The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elina and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid this is morbid
this is morbid uh everybody like oh my God everybody's like shut the [ __ ] up um
this is going to be a long one today really and it's going to be a harrowing one long and T harrowing but a little
different different long harrowing and different are the themes of today is morbid long harrowing and different and
repeating each other yeah uh it's going to be very very intense but it's not like a straight up True Crime Story
we're going to be covering the sinking of the USS Indianapolis all right I don't know if I know this story it is is
a story everyone should know yeah cuz it's a wild tale of survival of tragedy of lots of death but the survivors here
wild what they endured wild and then wild what happened after oh man well I love US history so I'm interested yeah
this is kind of a US History thing there's a lot of crazy gnarly [ __ ] if you've ever seen
Jaws um you know straight up New England fair right there of course then you have
heard quint's monologue about the USS Indianapolis because he was supposed to be portraying a survivor of that I
haven't seen Jaws in so long Jaws is a is Iconic it's not really a movie that like I've ever rewatched I feel like we
used to watch it at my grandparents house so much I could probably quote that entire movie I became obsessed with
like this like all watching all the Jaws movies One Summer with my stepmom it was
a very interesting time to start we were like going to the beach all the time I remember specifically going to a lake
and my sister being so [ __ ] terrified of Jaws and me and my brother being like
there's no sharks in the lake lake but some of those movies are scary they are they're crazy one of them the
shark is like sentient though like oh yeah get Wy it's kind of like psychic yeah I've never seen past the first one
oh you haven't no I just I I'm a purist the second one is fun and the third I think the third one is when the shark
literally like knows people's movements like while they're on land becomes like way too intelligent for its own Bruce
there Bruce is wild the note so we're going to get into it pretty quick today because this is a long one there's a lot
to talk about so I just want to jump right in let's go so the USS Indianapolis was a Portland class Heavy
Cruiser so one of just two of those kind of ships commissioned by the US Navy in
1930 oh wow uh originally it was designed as a quote light Cruiser which would mean it would be you know armed
with limited armor and Munitions makes sense light uh but the ship was actually reclassified as a Heavy Cruiser the
following year because it was retrofitted with 8 8 in uh mounted guns capable of hitting a Target several
miles away wow that's really that's crazy that in 1930 they had that kind of Technology oh this is an impressive
vessel for sure uh for 10 years the Indianapolis served mainly as a showpiece for the Navy kind of like you
know it hosted members of the Roosevelt administration it was like a flagship vessel for events it was their like
crowning Glory you know and then on December 7th 1941 which might be a very familiar date to everybody listening I
hope it is uh the Japanese military launched a large and unexpected attack on Pearl Harbor yeah uh and it was on
the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor killing over 2,000 400 people Jesus uh at the time of the I hope they still
teach people mostly like about this in school we learned about Pearl okay CU I was like this is pretty important U at
the time of the attack the Indianapolis was participating in a military exercise
in the nearby Johnston uh ATL I think it's ATL is how you pronounce it uh and because of you know the proximity there
they were called upon to join the search effort to locate the Japanese aircraft carriers that had launched the initial
attack so it got brought into the fry now the attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States obviously into World War
II and as one of the military's most prestigious ships the Indianapolis was deployed right into the combat uh
because again it had been retrofitted it's now like ready to go over the next four years uh the ship provided support
during some of the most important battles in the Pacific like operation Detachment where the American Military
captured the island of eima uh under the command of Captain Charles McVey who becomes a very big
part of this whole thing that name sounds familiar um you might also be thinking of um Timothy McVey the uh
Oklahoma bomber oh that might be it I don't know Charles McVey sounds familiar to me that's the I mean maybe I was
going to say maybe you do but it it McVey always makes me think of Timothy McVey yeah know I see what you mean um
uh so under the command of Captain Charles McVey the Indianapolis bombarded the Japanese from their position a few
thousand yards of shore while infantry Men Storm the beach according to Indianapolis the true story of the worst
sea disaster in US Naval History and the 50-year fight to exonerate an innocent man which we will get there um it's
quote some men said that when they saw that flag go up they thought of home and how it surely wouldn't be long until
they could sail back to their moms and sweethearts in the good old USA their moms and sweethearts it's very sad now
during this period the Indianapolis was very badly damaged when a kamakazi fighter pilot Dropped a Bomb through the
deck and into the mess hall Jes and it exploded in there it tore a hole in the hull of the ship and to prevent the
entire ship from flooding this is going to like also just show you like the realities of like war is so [ __ ]
scary yeah uh cuz they needed to prevent the whole ship from flooding obviously so crewman had to close the hatch
leading to the mess hall but they trapped nine men inside who eventually drowned in there oh my God but it was
literally like a they just had to what they had to do you know like it's just like but just knowing that that's just
like a decision yeah Split Second decision yeah the ship's bulkheads prevented any major flooding and the
Indianapolis was able to return to San Francisco for like major repairs in preparation for what was going to be its
most important mission of the entire War so it had already had to be repaired yeah while the military fought to
overwhelm the Japanese in the Pacific a huge team of Allied scientists and Engineers were hard at work in the USA
on a very top secret project you might have heard of it the Manhattan Project this was led by nuclear physicist Robert
Oppenheimer uh you definitely know his name recently from theimer Barbie Heimer whatever it was
barbin Heimer barer Barb Heimer op and Barbie and [Laughter] [Music] Arby we're we're just like free flowing
thoughts right it's like that when you play that game where you're both trying to get to the same word and you just
yell your conscious it's like when we when I tried to say ostracized like a different uh a different ostracization
OST and I could not say again and we just kept saying it I'm sure people were listening like shut the [ __ ] up or just
screaming the right way to say it I apologize list you have these bit with your friends too okay you do and we're
friends here uh so the goal of the project the Manhattan Project was to design an atomic bomb the likes of which
had never been seen if you seen the movie you know all about it did you see alimer uh I have not yet actually wildly
cuz I did want to see it um I really like Killian Murphy that I get was like a a fascinating and like really
terrifying and horrifying time in history so it's always really interesting to see how it's done in
these things and I he great things about it um but the whole goal of this project
was to design a crazy atomic bomb um that would give the Allies the destructive power they believe they
needed to stop the Japanese army army and end the war mhm by the summer of 1945 the Manhattan Project had succeeded
it created two atomic bombs and they nicknamed them fat man and little boy uh the two bombs would eventually be
dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima respect as we know uh in San Francisco Charles McVey had been given the details
of the Indianapolis latest Mission but only so many details uh they had to transport the components of little boy
including the highly radioactive uranium that would ultimately make the bomb so destructive and in addition to the
critical Mission McVey would be sailing with nearly 300 new crewmen uh many of them were new recruits to the Navy
within the last 90 days oh [ __ ] brand new uh not all the crew was new but at least a good chunk of it 300 of them
were brand new can you IM that's your first [ __ ] mission yeah damn from the moment the plans were made in Washington
DC everything about this mission was so highly confidential even Captain McVey the literal captain of the Indianapolis
was only given the details necessary to just execute the mission like execute the delivery and that's it right like
didn't need to know need to know basis essentially on the morning of July 16th 1945 the Indianapolis departed San
Francisco on the way to Pearl Harbor where they were going to drop off any non-essential passengers and refuel the
ship arrived in Hawaii on July 19th and refueled and then departed for tinian a small island in the Northern Mariana
islands and that's where the bomb was going to be like assembled okay so like on the island like very complex yeah the
missions and activities surrounding fat man and little boy were deemed top secret Ultra which is the highest level
of clearance that few in the government or military would ever receive uh according to author Lynn Vincent ultra's
dissemination was choke point narrow closely held and tightly guarded it seeped out daily to only a tiny group of
Pacific Fleet commanders so very very hush hush um I'm saying this because when the Indianapolis left Pearl Harbor
on July 19th very few people knew the ship was on a mission right they also definitely didn't know where it was
going and this proved to be a problem later oh yeah a big problem okay so on July 26th the Indianapolis arrived in
tenian and delivered the cargo which would be dropped on Hiroshima it was dropped on Hiroshima Japan a little over
a week later and had a message written on the side that read greetings to the emperor from the men of the Indianapolis
I remember learning about that in school and just how [ __ ] chilling that is it's so chilling it's also just like
it's very chilling is that necessary it's just very chill War gets gets W yeah it's like these are that's a very
like very like surface level thing to say about war we understand no but it's it's just like these kind of things when
you read like that like a message saying like greetings you know greeting to the
emperor from the men of the Indianapolis it's just like it's so haunting cuz it's
just like such a a casual message written on an atomic bomb you know like it's just something about that just like
your brain can't connect to it took out half your population yeah it's like it's
really wild yeah um so from tenian the Indianapolis traveled to a US base in Guam where several crewmen having now
finished their tour of Duty were dropped off and replaced by new Sailors even more imagine on to it at that point on
July 29th they left Guam and they were on their way to late an island near the Philippines where they were going to
receive training throughout much of the day the Indianapolis traveled you know steady pace and they moved in a
zigzagging motion to make themselves a difficult Target for any enemy fire um any and especially any enemy submarines
that were concealed beneath the surface that's so scary that those are the things that you don't think about during
war you don't you know like like as a somebody not as like a civilian you know like you just you don't think about it
like there it'll take every once in a while I'll just look at my dad cuz he was in the submarine service and I'll
look at my dad and just be like you were in a submarine for months and months and
months like and what sometimes he just didn't know where he was yeah and like my mom didn't know where he was yeah and
like there was no communication there was a time when they were like five they were something like 5 hours away from
send like showing up at her door and saying we've lost them like that we think they're gone yeah and then they
got communication back again like insane it's just so Bonkers I'm like I can't and and again I'm saying like Bonkers
and [ __ ] and like I don't know what else to say it's just yeah inconceivable I
don't have a lot of eloquent language just to discuss how [ __ ] terrible war is but like it's just beyond it really
is beyond my wildest conceptions yeah and and I think they like need to teach more about it in school they do cuz even
I think like we were lucky like Papa told Papa and like your dad told us a lot about it and he took us to the
Submarine Museum yeah like he's very into history so you learn so much via that but we didn't learn a ton about
about all of this in school yeah it's important to learn this kind of [ __ ] you
need to know what happen so that it can't happen again and where you come from you know how you got here and to
