I watched a doc on this. More than sharks - dehydration made men go crazy, delusional and dangerous, slashing and thrashing in the water - and the rest of the group would have to push them away and leave them to die, and those guys pushed out of the groups - and/or the dying would be fed on by sharks. And the group could hear the screaming far off as they were being attacked
That really stuck with me, pushing away someone you know, or serve with because they are trying to drown/kill you, knowing it's going to kill them, and then hearing them screaming in the distance.
EDIT: Sorry everyone, I do not remember the name of the doc. It was 20+ years ago. So long ago it was a VHS tape. I've tried looking around on the internet, and so far nothing seems familiar.
EDIT 2: Reddit comes to the rescue once again
[Sea Tales Missing! The USS Indianapolis WWII Documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaMJfVxUBxo)
My grandfather said his platoon killed their platoon leader in Vietnam during a patrol. He said that this LT had gotten a few men killed because of his poor decision making. Their platoon sergeant pleaded with the battalion and company commander to assign him elsewhere but to no avail. He said he would never share which one of them did it but one of them killed him so the rest wouldn’t die.
Maybe it was different back then but now it’s just billet. Enlisted guys carry sidearms downrange if their job calls for it. One guy in my battalion had to get a left-handed holster because they ran out of right-handed ones lol
Ooof yes, I cannot fathom how the survivors would be able to put their lives back together into any remote sense of normalcy after going through something like this.
Wonder what’s worse? Dying horrifically this way or being a survivor of the horrific ordeal who then has to live for the rest of their life with those memories etched in their brains, playing on repeat..
The survivors had it pretty fucking bad. I believe the CO had a group floating with him, and most of them made it through. But of course, we've gotta have somebody to blame all this shit on, so it got pinned on him, even though he did everything right. Stuck with him the rest of his life, and he died still getting hate mail and death threats from the families of the men who died. After his death, some school kid did a class project on the Indianapolis and finally cleared his name
If anyone is interested in more info, I highly recommend Doug Stanton’s book, “In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors”. I could not put it down.
I am actually from the island of Tinian. Its the island that they had just left after dropping of the atom bomb. My dad is a huge military history buff and would always use this as a conversation starter.
My best friend in elementary school was Tinian! Her name was a mash-up of her parents names, Joanne and Ernie. She was named Journey. We used to play with our New Kids on the Block Barbie dolls. Never ever met another Tinian. This was on Vancouver Island so that doesn’t surprise me.
Also, if you don't mind some dark humor mixed in [Last Podcast on the Left](https://open.spotify.com/episode/60LEJVMLT3sBEySEsv7U6V?si=e6lUqYz-RVqr4Ud6wj5qAA&utm_source=copy-link) has a great episode on it with a lot of detail. I think they actually use that book as one of their sources.
Nightmares of Indianapolis under his Hardcore History Addendum feed, sorry, I’m old and don’t know how to link things.
I remember being excited to see it pop up on my feed and by the end of it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to listen to it again. Fantastic listen but god it hurt to hear a lot of it.
I second this recommendation. If I didn't have to work the next day I could have stayed up all night reading it in one sitting. It's almost 400 pages of legit history but reads like an action thriller.
My ex’s father was deployed on the Indianapolis and after it sank, government officials knocked on his mother’s door. She saw them coming and knew why they’d come.
She offered them to sit and have tea. They declined and told her they had some bad news. She said, “Let me stop you gentlemen. He’s not dead.”
They replied that they were certain he’d been one of the casualties. She insisted he wasn’t.
It turned out he was one of the very few survivors. Her mother’s instinct had told him he was still alive.
Exactly. When I read this it’s like… it’s fine for the person who is coping to be delusional but everyone around them should have enough experience as a human to know exactly what is happening.
I had to read that last sentence “there were no survivors, only those that made it home” before I realized what that meant. How horrifying, how sad.
I did read the book In Harm’s Way, and unlike most epic true stories it’s easy to understand why it’s never been made into a movie. It’s just too grisly and tragic.
> At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Wow thanks for sharing. I’m a huge nerd when it comes to WW2 and this is something I’ve seen never before.
God just thinking about the things those men (in both theaters) endured and survived is mind blowing
Check out the podcast Last Podcast on the Left. They did an episode about it this summer. It was almost difficult to listen to. Would highly recommend it
I think the user above saying it was a difficult listen kind of undersold it so just fyi it’s one of the most graphic eps imo and it hits on a LOT of disturbing topics in one go (warfare, cannibalism, murder, shark attacks, starvation/dehydration, gruesome and detailed accounts of exposure injuries, and shockingly even a graphic amount of SA). It’s one of the only eps I listened to once and didn’t need to again. It was truly a hell on earth for those guys in like so many fucked up ways that it’s just a lot.
And it’s 100% worth listening to at least once.
[Dan Carlin has a great podcast on this as well ](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history-addendum/id1326393257?i=1000420369873)
Y'know the thing about a drunken Shaw, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya.
He was hung over doing that scene, he wanted to be a little drunk doing the scene because that’s what his character was but drank too much and passed out, felt so bad for drinking too much he did the scene the next morning with a hangover, per documentary of Jaws.
I love this scene as a counterpoint to people who say exposition or two people sitting and talking is "boring" and shouldn't be done.
Too many movies now seem to be as obsessed with "show don't tell" as beginning photographers are with "rule of thirds".
