"The
Fate of
the USS Indianapolis" 
By Jose Reyes 9/05/03
This is the amazing true story of the most
horrific Shark Attack on humans, ever recorded. I first learned of this tragedy while watching the famous movie Jaws.
It was the scene where the three main actors ( Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw ) were trading stories
at night, in Captain
Quint's (Robert Shaw )
fishing boat while they were
hunting down the famous White
Shark. They were telling stories about the scars and tattoos on there bodies and how they
contracted them. That's when Captain Quint explained the tattoo he received in
the navy during WWII, of the USS Indianapolis. Quint's first hand account of the
famous Cruiser's sinking on July 30, 1945 was a very chilling story and it was very true
also.
Short History of the USS Indianapolis
The USS Indianapolis was a 9,800 ton Cruiser (CA-35), that was built in Camden, N.J. and placed on the water, for commission, on November 1932. it patrolled the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans during peacetime. Then the attack from Japan on Pearl Harbor, Dec 7, 1941 occurred and the war in the South Pacific started. After the surprise attack from Japan, the USS Indianapolis was used very frequently in naval battles and was very successful. It was repeatedly hit by Japanese kamikaze planes and was wounded a couple of times but managed to return back to friendly ports, for repairs, every time. This highly decorated tough Cruiser roamed and dominated the South Pacific and even spent sometime in Alaska. It was an attack and support ship with a lot of speed and a lot of fire power, and for that reason, was chosen to perform a top secret operation that would eventually change the course of history forever.
Special Assignment
On July 16, 1945 The USS Indianapolis left the port of San Francisco with a special payload containing several large wooden crates. In these crates, rested the end result of "The Manhattan Project". Sealed in lead-lined metal containers was Uranium-235, "The Atom Bomb". This mission was so top secret that the Captain was not informed, but everyone onboard knew it was important. There was a lot of top brass, a lot of security and a lot of technical support. The powerful Cruiser practically broke the speed record by traveling 5,000 miles with one refueling stop at Pearl harbor, in an amazing 10 days. On July 26 it reached its port of destination, Tinian ( Interesting Reading ), in the Mariana Islands, located about 700 miles from Japan. Tinian would be the take-off spot for the bombers carrying the lethal atom bombs that would eventually end the war.
The Shark Attack
After a day or so in Tinain , the crew of the USS Indianapolis sailed off. It was Sunday mourning, July 29, 1945, and the USS Indianapolis had an appointment with the USS Idaho for gunnery practice, the next day. Since the trip to Tinian was so secret, no one really knew the USS Indianapolis was in the area. They received their orders but the USS Idaho was not informed, this would come back to haunt them after. It was right after midnight at 12:14 A.M. and fortunately during the midnight shift change when the crewmembers were all awake. A I-58 Japanese Submarine had crept up on the USS Indianapolis and delivered 2 undetected torpedoes, seconds apart, that severely crippled the Cruiser. The first torpedo struck the bow and completely erased it from the ship. The second torpedo struck the starboard side and tripped up an explosion that knocked off all the electricity on the ship and eliminated any hope of sending an SOS. Within 15 minutes the ship was completely under. Of the 1,197 men aboard, an estimated 880 to 900 men survived the two deadly strikes. Many men were badly burnt and severely injured but 95% had their Kapock lifejackets on when they splashed into the calm Pacific Ocean. It was a full moon and the survivors, drenched in fuel oil, started to huddle together to help each other out. Because of the severity of the two blows and the speed the ship sunk, only a few life rafts were available to the survivors. The men weren't so worried, at first, because of the appointment with the USS Idaho, but US Naval Command had no knowledge of their whereabouts. The sun came out and that's when the first sharks showed up and started to sniff around like hungry scavengers.
The doomed sailors started to panic as they saw these monster Tiger Sharks lurking around and felt them poking their noses on their feet. These 12 to 20 foot carnivores started to smell blood and that's when they proceeded to rip big chunks of flesh from the survivors. The bloody message eventually got out to other sharks and an estimated two to three hundred reported sharks were seen at the killing field, in hours. The terrorized survivors held hands and formed large circles to try to defend themselves but the sharks were on the outer layers just picking them off, one by one. There were limbs and body parts floating all over the place. Many sailors could not take it anymore and would just commit suicide by taking their jackets off and peacefully submerging into the salty water, never to be seen again. All this horror continued for days. The shark attacks would slow down for 3 or 4 hours, but would return again without announcement and with a relentless fury. By the 3rd day many men had died from malnutrition and dehydration, the others were slowly being slaughtered by the frenzied sharks. From the time the sharks first arrived, to the time the survivors were discovered, an estimated 350 to 400 men were devoured by these merciless eating-machines. I must say, to see a man being eaten alive by a powerful shark like this, must be the most brutal and most shocking experience that anyone can go through. A total of 317 men managed to survive the 5-day massacre.
"Tiger Sharks" (Click For More Pictures)
A Daring Rescue
The rescue of the remaining 317 survivors was one of the most incredible twist of fate story ever told. Lieutenant Chuck Gwinn, a pilot on a Navy "Ventura" PV-1 Bomber on antisubmarine patrol, spotted the survivors. The discovery was by pure chance, as Gwinn was in the rear of the plane fixing an antennae problem, when he saw an oil slick in the ocean. An Oil slick is a good indication of a submarine submerging. He figured there was an enemy submarine in the vicinity and proceeded to take control of the plane and open the bay doors, so he could drop a lethal dosage of depth charges into the water. He swung the plane around and headed towards the oil slick. As he was ready to release the bombs, he took a final look out his window and saw all these men in the water waving their hands trying to get his attention. He pulled off from his dive and radioed headquarters, giving the exact location of the survivors. Lieutenant Gwinn's call for help unfortunately lasted for a couple of hours, you see, headquarters did not believe him. The gas gage on the bomber was running low as Gwinn continued to plead the authenticity of his report of the survivors. Eventually, he had to leave the men and head back to the base. After more communication attempts, headquarters smartened up and dispatched a PB-Y "Catalina" Flying Boat, piloted by a Lieutenant Marks, to the coordinates given by Gwinn. On the way to the location of the survivors Marks spotted a Cruiser named "The USS Cecil Dolye" and informed the Captain of the discovery. As Marks reached the survivors he proceeded to drop life rafts and supplies to the nearly dead men.
He radioed headquarters and confirmed Gwinn's findings. Headquarters told Marks to return to the base and that the men would be picked up by the USS Cecil Dolye. As Marks circled the ravaged men, his crew spotted a school of Sharks mixed in with the survivors and savagely taking bites at them. Ignoring orders to return, he took it on to himself to land the flying boat on the ocean. He managed a rugged landing and lost a couple of rivets of the plane in the process, but was successful. He pulled the plane next to the men and started to fill his plane up with the survivors. Once the fuselage was full, Marks' crew started to place more men on the wings of the plane, 56 men in all, an incredible feat. The out-of-commissioned plane served as a haven from the relentless sharks. They spent the night together, comforting each other, until the USS Cecil Doyle reached the struggle in the mourning and immediately pulled everybody out of the treacherous ocean. 317 survivors and the crew of the Flying Boat were rescued. Like Quint in "Jaws" explained, "The worst part of the ordeal was waiting for his turn to be pulled out of the water" and how the sharks kept biting away until they couldn't reach them anymore.