like respect what people were dealing with back then too I think that's something that's very much missing
generation and the next one very lacking uh so yeah so this is they were having to move in a zigzag motion and at the
time the maneuver was strictly a precaution they weren't technically worried they were just doing it to make
sure yeah it's just like a um but unbeknownst to McVey and the rest of the crew the Indianapolis was being tracked
it was being tracked by an i58 which is a Japanese submarine and it was being captained by Commander Mochi Sur
Hashimoto the I5 58 sonar and this really blew my [ __ ] mind how mundane the thing is that was able to be
picked up on Sonar okay the i58 sonar picked up on the sound of dishes rattling in the
Indianapolis stop from six miles away and this is in the 40s yep six miles away they could he sonar picked up on
dishes rattling and what do you even there's no way that you fix that and it's just so
and You' never think of that something about that hit me in the [ __ ] head like a train cuz I was like that is the
most mundane thing I can think of and how again how do you fix that and why would you even think of it and six miles
away they could pick up on dishes rattling I do wonder if like they put something like a precaution into place
like between the dishes to well like and now that they like when they found out that that was how they got trapped I
wonder if now things are done differently I wonder if you're in the Navy at all write in and let us know cuz
now I'm so interested yeah cuz that just something about that just shook me to my
core I could not I was like I can't wait to tell you what the the sonar picked up
on I know she literally sat that so I'm sitting here I'm like what is it going to be what is it dishes rattling six
miles away and so they had been silent and this is this gives me chills they had been silently stalking the ship for
Miles o just trying to get close enough to strike and they had no idea and then so when you're on a ship that's like on
the surface of the water obviously do they have things where they can track if they're submarines that are watching
them from like have like sonar and stuff like that like they have more technology
now I don't know exactly what they had back then to and and again they're six miles away right like they're six miles
away a lot the Japanese were tracking them but they couldn't track them back like that's it's scary crazy that's so
chilling you're right so at 12:04 a.m. so a little past midnight the i58 finally caught up to the Indianapolis
and Hashimoto gave the order to fire six Torpedoes into the Hall two of them hit
the mark uh McVey said I was thrown from my emergency cabin bunk on the bridge by
a very violent explosion followed shortly thereafter by another explosion he said I went to the bridge and noticed
in my emergency cabin in Chart House that there was quite a bit of acrid white smoke I couldn't
anything the first torpedo that hit the Indianapolis killed dozens of men immediately and sent a violent shock
wave through the entire ship and smoke started filling the corridors when he finally made it under the bridge Captain
McVey learned that the officer on Deck had tried to contact the engine room to tell them to cut the engines but the
torpedo blast had taken out the communication system and he couldn't get through so as the two men are talking on
the bridge the second torpedo struck the the side of the ship and it was a little
further from the bow than the first torpedo the first hit had knocked the bow of the massive ship leftward and
ripped it at one of the seams which left a large opening in the hole Yeah the second had kind of like a little bit of
the same effect it tore a large hole in the side of the ship okay now with the bow of the ship effectively sheared off
and the engine's still running the wreck of the Indianapolis is still being driven forward through the water my God
filling the corridors below deck with water anyone who didn't manage to escape from the lower decks would either be
burned alive or drown in the flood my God so it's just a a screaming just pain awful awful scene with the entire
communication system now out McVey ran back to his room to get clothing on because this is the middle of the night
right and he ran into the damage control officer Casey Moore Lieutenant Moore had
been down in uh B down to the bow after the first hit and told McVey the ship was quote going down rapidly by the head
sinking bow first oh [ __ ] and he asked whether McVey wanted him to give the order to abandon ship now at the time
the ship was only listing about three degrees and thinking back on the last time the Indianapolis was attacked in
okanawa McVey thought they would be you know they could still steer the ship safely cuz they were able to do that
before yeah so he told Moore hold off for a second on giving that order a few minutes later though Commander Joseph
Flynn the second in command told McVey we are definitely going down and I suggest that we abandon ship and McVey
said he had complete faith in Flynn's judgment and abilities so he said Abandoned Ship holy [ __ ] now Captain
mcvey's hesitancy to give the order to abandon ship would later become a matter of great debate uh but at the time McVey
had yet to fully comprehend the damage that the Indianapolis had sustained you also have to think this man literally
just woke up to a giant [ __ ] EXP exact that's the thing it's like there was no way for him to completely assess
the damage of the entire ship in that one second so he is listening and trying to lean on his officers to tell him like
one of them tells them I think we're going to need to abandon ship and he's like okay hold on a second let me take a
minute and you can understand why that's not the first thing that you want to do
that's not what you want to do another officer who he has even more faith in is saying we got to get out of here two
people saying it yeah and he said immediately he did it uh the i50 that hit them was outfitted with
Japanese type 95 Torpedoes which were designed to deliver a massive explosive and then had a secondary effect like
that they tacked onto it which would apply a huge amount of pressure when it happened to basically Buckle whatever
The Targets target was its internal framing so it was it was made to cause severe structural damage uh when the
Torpedoes hit the side of the Indianapolis they not only ripped a hole in the side of the ship but they really
compromised its structural Integrity like right away uh it was taking on a [ __ ] ton of water at the same time the
explosion from the blast had ignited the ship's fuel stores which caused a massive fire that quote incinerated or
severely burned anyone below deck to the in the forward part of the ship wow so they just met on fire everywhere this
section included the Sick Bay a large section of sleeping quarters and the area occupied by the stewards that whole
section so tons of them died immediately in an awful ways now to make matters worse the fire was rapidly making its
way to the decks above risking the lives of anyone in that area too by the time the order to abandon ship had started to
make its way around the ship because they also don't have a communication system right now it's cut out M McVey
had managed to send out a distress signal but with the ship's entire electrical system again having just
taken out he had no way of knowing whether it had even successfully been sent out oh God but he just he did it as
best as he could given that they were on a highly classified Mission the entire crew of the Indianapolis would be
abandoning ship not knowing whether they would be rescued and without knowing how
close the Japanese submarine was and whether it was still hunting them that's the thing that you think of like okay
now they're just abandoning ship and going into like life rafts sitting ducks in the middle of the water that's so
scary and that and so abandoning ship under those circumstances was only slightly less risky than being on board
a burning ship yeah like there was really no good op two evils and by barely yeah like a fraction McVey had
just climbed onto the ladder that led to the bridge when the ship suddenly shifted violently about 25 degrees to
the right and the jolt caused many of the crewman on Deck to fall off the side of the deck and into the water below oh
my God a few seconds later when he reached the bridge mcve V said the ship shifted again this time about in a 45°
angle and that sent more crewmen flying into the water and these guys don't have
life jackets on right no they're not like they're trying to grab life jackets but many of them are just being shot
into the water when McVey finally reached the communication deck the ship appeared to have settled at a 60° angle
uh and what he recalled he said there were some youngsters there that were jumping over the side and I got to the
lifeline on the communications deck and yelled at those boys to not jump over the side unless they had life jackets oh
so he's trying to save these kids like oh now at the time McVey was trying to unsecure the lifeboats and make sure as
many crewman had life preservers on before jumping but a few seconds later the Indianapolis shifted hard to the
right yet again leaving the ship at a 90° angle McVey was making his way to the uh the end point of the deck at this
point and the bow of the ship snapped off and dropped into the water oh [ __ ] now the impact of such a large section
of the ship hitting the ocean caused a wave that swept up onto the ship and sent McVey and many others tumbling from
the ship into the water now like they got swept off in a wave also think about the fact that this was so many people's
first mission literally like and these are 18 and 19 year olds who Justin like ened or a bunch of like teenagers my God
yeah and MC as soon as he went off the side McVey said I immediately thought well this is the end of me and I turned
around and immediately swam away from the Indianapolis now McVey and several others had only been swimming for a few
seconds when they felt a rush of Heat against their backs and then a swell of hot oily water when they turned to see
what happened they saw that the remains of the USS Indianapolis got sucked down into the black water oh God I can't even
imagine that in my [ __ ] head never mind my stomach in front of you it churns my stomach like the water
literally just swallows the boat that you were just on and the sh I should not say the boat the [ __ ] ship ship like
dude and if you look up a picture of the USS Indianapolis it'll just give you even more of like hug oh my God and
watching that thing just get sucked down Into the Depths must have been oh I just
got chills yeah like it is huge wow and they watched this thing just go right under the ocean my God this is a massive
ship massive now the explosions on the Indianapolis had dumped countless gallons of oil and debris into the water
and when the ship sank it churned up the waters so that makes it even worse and it was well after midnight so pitch
black like pitch black so MC McVey couldn't see anything but all he could hear around him was
screaming and so and some of them were I mean some people were just screaming because of what just happened and some
of them were screaming cuz they were horrifically injured it's oh out of the darkness he
ended up seeing um a large vegetable crate Float by so he climbed on top of it to get out of the water smart and he
said a few minutes later two of the life rafts likely released from the ship as it went down floated by so he grabbed
both of those and the wood lattice that would stabilize the bottoms of the rafts
had gone and there was no ores but he said it's better than nothing yeah you got to do what you got to do he got
inside one and he said he called out to anyone around him trying to collect the nearest survivors and get them on the
rafts and with the help of the Quarter Master Vincent Vincent Allard uh Captain McVey lashed the two rafts together so
they wouldn't get separated by the current now in another part of this disaster Glenn Morgan another crewman
spotted an on uh one of the sea planes that had come loose from the ship when it sank cuz the ship was so massive it
had sea planes attached to it 610 ft long yeah massive now miraculously the plane appeared to have survived the
explosion and was in an upright position wow so he swam towards it thinking holy
[ __ ] this might be the only way for us to get out of here yeah but when he reached the plane he saw that it was
badly damaged and it was slowly sinking oh no his disappointment was only slightly tempered by the fact that just
underneath the plane's tail was one of the wooden life rafts oh that's good so he acted real quickly cuz this thing was
sinking and taking the life raft down with grab the raft before it was sucked down with the plane once he was on board
he took a look around and spotted another raft nearby and started paddling towards that with his hands so these men
are like getting the idea that we need to like start lashing these together and stay together but they're in the pitch
[ __ ] Block in in the middle of the godamn ocean and horrifically injured at that point Morgan couldn't
see any other survivors he could hear people screaming mhm so he started lashing the two rafts together just