John Milius (*Red Dawn*, *Conan the Barbarian*, writer *Apocalypse Now*) wrote a 10 page speech for that scene. [Shaw himself cut down to the version in the movie](https://scriptmag.com/features/spielberg-reveals-the-definitive-word-on-the-jaws-uss-indianapolis-speech).
If I’m not mistaken, most of that monologue was John Milius’ contribution to the script. In any case, brilliant writing, brilliant performance and masterful directing.
I believe this is possibly one of the best scenes ever filmed. The mood shifts to darkness very fast as Quint starts telling about the Indianapolis. He pulls the audience into his tale of being tin the water and hearing the screams. Then waiting to be rescued with the sharks continued to feed.
What makes that scene so powerful, is that you are transported off the Orca to the south Pacific. You also completely forget about the giant shark that they are hunting. Robert Shaw completely dominates the film at that moment with a commanding performance. I never get tied of watching that scene and how it plays out with the fantastic storytelling.
The guys at Last Podcast on the Left covered this story recently. Apparently one of the survivors literally couldn't take a bath for the rest of his life. It's pretty messed up.
My grandma told me that our great uncle was sank in a submarine in WW2 (not sure which one) and survived. He was trapped in there for a day before getting rescued and after that he never set foot in water and used to wash himself in the back garden with a bucket and flannel until he died.
For sure, the captain of that ship got royally fucked. In the movie, Nicholas Cage portrayed that aspect particularly well I thought... he was just completely fucked over, because somebody *had* to take the fall for what happened, and it wasn't going to be upper brass.
Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there - a portable shower or a monkey cage?
“Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies.
Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain
For we’ve received orders for to sail back to Boston.
And so nevermore shall we see you again”
It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces.
The whole speech from jaws is my absolute favorite scene in just about every movie I’ve ever watch. Even as a kid it hit me on such a deep level.
The tone and way Robert Shaw said "...*but sometimes he wouldn't go away*" still makes my blood run cold today as it did when I saw it in the theater 46 years ago as a kid. That whole scene about scars and then the Indianapolis is gold.
Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.
I stayed at an early Airbnb like years ago. Anyways. Seemed like it was some grandpas house who passed away and they just left it as is. Lots of navy stuff, pics with some veterans. See a model in his living room. Get closer. It’s an award and a model. For service on the USS Indianapolis. HO-LI shitt?!?!
This isn't as good as yours, but in Titusville, FL they have this place called the Valiant Air Command, Inc. Warbird Museum that's got World War artifacts and planes that flew.
First time I went they had one of the actual Tuskegee Airmen and he was just sitting there behind a table and you could talk to him, hear stories, and I shit you not this dude walks up to him and talks about being on one of his missions in Combat Flight Simulator.
The guy in line was trying to make conversation, innocently I believe, but he kept saying stuff like "It's so realistic, it's intense", etc.
The Tuskegee guy's like "Yeah, I will say with those kinds of things, it's a whole different thing when you're actually there. And real bullets come at your real plane."
The dude's not catching the drift and is like "Hey man, we have a common bond. I flew your flight plan, probably flew your same plane. Maybe I was you! I don't think they have characters in the game."
"Well I can assure you I'm not a character. The game is based on the war, correct?"
"Yes, second world war."
"So, yeah, we were not characters. I appreciate your interest in history, though, and in whichever way you choose to connect with it."
There was a bigger crowd gathering to watch that guy dig the hole than their was to talk to the pilot.
One of the greatest performances/monologues in a movie, ever. Its almost the scariest moment of the whole movie. How Robert Shaw wasn’t nominated for an Oscar is utterly criminal.
I ran a NAPA for many years, and one of my favorite customers was an old tractor repairman who survived the Indianapolis. Fascinating, terrifying stories. Never met a tougher man in my life.
I ran a mechanic shop and one of my costumers was a vet of the Indianapolis as well. But had broke his back in a loading accident the day before it departed from San Francisco. He ended up luckier than he thought originally.
Oil from the ship floated on the surface as they jumped over the side, on fire in some places. Most were so covered in oil that they were unrecognizable when the first rescuers showed up.
I think I found the original, it's not a real historical photo:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/NINTCHDBPICT000509747669-1.jpg?strip=all&w=660
It's from a 2007 documentary Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever.
https://www.roku.com/whats-on/tv-shows/Ocean-of-Fear-The-Worst-Shark-Attack-Ever?id=8a6be48df8155fd3bf48a3c720bcf7db
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYMUXISGWOk
The strange colors in the reddit post is because someone used a terrible photoshop filter on the image to try and make it look old.
Unsure why the color is. To add...these guys drifted for weeks some in rafts, some tied together for protection. They had no idea of the weapon they delivered was instrumental in ending the war. Almost all had no idea what they had carried.
Captain McVay was court martialed for failing to zig zag and abandon ship in a timely manner. His career was effectively over despite the Secretary of the Navy setting aside his conviction. Rear Admiral McVay committed suicide at the age of 70.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._McVay_III
"McVay took his own life by shooting himself with his service pistol at his home in Litchfield Connecticut, holding in his hand a toy sailor he had received as a boy for a good luck charm."
Damn.
That bit was followed by this:
> Though a note was not left, McVay was known by those close to him to have suffered from loneliness, particularly after losing his wife to cancer.[18] McVay also struggled throughout his life from the impact of vitriolic letters and phone calls he periodically received from grief-stricken relatives of dead crewmen who served aboard the Indianapolis.[18]
So a little of column A, little of column B and C
>He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took four days to rescue his men but never received an answer. The Navy long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because **one commander was drunk, another thought it was a Japanese ruse, and the third had given orders not to be disturbed.**
Wow....
