY when I read JAWS and All The Drowned Sailors.

If you remember Jaws you know that Captain Quint, played by Robert Shaw in the movie, was on that US Cruiser and his chilling rendition of the four days and five nights that 896 sailors spent in the Phillipine Sea after being torpedoed was one of the most dramatic parts of both the novel and the film.

Do you remember when Quint said,

" I'll never put another lifejacket on agin'."

He was talking about surviving the INDY.

The INDY had just delivered key components for the Atomic Bomb that was to be dropped on Hiroshima a few days later when she was torpedoed by a Japanese Submarine just after Midnight on July 30, 1945.

1196 Men on board

300 went down with the ship

896 went into the sea

There are so many interesting things about this vessel and her crew:

FDR used it as his Presidential ship,

the INDY along with others was myseriously whisked out of Pearl Harbor 2 days before the surprise attack,

the captain was court marshalled for her sinking and the US Navy, in one of it's most shameful moments in history, brought in the Japanese Sub Commander to testify against him!

Captain McVeigh was later exonerrated but he committed suicide in 1968.

Back in '45 when this happened the US NAVY knew nothing about sharks and this dreadful incident actually started the serious study of sharks. Sailors were informed that blowing bubbles would scare them off.

For years this story was told like a classic Horror story where the villains were frenzied maneating creatures from hell who mercilessly attacked and devoured nearly three quarters of the 896 men who were floating helplessly for 4 days and 5 nights.

Now in 2007 we learn from the survivor accounts that dehydration, exposure and drowning claimed the majority of the poor bastards who didn't live long enough to be rescued.

Many of the survivors spoke of men who made the mistake of drinking the salty sea water and going berserk before succumbing to the shutdown of their kidneys and internal organs within a four hours.

The kidneys try to flush out the salts in the urine and wastes precious water doing so.

(Seawater is 35 parts per thousand Salt and Freshwater is .5)

The mere thought of dying of thirst in an Ocean surrounded by water and being fried by the sun during the 100 degree days led many to simply slip off their kapok lifejackets and drown themselves.

Many delerious men believed that freshwater could be had just below the surface and that Japanese soldiers had infiltrated their group.

Now over 50 years later we know that most of the men were more afraid of the delerious, violent, men floating beside them than the sharks bumping their legs beneath the surface. That is scary.

Of course there are also remarkable acts of courage and compassion. This is THE most incredible tale that every shark-nut in the world has read.

The sharks certainly consumed all of the most injured and dead sailors and a few that were still alive but exposure killed far more of them.

Statistically sharks behaved as they would be expected to and not like bloodthirsty creatures from hell according the director of the International Shark Attack File.

(About 5 people a year are killed by sharks far fewer than those who die from falling coconuts and about 50 million sharks are killed annually by Asian men to make soup.)

So in the end 896 men went into the sea

321 on the brink of death were rescued

4 succumbed to their ordeal

leaving 317 out of a crew of 1196

The thing that really stuck with me is that the 4 sailors who died after being rescued from this nightmare, were apparently buried at sea!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35