hoping he could get more people on them and as he was working to get the rafts secured to one another he said heads
began popping up out of the darkness several feet away and he said one after the other he just saw heads popping out
of the ocean completely covered in oil and completely unrecognizable oh my God Morgan paddled
the rafts to the men and they climbed aboard exhausted but okay and covered in oil right by Dawn the reality of what
had happened became very apparent the Indianapolis had gone down hundreds of miles from land and there was nothing
but water in every direction oh my God to make matters worse when many of the rafts fell into the water they had
landed upside down dumping any unsecured contents like rations and blankets into
the water oh no so um the men on mcvey's rafts managed to flip a lot of the boats
and found that they some of them still contained ores and a canvas bag containing one flare gun and 12
cartridges uh no things were more encouraging on Morgan rafts because they did find some quote meager rations
flares fishing supplies and some flashlights okay the flashlights and flares could have been valuable in
finding you know other crewmen and S signaling passing ships and planes but they also were risky according to
Vincent and vladic that um the authors of that book that I mentioned up ahead and we'll Link in the show notes
Japanese submarines had been known to lurk at a sinking site and machine gun any
survivors oh my God again war and they're an enemy Waters yeah they're just like sitting ducks now the men in
McVey and Morgan's groups had been lucky all things considered and while they were all exhausted and covered in oil
they had managed to avoid suffering any serious physical harm at the like a lot of them were like pretty much with it
many of the others though were less fortunate many of those not killed in the blast or dragged down with the ship
suffered serious flash burns from the explosions many of them would die within hours of being in the water but think of
those grueling hours that it took to die suffer pure suffering and those who did
managed to find each like other survivors a lot of them found now this wasn't always the case but there was
patches of this some of them would find that the camaraderie that they had on the ship did not extend not extend to
the crisis in the sea after the ship went down Harpo CA found himself stranded without a raft or a life jacket
and he was so happy to spot some other survivors but when he got to the raft and tried to pull himself on board they
pushed him off the raft and pushed the raft away what the [ __ ] if there's room
why not what the [ __ ] dude and the same thing happened when he spotted a second
raft it's happened him twice yeah so he grabbed onto a rope trailing behind the raft and clung to it so he wouldn't get
separated from everyone what about no man Left Behind isn't that like a a [ __ ] pledge what the [ __ ] and again
these were small pockets of behavior yeah it wasn't for the most part these men were working together and trying to
help each other but damn but you're always going to get some dicks in the bunch now the instances again of
selfishness and cruelty very disheartening but again uncommon for the most part whenever any of the rafts
would spot a Survivor floating in the water they would do their best to get to them and drag them on board once they
were in full daylight the men on the rafts started paddling around their immediate area looking for any supplies
anything that was heavy and not lashed to the boats had sunk with the rest of the ship but they did manage to find
some cans of spam and other tinned Foods along with some medical supplies most of
which were water logged and kind of useless right the one thing they didn't find which they would desperately need
was fresh water at one point early that morning McVey found a three gallon jug of water
but he said immediately he found out it had been tainted he said it apparently had been cracked because I tasted the
water and it was unpalatable it was salty oh no now of the 880 men who survived the attack wow around 400 would
eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group wow yeah
that's the most injured were pulled onto the handful of Life rafts but most were
floating in the water beside the rafts some with life's jackets but many without just treading water and just
holding onto a raft uh getting the group together this way 400 men took nearly all their first stay in the water and
expended almost all of their energy they were exhausted they only had one or two
paddles on board and it took hours to travel just a few hundred yards wow the task was made even more arduous by the
tide because it was always working against them they were just going against the tide at all times on the
first day the survivors had drifted nearly five miles from where the sight of the thinking was wow and the rolling
waves constantly threatened to pull them apart in different directions for the first day or so the men in the main
group got along pretty well despite being exhausted in pain and horribly terrified in addition to whatever
injuries they had suffered when they abandoned the ship most of the men were covered in fuel which had also gotten in
their eyes and caused excruciating Burning Sensations and then you're just flushing it out with salt salt water
also many had unintentionally swallowed large amounts of seawater and fuel causing them to become VI ently ill for
much of the first day oh God yeah despite all of this they still managed to work together to locate supplies care
for the wounded and make hats from the canvas to block out the worst of the sun that's insane that they were able to do
that the human Spirit man yeah at night they would occasionally see a plane fly overhead and would fire one of the
flares but the pilots never acknowledged them and also you don't know that must have been so scary cuz you don't know if
that's your plane yeah um McVey later said we knew now that these eight or nine planes that we saw and that we
either during the daytime flashed these these signal mirrors the Emergency Signal mirror at nobody ever saw the
mirror us or any of the the flares that they were shooting at at their altitude it was impossible for the pilots to see
even a large group of men in the water below oh and the survivors didn't know at the time that nobody even knew where
the Indianapolis was Jesus so they weren't looking for them like these planes were not search planes they were
just going overhead now as the men worked throughout the day on Monday they were
so preoccupied with what was on the surface of the ocean that didn't occur to them there was probably some [ __ ]
below them as well oh no um this is something that a lot of people if you've read or heard about the Indianapolis um
which definitely read further into it it's very fascinating and horrifying and some of these interviews with these
survivors later very interesting um this is something that a lot of people know about the Sharks yeah um throughout the
day many of the sailors had to kick and splash to fend off you know Barracuda that would swim up next to them oh my
god um but otherwise their biggest concern besides that was the Sun and you know the Japanese the enemy yeah uh then
late that afternoon Seaman second class uh Curtis Pace saw from the corner of his eye something moving below him no he
glanced down to get a better look and he said he saw a Shark whip its tail once and it's silhouette Blended in with
dozens of others just like it no now the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean that they were in is home to a variety
of shark species including the Hammerhead tiger shark and the notoriously aggressive and pissy oceanic
white tip oh God uh you just describe that shark as pissy very pissy such a pissy [ __ ] pissy and very
opportunistic I will say they're very lazy and opportunistic because they tend to be solit AR in their behavior um
they're so pissy they they're pissy they don't want to deal with anybody else but
they will put away their pissy piss and pettiness if they uh see that there's a large food source that they can
congregate together for oh great so they'll congregate for something um but they're scavengers and like I said
they're opportunistic they don't really want to expend much energy to hunt they like it when it's just popped in front
of them which it was oh boy was this just popped right in front of them so they were like [ __ ] dinner like they
were literally like wow this is like a banquet are you going to tell me that people were eaten by sharks in these
Waters yes often oh God sharks of all species like if you if you know anything about sharks they've evolved over time
to be very sensitive to sound they can detect noises miles away yeah um sharks are fascinating yeah they really are I
[ __ ] love sharks I do too shark we sh um they they this ability allows them to
locate prey and also makes them really good at identifying when prey might be you know in distress and you know an
easy meal because sharks again pretty lazy love fast food like the rest of us so they're like if it can just be
dropped in front of me why not like that's what she that's what sharks really look at they're like it's got to
be easy yeah right there and if it seems like it's in distress then it's really not going to put up that much of a fight
and I can get my meal and peace out and go on my way but when the Indianapolis went down it churned up the sea causing
a large commotion in the water which you know sharks all over the place were like
what the [ __ ] up with that and also there was a lot of splashing from the men and the blood from the injured and
dying would have sent a strong signal to nearby sharks I mean this was like a homing Beacon to sharks who would have
followed the scent and at Le come to investigate what was going on right so throughout the day Curtis page and the
others watched as the group of white tips below grew larger and larger they just kept on congregating and they're
just circling just circling and for the time being they were just circling lazily kind of going and then all of a
sudden they would like they said they would like go below all of them and then sometimes would grow bold and
investigate but then crewman would like Splash and kick at them and they'd kind a retreat away uhhuh but it's like you
don't have the energy to keep doing that no then the sun went down and they said
it was as though they got more emboldened by the sun going down oh my God coelle Smith was laying on one of
the floating Nets with several other men this is so scary so it was a floating net and he was laying on there with a
few other men when one of the white tips shot up from below at like a high speed
CU that's what they do and grabbed Smith's hand in its mouth and he screamed high pitch streak everybody
said they heard in the middle of the [ __ ] night the shark dragged Smith off the raft pulled him 10 ft below the
surface and whipped its head back and forth with his arm and its jaws oh my [ __ ] and he's 10t in the ocean in the
pitch black so even if he's opening his eyes he's seeing pitch Blackness and just being thrown I need
you to fully comprehend that cuz I how could you ever until I like like cuz you hear that and you're like oh my God
that's awful H and then you really think of every single component of this and you go oh my God that is like hell on
Earth yep I can't think of what you're laying down a shipwreck and get you survived a shipwreck like a
insane military attack yes two Torpedoes hitting your ship you get dragged beneath the surface from a shark into
the pitch black depths of the ocean where you are looking around at nothing but you also know that multiple other
sharks have been surrounding you all day even if this one doesn't get you there's
however many more and are they just descending upon me am I about to just be torn from limb from limb and this one is
tearing a limb off of me well this guy survives he survives what the [ __ ] cuz Smith managed to hold his breath by the
way cuz you got it you're 10 ft below the surface and is punching and poking at the shark's snout cuz that's what
you're supposed to do that's supposed to work sure is it didn't no he was unwilling to let go Smith so he managed
to sink his other hand into the shark's gills and pushed as hard as he could and
finally the shark let go and he was able to shoot back up to the surface he frantically swarmed towards the net like
he ran he like swam as fast as he could towards the Nets his hand was shredded oh by the shark by the way oh yeah cuz
they they got teeth on teeth on teeth on teeth teeth on teeth on teeth it gets worse no because when he gets to the sh
he gets up survives this gets to the raft get him again and his crew mates shouted at him to get away from the boat
[ __ ] because the shark was going to come back and pull more of them down cuz he's
now bleeding everywhere [ __ ] them what the [ __ ] and they're kicking and pushing
him away and in that moment though he said [ __ ] Y'all he had so much adrenaline that he pulled himself onto
the raft anyways good you can make a [ __ ] T they kicked him off again it get oh no one of the men started
slashing at Smith with a knife why and he succeeded in forcing him off of the boat and now he is
bleeding from slashes on his arms and he shreded hand what the [ __ ] so he slid