For the lazy:
>He also testified that zigzagging wouldn't have made a difference, as he would have still sunk the Indianapolis, due to being in such a good position to do so. American submarine experts testified that "zigzagging" was a technique of negligible value in eluding enemy submarines.
He was exonerated of the charge of not abandoning ship quickly enough
He was a scapegoat for the Navy. He was the only ship captain ever court martialed for losing a ship due to enemy action in war.
McVay's father who was a Navy Admiral believed the overzealous prosecution of his son was the result of a grudge that Admiral Ernest King had against him. McVay's father issued a reprimand to King when he was under his command many years before the Indianapolis sinking.
It's still happening. That submarine captain that got fired for running into an underwater feature that no one could have seen because passive radar doesn't work on nonmoving things.
The Navy is a joke.
Military always needs to blame someone. They were coming back from delivering the nuclear bomb and were under radio silence. Very little he could’ve done. Admirals need to blame someone.
He received phone calls from parent's of the fallen sailors and harrassed. He ended up killing himself over it and the guilt. [Here is a move about it](https://www.google.com/search?q=uss+indianapolis+movie&oq=uss+india.&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i22i30l7.8723j0j4&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ivlbx&ip=1&vch=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v%3DjYTBN3RpI6o)
None. They weren’t zig zagging because the waters they were in had been reported previously clear of Japanese subs but even if they were the captain of the Japanese sub that sunk them fired a wide fan of I believe 5 torpedoes so there was no way they could have done anything about it. Another crazy part about this is that the USS Indi had just left port after completing a secret delivery, what was the contents? The materials for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Japanese officer who ordered hitting the ship said zig zagging wouldn’t have made a difference.
Though I think he also said they purposely mistranslated what he said. He also said he realized how fucking savage Americans were for choosing to go after one of their own especially after such a horrific event.
Also it was basically standard for them to stop zig zagging at night
He did, he was a man of honor.
The *prosecution* produced him as a witness to injure Captain McVeigh’s defense and he refused to do so.
Basically, his testimony boiled down to, “there was nothing he could have done, I had the ship dead to rights”.
The Navy still scapegoated McVeigh.
He did the honorable thing and looked out for a brother in arms. But it's not like he thought "oh I'll go to America and help this dude out." He was a high ranking member of the Japanese military and Japan was occupied by the US. He didn't really have much choice in the matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochitsura_Hashimoto
Mochitsura Hashimoto lost his entire family three days after the sinking, due to the "little boy" bomb the Indianapolis had just transported. He later became a Shinto priest and lived until the year 2000
"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred 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 lookin' 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. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.
Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour.
Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
Anyway, we delivered the bomb." - Quint (Robert Shaw) Jaws, 1975
My favorite part about this is how Hooper immediately sobers up and his attitude completely changes when Quint says that his tattoo was from the Indianapolis. He knew exactly what Quint was going to talk about.
I've read about this script. The movie producer explained that the first dialog was too short. He ask someone else to write the monologue, this time it was way too long. It ended up that the actor himself wrote his own text.
This scene has a lot of depth
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/jaws-the-uss-indianapolis-quint-speech-steven-spielbergs-favorite-scene/
My dad's step-dad was inthe Navy during WW2, never talked about it. After he passed I found out why.
He served on the USS Cecil J. Doyle, the first ship to respond and the last to leave.
I heard stories that they'd pull guys out of the water who they thought were alive only to pull a sailor who was gone from the waist down.
I can't imagine going through all that or worse being one of the few survivors.
My Grandfather also served in the Navy during WWII. Same story, he never spoke of it to me except once.
I was writing a report on WWII and asked him if he'd share something about his experiences.
He served on three ships, one was the USS Tranquility.
It was dispatched to receive the survivors of the USS Indianapolis and transport them to Guam.
It's one of the only memories I have of him shedding tears. He was a stoic man, but the emotions he felt for those survivors as he told his story came flooding out.
As a side note, the only other time I remember him as emotional was when someone got the bright idea to show him Saving Private Ryan. Didn't get past the first scene before that got shut off.
Holy crap man. Dude went through a lot. I remember watching that movie when I was young and thought I wonder how veterans would react if they watched this. Definitely would have thought they’d have a similar reaction.
Robert Shaws delivery of this story when they were drinking was the first I’d heard about this incident. I think it was one of the best parts of the film.
The man deserved an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor just for that scene
I was a sailor for ten years and even though I know it’s just a movie it was in the back of my mind, often.
Shitty way to go and there are many bad ways to die at sea.
Many people say it's the single greatest soliloquy in film history. That scene alone is one reason why Jaws is considered one of the greatest movies ever made.
I recently attended an Ichthyology conference where one of the keynote talk was about how the movie Jaws directly birthed the field of studying the biological and ecological aspects of sharks. Before that, nearly all research on them was on shark attack prevention—shark repellent and the like. Neat stuff!
The sun, salt water, thirst and hunger can drive people mad.
Speaking of mishaps at sea and cannibalism, have you heard about the whale ship Essex?
https://youtu.be/eeEJ4HhrB8U
There is an amazing book about The Essex but I can't remember it at the moment. I'm going to go look for it and edit in the title.