back into the water and they were literally about to sa they not even about it they were sacrificing they like
get out get out of here die and they so he gets away from the raft cuz he's like [ __ ] y'all like I'm
not going there and is without a life a jacket and is bleeding profusely now and
there's just sharks everywhere by then the Sharks had started attacking other groups of crewmen because once they saw
this happen the Sharks were like let's go and they just started going crazy darting Up From Below now and just
grabbing injured people grabbing dead bodies like they're just jumping up and grabbing people down the PTSD that these
survivors must have had unfathomable how do you even treat that level of PTSD truly the trauma yeah just
seeing multiple of your friend like your crew members and Friends be and and multiple sharks shooting up through the
surface well and to show you how horrifying this ordeal was like they're hearing there's terrorized
screams just echoing in the night in the middle of the ocean men just screaming crying begging for mercy oh that's
heartbreaking and so and um this other crew member SE uh Seaman uh James King he was like a a young man he was wounded
by the blast already and he was so terrorized by this whole thing that he removed his life jacket and tried to
swim down into the water and just die but he was quickly retrieved by his friend and this is what shows you like
the very ends of humanity here yeah uh his friend Denny price pulled him back up and he said he did it several times
and Denny kept pulling him back up oh my God and when he was asked why he kept rescuing him during his multiple
attempts to end his life price later said it's just the right thing to do that's a G right there that's a that's a
human that's a [ __ ] friend cuz he was like we're going to get out of this like
I know you're terrorized right now but we're going to get out of this you got to keep a circle around you that you
know after a a sink a sinking you go down with a sinking ship you survive that there's sharks attacking you
everywhere and you are at your wits [ __ ] end you better surround yourself with friends that will rescue
you every godamn time every time you give up and you should never doubt that your friends will do that for you and if
you doubt that get new friends drop them yeah get new friends now until the Sharks began attacking the survivors had
been keeping you know the dead men that they had that were growing in numbers each day oh God they kept them secured
to a raft and they The Hope was that they could return their bodies to their loved ones once they were rescued so
they were really trying to like you know have some honor here for them when the attack started though those in positions
of authority like IGN har and twible started cutting away the bodies and allowing them to sink cuz they were like
they're just going to keep attacking us like we can't well like you were just saying the sharks can literally smell
and they were like we're just kind of drawing them to us right now so and most of them were grabbed by the Sharks
before they could sink very far uh twible said everybody was scared to death these were all 18 and 19yearold
kids there wasn't any fighting any turmoil but everyone was scared and then you're just watching sharks eat sinking
friends yeah for an extended period of time the survivors were more or less helpless and
could do nothing more than listen to the screams and cries of their brothers essentially one by one as they were
dragged off by white tips like how do you even disassociate from that like that like right next to
you you're the the guy who you have been serving with and who you survived with gets dragged off screaming and you can't
help them that's so fun and then you just watch as they get mauled by a shark like that's the kind of thing that you
these are the kinds of thing like we didn't talk about this in school these are the kinds of things they need to
tell you about yeah now by Tuesday Morning most of the groups had set set up shark watches and worked in shifts to
keep an eye out for anything on or just below the surface uh once the large group of white tips had picked off many
of the dead and dying uh and face the resistance from the injured and you know any of the a able bodied that could
fight back the attacks did begin to slow in frequency but they remained a terrifying reality through the entire
ordeal until the very end like it never let up no of course not McVey later said
the kids who were in rafts by themselves on this one raft were scared to death of
this shark because he kept swimming underneath the raft you could see his big dorsal fin and it was white almost
as white as a sheet of paper apparently the shark spent most of his time on the surface and his fin had bleached out so
he didn't blend in with the surface at all and I was like that sounds like like the
super villain of sharks and I don't like that now in the decades that followed the tragedy of the Indianapolis would
become synonymous with shark attacks that's something that a lot of people know about it and one of the things that
really made it synonymous with it with it was a large Soliloquy given by the character quint in Steven Spielberg's
1975 film Jaws um Quint was played by Robert Shaw played wonderfully by Robert Shaw love Quint he's a he's awesome like
love Quint and he was played as a Gruff Shark Hunter whose hatred of sharks stemmed from his experiences surviving
the USS Indianapolis which now carries so much more weight it certainly does I want to read his Soliloquy because it's
very real like they really pulled from the actual thing well now you know that what it actually is harrowing details so
he said Japanese submarines slam two Torpedoes into her side Chief we was coming back from the island of tinian to
late we just delivered the bomb the Hiroshima bomb 1100 men went into the water vessel went down in 12 minutes
didn't see the first shark for about a half hour tiger 13-footer you know how you know that in the water Chief you can
tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail what we didn't know was that our bomb mission was so secret no distress
signal had been sent they didn't even list us overdue for a week after first light Chief sharks come cruising by so
we formed ourselves into tight groups you know by the end of that first Dawn lost 100 men I don't know how many
sharks there were maybe a thousand I don't know many I don't know how many men how many men they averaged six an
hour Thursday morning Chief I bumped into a friend of mine Herby Robinson from Cleveland baseball player uh
bosen's mate I thought he was asleep I reached over to wake him up he bobbed up and down in the water he was kind of
like a top upended well he'd been bitten in half below the waist God and this is
like real [ __ ] like he just explained a very real scenario that happened like picture a thousand sharks I can't
picture one [ __ ] thousand sharks and that you're just a Sitting Duck in the water I can't even picture 20 sharks
without [ __ ] myself I can't imagine being on a boat and seeing a shark I would be scared to see a shark in the
water from a boat absolutely cuz like you said they just they go to the [ __ ] depths of the ocean and then
they shoot all the way Powerhouse up to the surf oh it's so scary I'm never getting on a
boat again [ __ ] that no it's real [ __ ] scary and what's even worse is like that wasn't even the most of their
problems that the Sharks were like high on the list of problems what was worse there's a lot of [ __ ] that's going down
the bigger issue was they had a complete lack of water to drink oh I literally forgot that yeah of course because why
would you even there's so many focused on the thousands ofar personally in general a person can survive without
water for about 3 days but the effects of dehydration though can set in fast like you can survive but at what cost
but barely uh they set in Fast and they range from really strong thirst and headaches to confusion and
hallucinations eventually the body will go into complete shock and unconsciousness before it just shuts
down systematically like slowly now some of the rafts in the main group had managed to scavenge some of the water
jugs that hadn't fled away but that was really barely anything and definitely not enough to meet the needs of all the
survivors yeah like hundreds of them um by Tuesday those injured who hadn't been
you know taken by sharks began to give up hope or just lose Consciousness and simply would float away yeah like they
would literally fall into unconsciousness and they would just float off yeah which is just really
haunting to think and a lot of them who were floating off would just remove their life jackets and let themselves
drown oh like that happened a lot cuz they just didn't want to prolong it anymore yeah now IGN twible later said
we tried to keep the men thinking that they would be saved but there was no way in God's green earth that I knew we were
going to be saved right by the third night in the water many among the crew had become Delirious suffering from heat
stroke in the day or hypothermia at night or dehydration all the time or all three probably in mcvey's group a large
number of men had tied themselves together using a length of rope secured to one of the rafts uh he later said
some of them lived through the period but those who went out of their head earlier than say 48 to 60 hours didn't
last the people that were down in that group just gave up hope so they feel that people just slipped out of their
life jackets and just decided that they didn't want to face it any longer oh my God in twi's group the effects of
dehydration and Madness had begun to affect many of the men around him Lieutenant Richard redm once um once one
of the strongest among them had been steadily declining over the course of the third day and was fre heard crying
out I need to get to the engine room before trying to throw himself over the side of the raft so he's just like
hallucinating fully others were in a similarly hallucinatory State muttering about seeing a water fountain down below
then diving beneath the surface and some of them wouldn't come back up um I found
an account by uh Survivor wood Woody Eugene and he said on that third day this is his quote he said the sun did uh
the Sun finally did rise and it got warmed up again so some of the guys had been drinking saltwater by now and they
were going berserk they tell you big stories about the Indianapolis is not sunk It's just right there beneath the
surface I was just down there and had a drink of water out of the drinking fountain and the g dunk is still open
the G dunk being the commissary where you buy ice cream cigarettes candy what have you it's still open they tell you
come on we'll get a drink of water and then three or four guys would believe this story and go with them oh that's
horrible which just like that's heartbreaking my heart like shattered in my chess
reading because you're just think like they're all just like let's go get water and candy like oh my god oh it's just
like and these are like 18 and 19y old so like oh it makes you want to cry I just like want to hug their parents um
among the last of the injured to voluntarily give up his life was commander Stan lipsky this is just so
sad he was the indianapolis's Gunnery officer he had suffered serious Burns in the explosion after the first torpedo
strike and by the time he hit the water um quote the Flesh on his hands had been
burned down to the tendons and his eyes were burn closed oh my God despite having remained
in the water since abandoning ship he had managed to avoid the Sharks and hold out longer than most of the others who'd
been Gravely injured he was still there on the third day then on the afternoon of August 1st he looked to his friend
Louis Doc haes and said I'm going now Lou tell my wife I love her and I want to marry her again oh I know that one
like really got me no no I almost just cried saying that oh my God [ __ ] you just ruined me I know tell
my wife I want to marry her again like no [ __ ] [ __ ] hold on I know that like
really got me like that's awful and just your friend looking at you and being like I'm going now like it's just like
for you to and he looked at his friend because he was like please remove my life jacket like he couldn't cuz his
hands were burned down to the tendons oh [ __ ] dude so Hayne said he he knew he's
like I he was in pain like he was miserable it would be awful to stop that his eyes he told and so he said he
removed his friend's life jacket and allowed his body to slip under the surface of imagine being his [ __ ]
wife and heing that and like thank goodness Haynes was later able to that message that like tell my wife I love
her and I want to marry her again stop saying that I know every time I say it I got a lump in my throat I know [ __ ] that
literally brought tears to my eyes now throughout their 4-day ordeal on the open ocean the survivors had seen
several planes fly overhead like I mentioned and they made strong efforts to get the attention of the pilots but
obviously to no avail um in fact by the last day any fears of being captured by the Japanese had left most of their
minds to be honest and all that matter least of their worries and all that mattered at this point was getting the
[ __ ] out of the water right the Indianapolis was expected to arrive back in the Philippines on Tuesday July 31st
but when it failed to arrive no one sounded the alarm after all they'd been on a top secret mission and there were
many reasons why they could have been delayed so the few who were aware of their existence saw no reason to be
concerned dear God also the control offices in Guam and the Philippines had been charting the indianapolis's travel
each day using their last known coordinates and their speed to approximate the location yeah now in
truth the US Navy had no idea where they were or that it had sank yeah it's just
the truth of the matter just didn't know by that time the wreckage had sunk to the bottom of the ocean which was nearly
10,000 ft deep in that area Jesus Christ I was looking up some of the pictures of
when they eventually found it yeah so there wouldn't have been anything to indicate that the ship had ever even
been there on the surface and even if there was evidence of a ship being attacked in that location that would
have been very little help to the survivors of the Indianapolis Because by the time the Navy had become alarmed
about the cruise failure to return the survivors had drifted anywhere between 60 and 200 miles from the site of the
attack so they were nowhere near where that happened so a search of the area wouldn't have really led to their rescue
really yeah that the crew of the Indianapolis were rescued at all had more to do with luck and coincidence
than it really did military policy and tracking ability wondering how they were found on the morning of August 2nd
Wilbur Chuck Gwyn was flying over the Philippine Sea in his pv1 Ventura bomber conducting a sweep for enemy vessels a
new antenna had been installed on the bomber that morning and it had snapped off a few minutes into the flight so he
had been told to come back to base so they could replace it and then so he ended up being like an hour behind
schedule and a little past 11:00 a.m. he was about 350 Mi north of palao at the tip of the Philippines cruising at
roughly 3,000 ft because he had fallen behind schedule his trajectory had him facing directly into the Sun at that
time of the day but he could still see about 20 miles in every direction he hadn't been out very long when the
second antenna snapped oh man and it was only replaced like 10 minutes earlier damn and it snapped off and the radio
men suggested he return and get a replacement for the replacement so after turning the controls over his co-pilot
Warren Colwell he du Gwyn ducked into the belly of the plane and he was trying to secure the antenna wire to the plane
to keep it from like damaging the tail right so he grabbed a long length of rubber hose and then opened a small
hatch to start reeling the wire back into the plane when he looked down though he saw something and he jumped to
his feet and ran back to his co-pilot and he yelled to him he said look down and when he looked down it appeared to
be an enemy submarine oh now at that time of day the sun had reflected really hard off the sub the surface of the
ocean so it made it impossible to see like anything but like a general shape in the water [ __ ] uh he had said it's
like glass down there you can't see a thing assuming that what he was seeing was an enemy vessel Gwyn ordered his
co-pilot to open the Bombay doors and prepare to release one of the depth charges shut the [ __ ] up but the Ventura
got descended and got into position so it had to descend a little and Gwyn realized he was not seeing an enemy ship
thank goodness he realized yeah but he's seeing a few hundred men floating in the
water on rafts or some most he said were just bobbing on the surface alongside the lifeboats can you imagine if they
survived all of that got bombed by their own men accidentally bombed by their own
men [ __ ] that would have been I mean I can't even now by the fourth day in the water the survivors
had begun to accept that rescue wasn't likely going to come and they were going to die uh then late Thursday morning
Kenley lanter one of the men in Glenn Morgan's group spotted something in the air coming in their Direction so lanter
called out hey Morgan look and he said jerking his head in the direction of it he said do you see it and Morgan and the
other was going nuts yeah well he was probably just like look another plane that's going to fly by us and not do
anything and so the other men on the rap looked up and they saw it and they were
like yeah I see it and it at first he said is it a bird cuz he was like I couldn't really like my eyes were so
blurry and everything like I can see like is it a bird and they all squinted they couldn't really make it out and
Morgan had just opened up his mouth to be like yeah it's a bird when lantern interrupted him and said that's a
[ __ ] plane now all the men in the rafts and many more in the Water started shouting cuz they're not giving up like
if they see something they're going to try of course and they're all and it's like their voices must have been so
strained and harsh and like they just cot in mouths and dry throats and just like and have been screaming for four
days essentially they're all waving their hands in the air and as Gwynn's plane descended further he could see
them in the water and he said they were covered in oil and he said and what surrounded them was a huge miles long
oil slick wow the amount of oil in the size of the crew in the water suggested him that his ship had gone down but Gwyn
hadn't heard of any ship sinking because nobody knew so he was like this doesn't
make sense but he was like regardless of how they got there they were clearly in
trouble so he ordered the bay doors opened again and he started dropping the life raft and every life jacket they had
on the plane and a buoy and all the buoys they had on board down to them to at least start the process like here
here's what we have going to need more manpower but at least here's this when he done that he ran back to the cockpit
and got on the radio to report many men in the water at that at those coordinates now his antenna is broken
remember uhhuh so his message back to base came through really badly garbled sounding like am circling life raft but
that's all that technicians could really make out fortunately the closer they got
the more Gwyn and the flight crew began to understand the scope of what they were seeing and he returned to the radio
to make additional reports which were better received luckily but at first it was like are you kidding me the
communication staff moved quickly to set the rescue operation in motion and they
launched amphibian rescue vessels that if they made good time could reach the men in about 3 hours but then there also
still an enemy water and those can be hit by Torpedoes exactly I'm [ __ ] ter a lot of attention is being put on this
scene so they're getting even scareder at that time the C J Doyle a US Navy Destroyer Escort was cruising about 50
mies off the coast of palao as one of the vessels dispatched from command base Flew Over the doyle the pilot Adrien
Marx radioed to the ship below and alerted them to what was happening they had not received any official orders to
assist in the emergency the ship's Captain though Graham clater knew it would be hours before a rescue team
would reach those men in the water so he made the decision without even being ordered to to change course and go Aid
the men from the Indianapolis which is like a badass decision hell yeah although the official order came through
to the crew of the doyle an hour and a half later according to one report it is not possible to say how many lives
Clayton stolen 90 minutes saved wow so like good on him for real for several hours that morning um Sean first class
dick Thelen who gives some interviews too that you can watch and they're very fascinating he had been drifting away
from the larger group in the water and then in late morning he heard the sound of what he would later learn with Mark's
plane flying overhead theen watched with absolute astonishment as the cargo B bay
doors opened and the plane um dropped a Lifeboat about 50 yards from where he was floating he said he called out to
the three other men nearby and they all started swimming towards the raft and were probably I can't imagine the
Elation that they probably sitting there questioning if this is real yeah like are we being tricked like what's
happening are we hallucinating well that's the thing they probably thought they were by the time theen made it to
the raft two of the other men had already climbed in but there was still no sign of his friend Robert Terry theen
looked back and spotted Robert Terry a few yards behind him and he said he had stopped swimming and was clutching his
chest and he said his face was twisted in like a Grimace oh no and theen thought Terry might be having a heart
attack and then all of a sudden he just disappeared completely under the water did a [ __ ] shark get him and he said
a few seconds later he appeared again above the water and he was now swimming towards the raft and theing called out
to him encouraging him being like you're going to make it you're going to make it
come on and even got into the water to help him and he had just lowered himself into the water when he turned to see a
large white tip bolt out of the water and grab Robert Terry dragging him under the
water and he was gone he was that close to he was that close to rescue that [ __ ] shk that shark is a
[ __ ] assle love sharks that shark's a [ __ ] [ __ ] that particular shark I hate cuz
that was a [ __ ] move that was like that to be are you kidding You've Had A Feast
for days you piece of [ __ ] and he was that and he was so close and and for and
for his friend to watch his friend and be encouraging him being like come on like we're almost there and getting into
the water to help him and then watch him be dragged under by a shark oh my God and you can't even like you can't even
properly celebrate that you're being rescued cuz you just watched your watch your friend get eaten and it's like Fu
how do you ever get over that and and thenen said like um he said that he was in complete shock and he just sat in the
water for a second and complete shock I couldn't overcome it and he's like and obviously I had to and I managed to get
myself back on the raft yeah before another sh he's like I can't let myself get dragged under now Mark's plain was
just the first of many to arrive at the scene um the for the rest the afternoon a steady stream of planes flew overhead
dropping rafts life jackets other supplies just making sure they could survive in the time before they could
get them out knowing the rescue ships were still a ways off and that time was of the Ence markx made a decision that
would likely save a ton of people's lives he decided so to land a sea plane of that size on the open ocean and in
such a small window um to be like accessible to stranded survivors was very very risky it's just not something
you can do but Marx decided to that he was going to do it that he was going to try it so he descended to the lowest
point he could and put the plane into a power stall which is an aviation phenomenon that causes the plane to lose
lift and he brought the plane down on the surface of the ocean with three hard bounces and he said to his astonishment
the plane suffered only minor damage and once he got the Bay's doors open Marx and the other crew members began loading
in the most vulnerable men from the Indianapolis so he like put himself at risk to make sure he could get at least
the most vulnerable on damn the door this is what I mean when you see like you really see like the opposite ends of
the spectrum of like humans being humans here people shoving people off of Life RS but then risking their own lives for
each other wow now the doyle was the first ship to reach the survivors a little after 9:30 p.m. given the size of
the destroyer and the extent to which the men were scattered across the water cler and the crew of the doyle had to be
extremely careful to not churn up the water and set them a drift yeah or run them down cuz he couldn't it was night
yeah uh but that wasn't the only problem clater had also received warnings of Japanese submarines patrolling the area
I had a feeling putting the pressure on them to get the men of the Indianapolis out of the [ __ ] water as quickly as
possible other ships arrived a short time later and working with only the light from the doy because they didn't
want to draw attention they worked diligently to pull every Survivor out out of the water wow Corporal Edgar
harell said most everyone was pretty much in my condition you couldn't stand up even difficult to sit up you were
exhausted probably lost 20 to 25 pounds in four days yeah Captain mcvey's group never saw the planes fly overhead but
that evening the USS ringness a high-speed transport boat spotted the group on their radar and slowly made
their way over to them McVey heard one of the men say my God look at this there are two destroyers bearing down on us
why they're almost on top of us um and he said when he turned the ship was pulling up beside them and lowering the
rescue equipment and he said it was just like a a view I can't even describe yeah
on the on board the ringness the injured were tended to by the ship's doctors and