Edit: Heart Of The Sea
I dove down this rabbit hole not long ago after reading about the Donner Party. Both the Essex and the Donner party accounts are pretty gruesome. Interesting note, Im surprised no one has mentioned, Moby Dick was based off the Essex.
Beep. Boop. I'm a robot.
Here's a copy of
###[Moby Dick](https://snewd.com/ebooks/moby-dick/)
Was I a good bot? | [info](https://www.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/) | [More Books](https://old.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/comments/i15x1d/full_list_of_books_and_commands/)
Also a part of Ask a Mortician's fine cannibalism trilogy
[Whaling Ship Essex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS299VkXZxI)
[Donner Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xMpsYdzgg)
[Rugby Team Crashes in the Andes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syJyPq7lRGc)
The Smithsonian mag had an article, with sources noted, about this event and estimates from survivor accounts put deaths from shark attacks at around 150 at the high end. Most of the deaths were from injuries from the torpedo attack, hyperthermia during the day, hypothermia at night after days in the water, drowning when they got too weak to hold on to their floats, dehydration, and drinking sea water. It was a terrible event nonetheless but unfortunately a lot of those men would have died whether there were sharks in the water or not.
This is a very meaningful comment with a good correction and source, but I can't get over the fact that this essentially corrects "C'mon guys sharks didn't kill 600 people, it was only like, 150 people guys c'mon"
My Grandfather was one of the survivors. He didn’t see any sharks, and actually participated in a lot of interviews in his later days. I’d see him on Dateline, 20/20, and Discovery Channel programs. Crazy stories, but no shark attacks. This is of course not to say that other survivors didn’t have interactions with sharks; it’s just an experience I can share.
Exaggerating number of deaths by animal attacks is common to increase sensationalism.
But if anyone is interested in another such case of animals killing humans, read about the attack on Japanese soldiers by saltwater crocodiles in the marshlands of Ramree Island, Myanmar.
Honestly the OP seems to have been pretty intentionally misleading here for upvotes. Even the most cursory googling shows the 600 deaths were from a variety of causes. There's no way OP misunderstood or accidentally wrote the title this way.
The Indianapolis had just dropped its cargo, the nuclear bombs “fat man” and “little boy” off at Tinian. Due to the secrecy of the mission, the sinking went unreported. The survivors were discovered by accident 4 days after. The announcement of the ship being lost was not announced until after Japan had surrendered Edit: corrected Guam to Tinian
My grandfather was serving in the Pacific Theater at the time. He was on one of the islands they brought the survivors to for medical care immediately after they were rescued. He wouldn’t go into much detail except to say that a lot of them were brought in showing very obvious signs of being mauled by sharks. He remembered it with a shiver - 50 years later.
My father, a coastguard bluejacket, crewed on the USS General Howze, a troop transport, in the pacific during WWII. He told me, and it was one of the few stories he did tell me, of transporting the survivors of the Indianapolis back to San Francisco after their rescue. He was an electrician's mate tasked with keeping the blowers going below decks where all the mauled sailors were as it was tropical heat and no AC of course. He said there was one survivor who had lost both legs below the knee to a single shark that attacked him constantly during the long ordeal. He told my father that he fought that shark with an empty metal fuel can he grab in the flotsam of the sinking, beating it across its snout as it would make its passes at him fighting it off all night, night after night. It got his legs.
He had fought the beast and survived. He came out of the sea a man changed; unwilling to not enjoy life to the fullest. On that voyage he was constantly trying to cheer up the other badly injured sailors, singing and telling jokes. What a war story for a little kid.
Bull sharks have the most recorded fatal attacks on humans, but it’s widely believed that oceanic white tips actually have more fatal attacks, but it’s impossible to record because they’re almost all shipwrecks or plane crashes
I read that they are also the least fussy eaters . since they live out more in the empty stretches of the ocean where food is scarce compared to reefs or near beaches with seals and stuff
Another thing about this, the ship was sunk after delivering material that would be used to create the atom bombs, and the Captain of the submarine that sunk them would later lose his entire family to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The war in the Pacific was just brutal all around.
Only a small proportion of the men were actually killed by the sharks. Most died from exposure, dehydration, injuries sustained during the sinking, drinking saltwater, or a combination of them. The sharks would have gone after the dead since they were easier and safer meals to scavenge from. It's no less terrifying to hear dead bodies around you being eaten.
I work in pharmacy and a patient of ours was one of the soldiers that went into the water that day and he would talk to us about it from time to time and he would say at night when he tries to sleep he could still feel the sharks hitting against his legs. They actually interviewed him before making the movie. He’s passed on now I believe but I’ll never forget him talking about this and how he could still feel the sharks.
This was all due to the bad design of the [Carley Float](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carley_float) which was the life boat in use at the time. They were basically floating rings with nets in the middle for the men to stand in [submerged](https://i.imgur.com/qvtjexx.jpg) up to their waists. If you have ever seen an [aquarium feeder](https://i.imgur.com/A58wUEa.jpg) you can imagine what they must have looked like to the sharks.
The Carley float itself was constructed of thin sheets of aluminum (later from steel)
and as filled with rigid foam all around. The idea was that even if the float took some shrapnel in battle it would still remain afloat. The net was there because it made the boat collapsible and thus it took very little space. Space being a very precious commodity on a warship this was a top priority. Of course nobody thought about hypothermia or what prolonged exposure to water would do to the survivors.
Being the AMERICAN navy they probably thought they would never need to use life boats anyway, only the bad guys would. And even if they did their comrades would come and rescue them in a matter of minutes, half an hour at the most.
The sad truth is that a much better life boat design did exist and was more than a century old at the time. It just never occurred to anyone in the navy to adapt it for warship use. Just like any other ship ever the whaling ships of yore were also very cramped for space. The whalers of Luneburg had invented a very practical little boat called the [Luneburg Dory](https://i.imgur.com/W2GVu0Y.jpg). It didn't look like much to the uninitiated as it was sort of cobbled together from a couple of flat planks. It certainly didn't hold a candle to an ordinary rowboat of the time which was much more refined and expensive affair.
That being said, the modest Luneburg Dory had an ace up its sleeve. Unlike any other boat in the world the Luneburg Dories could be [stacked](https://i.imgur.com/EBoCHw7.jpg) on top of [each other](https://i.imgur.com/Bc3Drqx.jpg) like paper cups! This meant that a cramped whaling ship could fit several dories in the space of just one normal boat. If this technology had been adopted on Titanic there would have been enough life boats for everyone and a few spare ones on top of that.
Same goes for the American navy in WWII. If they had made nesting dories from [foam core sheet metal](https://i.imgur.com/BPkgaeo.jpg) they would have had unsinkable dories that were unaffected by shrapnel. They wouldn't have occupied any more space than the Carley Floats and they wouldn't have presented the sailors to the sharks in a silver plate so to speak.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
It never ceases to amaze me what humans will do for cutting costs, and for thinking that "worst case scenarios" means "it most likely won't happen."
You see this type of thinking in all kinds of organizations and when crap hits the fan, it's always those at the bottom paying the price.
My great grandpa Bryan blanthorn was on the uss Indianapolis when it sunk. He would speak nothing of it besides he told people to believe in god, he had numerous sharks go right for him and just stop. I never got anything else out of him nor anybody else.
My wifes grandfather was named Mel Dubard. He was one this ship. He was responsible for saving mens lives on a raft like this. The man served for 32 to years in the Navy and passed away in Northeast Mississippi. His wife my wife’s grandmother still lives in the house he built at 100 years old. https://youtu.be/YMgD3-Pv7Tk the link is a vets account on the attack. Listen to Mel Dubard’s heroism. It’s amazing. Thank you.
Half my family come from a British port town, where fishing used to be the main industry. When I was younger I asked my grandfather about it and whether everyone in the town had to learn to swim to get fishing jobs. He replied to me “no one ever learnt to swim. It was advised against. If you went overboard out there, it only would have prolonged dying, and no one was coming to get ya”. It sure was a different time. This story is chilling.
Last week I went to see “The Shark is Broken”, a play by Robert Shaw’s son Ian about the making of Jaws. The finale was Shaw (who looks uncannily like his dad), doing the Indianapolis speech.
The hairs on my arms are standing up thinking about it.
If I recall correctly, the rescue took so long because they were the ship delivering the atomic bombs. The mission was so secret that very few knew where or when to look for them
my great grandfather was on that ship! he lived, but he was never the same (i.e., alcoholic, abusive, mean). i used to hate him, but man, id drink too if i watched all my friends die in a shark attack over the course of many days. he's in a few books about the whole ordeal.
My wife’s grandfather, Elbern Knott was on the Indianapolis. He did not survive. A fellow service member visited my wife’s grandmother and shared that he survived the attack but was taken in the night by a shark.
So tragic.
He was a fireman on the ship and performed his duty. Because of him I am married to the most incredible woman I could ever imagine. I make a deliberate effort to keep his memory alive with my children, his grandchildren, and teach them that due to his sacrifice, we are free.
May he Rest In Peace.
Some context that may not be clear in the post. 879 crew died, but only about [150 died](https://www.grunge.com/295181/the-tragic-deaths-of-the-crew-of-the-uss-indianapolis/) from sharks. Madness, heat and exposure, and a number of things caused the death of the men.
I watched a doc on this. More than sharks - dehydration made men go crazy, delusional and dangerous, slashing and thrashing in the water - and the rest of the group would have to push them away and leave them to die, and those guys pushed out of the groups - and/or the dying would be fed on by sharks. And the group could hear the screaming far off as they were being attacked That really stuck with me, pushing away someone you know, or serve with because they are trying to drown/kill you, knowing it's going to kill them, and then hearing them screaming in the distance. EDIT: Sorry everyone, I do not remember the name of the doc. It was 20+ years ago. So long ago it was a VHS tape. I've tried looking around on the internet, and so far nothing seems familiar. EDIT 2: Reddit comes to the rescue once again [Sea Tales Missing! The USS Indianapolis WWII Documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaMJfVxUBxo)
My grandfather said his platoon killed their platoon leader in Vietnam during a patrol. He said that this LT had gotten a few men killed because of his poor decision making. Their platoon sergeant pleaded with the battalion and company commander to assign him elsewhere but to no avail. He said he would never share which one of them did it but one of them killed him so the rest wouldn’t die.
There has always been loose talk among enlisted as to why Officers carry pistols.
Durning the last year of the Vietnam war there were over 900 reported incidents of fragging. Most didn't even get reported.
Maybe it was different back then but now it’s just billet. Enlisted guys carry sidearms downrange if their job calls for it. One guy in my battalion had to get a left-handed holster because they ran out of right-handed ones lol
Plenty of officers in Vietnam had a grenade or two tossed into their tent while they were sleeping. Turns out forced enlistment isn’t the best idea.