other men ate and drank to excess yeah um they hadn't eaten in 4 days right the USS Indianapolis went down at around
12:15 a.m. on July 30th 1945 taking with it roughly 300 men the remaining 8 90 crewman spent 4 days and five nights in
the Water by the time the rescue crew arrived on August 2nd only 37 men had survived 890 went into the water
3177 survived wow in total the rescue operation took nearly 24 hours uh years later during an interview Harland twible
said saw some great heroism and I saw some great fright and I saw some things I wouldn't ever want to talk about and I
can't imagine now on August 6th 1945 the US dropped the atomic bomb on H Hiroshima
Japan which was followed by the bombing of Nagasaki 3 Days Later although the Japanese wouldn't officially surrender
for nearly a month this basically effectively ended World War II in all the enthusiasm over the end of the war
few people really gave a lot of thought about the missing men on the USS Indianapolis the survivors were taken to
hospitals on the closest Islands including the military base at Guam where they started the long road to
physical recovery uhhuh meanwhile the US Navy went into damage control mode developing a strategy to deal with what
was obviously a very botched Mission yeah old M up yeah among other things those in positions of authority had
denied McVey the military escort he'd requested when they set out from Hawaii ignored the distress signals received by
the Indianapolis at the time it began sinking and failed to recognize the reports from late when the ship didn't
arrive as expected so they did send out sucessful distress signals in simple terms my jaw is wide
open yeah the entire situation made the Navy brass look incompetent at best and at worst liable for the deaths of
hundreds of sailors I'd say so that kind of Scandal and the Fallout for any investigations not only reflected badly
on the military but also threatened to overshadow the enthusiasm over the US victory in the Pacific uhhuh in fact in
Washington high-ranking military officials had already begun demanding answers and scheduling a hearing to
determine the cause of sinking a few days earlier on August 13th Captain Charles McVey found himself before the
court of inquiry in in Guam where he was intensely questioned as to the cause of
the disaster during the hearing a lot of the surviving crew members who were well
enough to appear testified as to their experience during and after the whole thing when the hearing concluded a few
of the communications officers were lightly punished for failing to recognize the indianapolis's absence
when it didn't returned so like they really just got like a slap on oh like they didn't return on time and you
didn't say anything like who you but it was McVey who the court really went after sorry what oh his story is
horrifically sad but they do get Justice for him later I'll give you that why did
they go after him in their letter to the Judge Advocate General which is the Jag
uh military officials wrote full justification for ordering the trial Springs from the fact that these CA this
case is of vital interest not only to the families of those who lost their lives but also to the public at large
but when it came time to making their case officials in Washington failed to mention the Myriad ways in which they
contributed to the tragedy themselves choosing instead to lay blame completely at the feet of Captain McVey I don't
understand how in their summary report the Jag wrote the court is of the opinion that a contributory
responsibility for loss Indianapolis rests upon Captain Charles B McVey III US Navy for failure to order zigzag
courses to be steered and that a contributory responsibility rests upon Captain Charles B McVey third US Navy
for delay in connection with reporting the loss of that ship due to failure to send out a distress message for both of
those things are incorrect mhm but a media blackout went into effect with only the most basic information about
the disaster being released to by the military on August 15th 1945 an Associated Press article went out on the
wire announcing that the Indianapolis had sunk in the Pacific and a few days earlier the military reported 100%
casualties and gave a version of events that directly contradicted the statements released a few days later so
it was just mayem like things were being released that were just completely not true yeah like full falsehoods so the
worked very hard to make the charge of failing to send out a distress signal stick but it soon became apparent that
they couldn't do that without implicating themselves so instead they went after him for failing to properly
execute the zigzag maneuver he was doing a zigzag maneuver before that but he wasn't at the time of the attack that's
what they're hinging this on okay uh and like I said before it was precautionary
what he was doing before it wasn't even ordered it wasn't necessary right uh in support of the charge the government
subpoena Commander Mochi Surah Hashimoto the guy who ordered the the captain of the submarine that fired on the
Indianapolis we're going to we're going to trust that guy oh get ready in his testimony Hashimoto acknowledged that
McVey hadn't engaged the zig magag maneuver but then said zigzagging would have made no change in the way he fired
the Torpedoes and that he would have sunk the defens defenseless ship either way uhhuh he's going to come back
later now given this heavy censorship and the media blackout the military was able to effectively control the
narrative that's not good they Pinn the institutional failures on McVey that's to have that man man his crew the way he
did and all of that good his crew comes out for him in November 1958 McVey was found guilty of negligence shocking
everyone familiar with the situation they just scapegoated him completely reporter Paul MC MCV McGee excuse me
wrote The Verdict came as complete surprise the evidence in the case was believed by most to have indicated that
instead of McVay being negligent his ship was efficiently was an efficiently run vessel yeah and it was the decision
to court Marshal Charles McVey pissed off the survivors of the Indianapolis I bet who all believed generally all
believed him to be a very strong leader and at no fault whatsoever for what happened
uh twible recalled once the captain was Court marshaled my first thought was how
can we get these guys for doing this good and they all all the men started writing letters to Congress and speaking
out publicly on mcvey's behalf eventually finding an ally in New Hampshire Senator Robert Smith who
called the court Marshal morally unsustainable unfortunately Smith's attempts to overturn the verdict were
unsuccessful and the decision stood it literally forever marred mcvey's Mill milary record and in the wake of the
decision McVey began receiving an endless stream of angry letters from the public and civilians who blamed him for
the tragedy now and um author Doug Stanton wrote he read every letter he received and took them all personally oh
eventually and this is very this is very tragic eventually the burden and shame unfairly thrust upon Him Charles McVey
became too much to bear of I can't imagine on on November 6th 1968 Captain Charles McVey shot himself at his home
in Connecticut oh that's so sad he had lost his wife to cancer several years earlier and those who knew him best
believed after she passed he had nothing left to go on for oh God that's awful now there is more after this that is an
awful awful tragedy um but something does come out of it now as was common of this era and that generation the men who
survived surv the sinking of the Indianapolis never spoke publicly about their appearance for the most part at
first um and they never talked about the effects of the trauma that they had endured um but after mcvey's death and
the passage of time Inspire it inspired many of them to come forward and tell the world what really happened because
they were like [ __ ] that like he's not dying nothing in vain um Edgar Harold said it's not justifiable to put the
blame on Captain McVey they just broke him in more ways than one that's so [ __ ] up Harold was a several crewmen
who after over the later Decades of the 20th century told their stories through books television interviews oral history
projects um he said I can still see and feel the trauma of swimming those four days I can still remember today as if it
were just yesterday as early as 1960 the survivors began getting together every year for a union and to remember as
those that they'd lost eventually their group once again rallied to exonerate Charles McVey and they finally succeed
eded in 2000 with the help of the most unlikely Source you can imagine you said that guy was coming back 54 years after
he' testified at at Charles mcvey's Court Marshal Mochi Surah Hashimoto was again
before the United States government this time in order to help restore mcvey's name and reputation let me just say
that's a full karmic Circle right there that's a wild Circle in his testimony Hashim Moto said he wanted to join the
brave men who survived the sinking of the IND Indianapolis IN urging that your National legislature clear their
captain's name our people have forgiven each other for that terrible war and its
consequences perhaps it's time your people forgave Captain McVey for the humiliation of his unjust conviction wow
this is the man who essentially is responsible for sinking yeah he ordered the Torpedoes which he had to It's War
like that's what I can't even this is the man who ordered the Torpedoes and he is coming forward full
circle and saying to the US to Congress he's saying maybe it's time your people forgive Captain McVey for the
humiliation of his unjust conviction yeah that's a mouthful yeah it is this time the US military was willing to
listen and moved by the testimony Congress voted on a October 12th 20 000 to exonerate Captain Charles McVey you
just wish that he was there to experience that 13 days later Mochi sah Hashimoto passed
away that is on some life [ __ ] that you just can't explain like that's the last
thing you you had to do that yeah had to clear that I just feel like you got to believe in
something story like I don't know exactly I don't know what but that makes you believe in something holy [ __ ]
Harold later said just to have him exonerated meant something but it didn't do him any good and then he said it
certainly did US good that's good that like his crew got to see that happen like the hopefully wherever he is
hopefully he saw it happen I know that's so sad that he lived the rest of his life being blamed for something that was
not shouldering it yeah reading every letter to the remaining survivors of the Indianapolis exonerating McKay was
literally the last chapter of the indianapolis's story yeah but 17 years later the story got a kind of epilogue
that no one was expecting in the summer of 2017 a dive team led by Microsoft founder Paul Allen announced they had
found unmistakable wreckage of the Indianapolis more than 18,000 ft down in the Philippine Sea um he said in a
statement while our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue I hope everyone connected to this historic ship
will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long incoming by that time only 19 of the original survivors
remained wow and most were too frail and too you know pass the point of being able to make an appearance or comment on
it but instead Captain William toy a spokesperson for the survivors released a statement on their behalf for more
than two decades I've been working with the survivors to a man they have longed for the day when their ship would be
found solving their final mystery they all know this is now a war memorial wow I just sent chills on my back and that
is the sinking of the USS Indianapolis what a story from beginning to end and thank you to Dave for such amazing help
with this research because this is a this is a this is a ship in and of itself of a of a of a research pile and
it's there's so much to this and so many different rabbit holes you can I'm sure
a lot of like you don't really I never learned about Captain Charles mcve and the and what had happened after that and
what he went through and that it was Hashimoto who was the one who moved the US military to exonerate him like of the
story if you wrote that people would be like that's wild and like too fictitious
to to have yeah like that's a that's a story seriously blew my mind I I'm I'm absolutely mind blown right
now B my mind I feel like I'm just going to dive into like a whole I just I want
to go like find out even more yeah cuz listen to these like survivors interviews and stuff and read their
stuff it's fascinating what they went through and to hear all the different perspective I can just like hear the
History Channel playing in our house Papa always listens to the history or watches the History Channel I maybe
that's why Charles mcvey's name sounded familiar to me actually it probably did yeah yeah to go dive into the History
Channel go re go research this guys it's fascinating wow I'm like shocked yeah that's a crazy tale truly I
know how to properly harrowing I don't even properly know how to end this so guess I'll just say we hope you keep
listening and we hope you keep it weird I me it's guys be cool to one another yeah
[Music] [Music] [Music]