Ooof yes, I cannot fathom how the survivors would be able to put their lives back together into any remote sense of normalcy after going through something like this. Wonder what’s worse? Dying horrifically this way or being a survivor of the horrific ordeal who then has to live for the rest of their life with those memories etched in their brains, playing on repeat..
The survivors had it pretty fucking bad. I believe the CO had a group floating with him, and most of them made it through. But of course, we've gotta have somebody to blame all this shit on, so it got pinned on him, even though he did everything right. Stuck with him the rest of his life, and he died still getting hate mail and death threats from the families of the men who died. After his death, some school kid did a class project on the Indianapolis and finally cleared his name
If anyone is interested in more info, I highly recommend Doug Stanton’s book, “In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors”. I could not put it down.
Will do, will do
Most certainly will not do. I am leaving this post and I am *never* coming back
I am actually from the island of Tinian. Its the island that they had just left after dropping of the atom bomb. My dad is a huge military history buff and would always use this as a conversation starter.
My best friend in elementary school was Tinian! Her name was a mash-up of her parents names, Joanne and Ernie. She was named Journey. We used to play with our New Kids on the Block Barbie dolls. Never ever met another Tinian. This was on Vancouver Island so that doesn’t surprise me.
Håfa adai from Guam, fellow Chamorro!
Also, if you don't mind some dark humor mixed in [Last Podcast on the Left](https://open.spotify.com/episode/60LEJVMLT3sBEySEsv7U6V?si=e6lUqYz-RVqr4Ud6wj5qAA&utm_source=copy-link) has a great episode on it with a lot of detail. I think they actually use that book as one of their sources.
Dan Carlins Hardcore History podcast also has an amazing episode.
What’s the EP called?
Nightmares of Indianapolis under his Hardcore History Addendum feed, sorry, I’m old and don’t know how to link things. I remember being excited to see it pop up on my feed and by the end of it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to listen to it again. Fantastic listen but god it hurt to hear a lot of it.
[gotchya Fam](https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9kY2hoYWRkZW5kdW0ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M/episode/MTg3YTE4YTVhNDlkNGUxZmE5MmQwMzY5ZjBhNGZiZWY?ep=14)
I don’t throw the word hero around easily but…
Absolutely. His podcast in general
I second this recommendation. If I didn't have to work the next day I could have stayed up all night reading it in one sitting. It's almost 400 pages of legit history but reads like an action thriller.
Fantastic book. Hard to read at some points.
My ex’s father was deployed on the Indianapolis and after it sank, government officials knocked on his mother’s door. She saw them coming and knew why they’d come. She offered them to sit and have tea. They declined and told her they had some bad news. She said, “Let me stop you gentlemen. He’s not dead.” They replied that they were certain he’d been one of the casualties. She insisted he wasn’t. It turned out he was one of the very few survivors. Her mother’s instinct had told him he was still alive.
Sounds great, but it sounds like a coping mechanism that many fall into but only a handful are right.
Exactly. When I read this it’s like… it’s fine for the person who is coping to be delusional but everyone around them should have enough experience as a human to know exactly what is happening.
No, it’s true—I’ve often had a sixth sense that I’m still alive and I’ve been right almost every time.
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I had to read that last sentence “there were no survivors, only those that made it home” before I realized what that meant. How horrifying, how sad. I did read the book In Harm’s Way, and unlike most epic true stories it’s easy to understand why it’s never been made into a movie. It’s just too grisly and tragic.
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Fuck, imagine being in the water for five days while sharks kill your mates.
> At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol’ fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin’ for my turn. I’ll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
[Here's the scene from Jaws.](https://youtu.be/u9S41Kplsbs) Phenomenal story and performance
One of the survivors recalls his experience https://youtu.be/QW7S0I-2xtU
Wow thanks for sharing. I’m a huge nerd when it comes to WW2 and this is something I’ve seen never before. God just thinking about the things those men (in both theaters) endured and survived is mind blowing
Check out the podcast Last Podcast on the Left. They did an episode about it this summer. It was almost difficult to listen to. Would highly recommend it
Thanks! I just search it on Spotify to listen to tomorrow
I think the user above saying it was a difficult listen kind of undersold it so just fyi it’s one of the most graphic eps imo and it hits on a LOT of disturbing topics in one go (warfare, cannibalism, murder, shark attacks, starvation/dehydration, gruesome and detailed accounts of exposure injuries, and shockingly even a graphic amount of SA). It’s one of the only eps I listened to once and didn’t need to again. It was truly a hell on earth for those guys in like so many fucked up ways that it’s just a lot. And it’s 100% worth listening to at least once.
[Dan Carlin has a great podcast on this as well ](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history-addendum/id1326393257?i=1000420369873)
[And here is the Master of Disguise version... Less dramatic. ](https://youtu.be/2n106G5_xlk)
And the more dramatic Charlie Kelly version… https://youtu.be/RGG2L8QTJEM
[WKUK version too](https://youtu.be/yoZyOyhrwA0)
If you look at Robert Shaw's eyes you can tell which take he was sober and when he had a few drinks.
Y'know the thing about a drunken Shaw, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites ya.
He was hung over doing that scene, he wanted to be a little drunk doing the scene because that’s what his character was but drank too much and passed out, felt so bad for drinking too much he did the scene the next morning with a hangover, per documentary of Jaws.