A little past midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, a US Navy cruiser, had just delivered the uranium that would be used in the first nuclear bomb dropped on Japan, and was returning to the Philippines when it was struck by a Japanese torpedo. The ship was badly damaged in the attack and within ten minutes it rolled onto its side, dumping 890 crewmen into the pitch-black ocean and dragging the remaining 300 down with the ship.

Those who survived the torpedo strike did what they could to grab supplies before abandoning ship, but there were very few life boats or life jackets, so many of the sailors had to float in the water or cling to the few rafts they did manage to take before jumping from the boat. To make matters worse, their mission had been highly confidential and no one in the Navy knew where the Indianapolis was, much less that it had sank. The surviving crew thought things were about as bad as they could get, then the sharks began showing up.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References Associated Press. 1945. "Indianapolis sunk with 883 killed." Los Angeles Times, August 15: 1.

Austin, Daryl. 2021. "How a WWII Japanese sub commander helped exonerate a U.S. Navy captain." Washington Post, June 6.

Buckley, Chris. 2017. "Wreckage of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, lost for 72 years, is found in Pacific." New York Times, August 21.

Charles B. McVay, III, interview by US Naval History and Heritage Command. 2003. Recollections of Captain Charles B. McVay, III, USN, Commanding Officer of USS Indianapolis (CA-35) which was sunk by Japanese submarine I-58 on 30 July 1945 near the Philippines (April 20).