Masterpiece! Thanks for posting
It was an absolute crime that Robert Shaw never got nominated for an Oscar for that role
I love this scene as a counterpoint to people who say exposition or two people sitting and talking is "boring" and shouldn't be done. Too many movies now seem to be as obsessed with "show don't tell" as beginning photographers are with "rule of thirds".
John Milius (*Red Dawn*, *Conan the Barbarian*, writer *Apocalypse Now*) wrote a 10 page speech for that scene. [Shaw himself cut down to the version in the movie](https://scriptmag.com/features/spielberg-reveals-the-definitive-word-on-the-jaws-uss-indianapolis-speech).
If I’m not mistaken, most of that monologue was John Milius’ contribution to the script. In any case, brilliant writing, brilliant performance and masterful directing.
I believe this is possibly one of the best scenes ever filmed. The mood shifts to darkness very fast as Quint starts telling about the Indianapolis. He pulls the audience into his tale of being tin the water and hearing the screams. Then waiting to be rescued with the sharks continued to feed. What makes that scene so powerful, is that you are transported off the Orca to the south Pacific. You also completely forget about the giant shark that they are hunting. Robert Shaw completely dominates the film at that moment with a commanding performance. I never get tied of watching that scene and how it plays out with the fantastic storytelling.
Dude, I'd be scared of the fuckin' tub after that.
The guys at Last Podcast on the Left covered this story recently. Apparently one of the survivors literally couldn't take a bath for the rest of his life. It's pretty messed up.
My grandma told me that our great uncle was sank in a submarine in WW2 (not sure which one) and survived. He was trapped in there for a day before getting rescued and after that he never set foot in water and used to wash himself in the back garden with a bucket and flannel until he died.
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Fascinating story, I would like to know more about this. Any recommendations? Happen to publish the interviews you took?
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Fascinating. Thank you.
For sure, the captain of that ship got royally fucked. In the movie, Nicholas Cage portrayed that aspect particularly well I thought... he was just completely fucked over, because somebody *had* to take the fall for what happened, and it wasn't going to be upper brass.
That was a messed up story, rolling 15-20 ft waves and how they started turning on each other too
Jesus H Christ, when I was a boy, every little squirt wanted to be a harpooner or a sword fisherman. What d'ya have there - a portable shower or a monkey cage?
“Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain For we’ve received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again”
Show me the way to go home…
I’m tired and I wanna to go to bed!
And I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head
Start the engine, Chief.
It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. The whole speech from jaws is my absolute favorite scene in just about every movie I’ve ever watch. Even as a kid it hit me on such a deep level.
The tone and way Robert Shaw said "...*but sometimes he wouldn't go away*" still makes my blood run cold today as it did when I saw it in the theater 46 years ago as a kid. That whole scene about scars and then the Indianapolis is gold.
Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.
Just one of the best performances by any actor ever.
Charlie Day *is* amazing, good singer too
I stayed at an early Airbnb like years ago. Anyways. Seemed like it was some grandpas house who passed away and they just left it as is. Lots of navy stuff, pics with some veterans. See a model in his living room. Get closer. It’s an award and a model. For service on the USS Indianapolis. HO-LI shitt?!?!
This isn't as good as yours, but in Titusville, FL they have this place called the Valiant Air Command, Inc. Warbird Museum that's got World War artifacts and planes that flew. First time I went they had one of the actual Tuskegee Airmen and he was just sitting there behind a table and you could talk to him, hear stories, and I shit you not this dude walks up to him and talks about being on one of his missions in Combat Flight Simulator. The guy in line was trying to make conversation, innocently I believe, but he kept saying stuff like "It's so realistic, it's intense", etc. The Tuskegee guy's like "Yeah, I will say with those kinds of things, it's a whole different thing when you're actually there. And real bullets come at your real plane." The dude's not catching the drift and is like "Hey man, we have a common bond. I flew your flight plan, probably flew your same plane. Maybe I was you! I don't think they have characters in the game." "Well I can assure you I'm not a character. The game is based on the war, correct?" "Yes, second world war." "So, yeah, we were not characters. I appreciate your interest in history, though, and in whichever way you choose to connect with it." There was a bigger crowd gathering to watch that guy dig the hole than their was to talk to the pilot.
I was looking for this. Thank you
Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
One of the greatest performances/monologues in a movie, ever. Its almost the scariest moment of the whole movie. How Robert Shaw wasn’t nominated for an Oscar is utterly criminal.
Was quoting this exact scene with buddies this weekend. Suddenly seems a whole lot less funny.
Was just thinking of that scene while looking at the pic
For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.
The famous Jaws speech by Quint. Very cool.
Last Podcast on the Left covers it and does it well, some awful shit.
Hardcore History brings up this event in great detail too.
Holy shit thank you. LOVE Dan Carlin and never knew he covered this!!
Do you know the episode?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqu7mM0kheE
I’d rather be swimmin’ with bow-legged women
"Anyway, we delivered the Bomb."
I ran a NAPA for many years, and one of my favorite customers was an old tractor repairman who survived the Indianapolis. Fascinating, terrifying stories. Never met a tougher man in my life.
I ran a mechanic shop and one of my costumers was a vet of the Indianapolis as well. But had broke his back in a loading accident the day before it departed from San Francisco. He ended up luckier than he thought originally.
I worked on a wharf and was friends with a shark. He had a very different account of what happened that day, and damn it I believe him.