Newcomb, Richard F. 1958. "Court's verdict surprises, irks public." Indianapolis Star, November 30: 22.

—. 1958. "Rescue operation put in motion." Indianapolis Star, November 24: 1.

—. 1958. "Survivors begin ordeal in sea." Indianapolis Star, November 22: 1.

Paridon, Seth. n.d. "Surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis." National World War II Museum.

Phillips, Kristine. 2017. "USS Indianapolis survivor recalls four days in shark-filled sea." Washington Post, August 20.

1975. Jaws. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Performed by Robert Shaw.

US Navy Court of Inquiry. 1945. Summary findings regarding all circumstances connected with the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), and the delay in reporting the loss of that ship August 13, 1945. Summary, Washington, DC: United States Government.

Vincent, Lynn, and Sara Vladic. 2018. Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

The USS Indianapolis sank after being torpedoed, leading to a harrowing survival story for its crew amidst sharks and despair.

Key points

The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis. A harrowing tale of survival and tragedy during WWII, focusing on the USS Indianapolis.
The Manhattan Project's Secret Mission. The Indianapolis carried components for the atomic bomb, a mission shrouded in secrecy.
The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The Indianapolis suffers catastrophic damage from torpedoes, leading to a massive loss of life.
Survivors Stranded at Sea. After the ship sinks, survivors face the terrifying reality of being lost in the ocean.
Shark Attack in the Dark. Survivors encounter sharks circling in the water, leading to a horrifying attack.
Surviving the Shark Attack. A man fights off a shark and survives, only to face more danger from his crew.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's so chilling, it's also just like very chilling.

Discussion about the message on the atomic bomb.

11:40WatchMar 17, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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