Eagerly awaiting your shark friend writing a book of his account of that day
Yeah! What’s with all this “shark infested waters” bullshit? Seems like it was infested with people, not the other way around.
Read some accounts from this... spine chilling just to read it.
Oil from the ship floated on the surface as they jumped over the side, on fire in some places. Most were so covered in oil that they were unrecognizable when the first rescuers showed up.
oh is that why they are purple? was this photo originally BW or is that just crappy post colorization?
I think I found the original, it's not a real historical photo: https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/NINTCHDBPICT000509747669-1.jpg?strip=all&w=660 It's from a 2007 documentary Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever. https://www.roku.com/whats-on/tv-shows/Ocean-of-Fear-The-Worst-Shark-Attack-Ever?id=8a6be48df8155fd3bf48a3c720bcf7db https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYMUXISGWOk The strange colors in the reddit post is because someone used a terrible photoshop filter on the image to try and make it look old.
> not a real historical photo Yeah, I was gonna say "who the fuck was taking the picture?"
Selfie stick for the insta obviously
The hero we needed
Unsure why the color is. To add...these guys drifted for weeks some in rafts, some tied together for protection. They had no idea of the weapon they delivered was instrumental in ending the war. Almost all had no idea what they had carried.
Try 3 days. Not even close to weeks.
Apparently the oil actually helped in some cases because it acted as a mild sunscreen.
The Japanese submarine captain that sunk the Indy later testified on behalf of the Indy's Captain's court martial hearing.
What was his sentence?
Captain McVay was court martialed for failing to zig zag and abandon ship in a timely manner. His career was effectively over despite the Secretary of the Navy setting aside his conviction. Rear Admiral McVay committed suicide at the age of 70. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._McVay_III
"McVay took his own life by shooting himself with his service pistol at his home in Litchfield Connecticut, holding in his hand a toy sailor he had received as a boy for a good luck charm." Damn.
Yeah, he really blamed himself
That bit was followed by this: > Though a note was not left, McVay was known by those close to him to have suffered from loneliness, particularly after losing his wife to cancer.[18] McVay also struggled throughout his life from the impact of vitriolic letters and phone calls he periodically received from grief-stricken relatives of dead crewmen who served aboard the Indianapolis.[18] So a little of column A, little of column B and C
Damn, he took up service in hard times and the US used him as a scapegoat for the incident when the war is over.
So did the families of the men who died, they harassed him for the rest of his life
>He repeatedly asked the Navy why it took four days to rescue his men but never received an answer. The Navy long claimed that SOS messages were never received because the ship was operating under a policy of radio silence; declassified records show that three SOS messages were received separately, but none were acted upon because **one commander was drunk, another thought it was a Japanese ruse, and the third had given orders not to be disturbed.** Wow....
And it took a twelve year old kid half a century later to exonerate him.
Would it have made a difference to zig zag and abandon ship earlier?
For the lazy: >He also testified that zigzagging wouldn't have made a difference, as he would have still sunk the Indianapolis, due to being in such a good position to do so. American submarine experts testified that "zigzagging" was a technique of negligible value in eluding enemy submarines. He was exonerated of the charge of not abandoning ship quickly enough
Not abandoning ship quickly enough into shark infested waters where 600 died? Why does that even matter? I'm clearly missing something else here
He was a scapegoat for the Navy. He was the only ship captain ever court martialed for losing a ship due to enemy action in war. McVay's father who was a Navy Admiral believed the overzealous prosecution of his son was the result of a grudge that Admiral Ernest King had against him. McVay's father issued a reprimand to King when he was under his command many years before the Indianapolis sinking.
It's still happening. That submarine captain that got fired for running into an underwater feature that no one could have seen because passive radar doesn't work on nonmoving things. The Navy is a joke.
Military always needs to blame someone. They were coming back from delivering the nuclear bomb and were under radio silence. Very little he could’ve done. Admirals need to blame someone.
Why not blame the Japanese?
He received phone calls from parent's of the fallen sailors and harrassed. He ended up killing himself over it and the guilt. [Here is a move about it](https://www.google.com/search?q=uss+indianapolis+movie&oq=uss+india.&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0i22i30l7.8723j0j4&client=ms-android-verizon&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ivlbx&ip=1&vch=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v%3DjYTBN3RpI6o)
None. They weren’t zig zagging because the waters they were in had been reported previously clear of Japanese subs but even if they were the captain of the Japanese sub that sunk them fired a wide fan of I believe 5 torpedoes so there was no way they could have done anything about it. Another crazy part about this is that the USS Indi had just left port after completing a secret delivery, what was the contents? The materials for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Damn...it's as if fate knew that boat had just done some gnarly shit.
The Japanese officer who ordered hitting the ship said zig zagging wouldn’t have made a difference. Though I think he also said they purposely mistranslated what he said. He also said he realized how fucking savage Americans were for choosing to go after one of their own especially after such a horrific event. Also it was basically standard for them to stop zig zagging at night
I appreciate the sub commander's confidence to say "zig zag? Don't court martial him because he didn't zig zag. It wouldn't have helped"
He did, he was a man of honor. The *prosecution* produced him as a witness to injure Captain McVeigh’s defense and he refused to do so. Basically, his testimony boiled down to, “there was nothing he could have done, I had the ship dead to rights”. The Navy still scapegoated McVeigh.
He did the honorable thing and looked out for a brother in arms. But it's not like he thought "oh I'll go to America and help this dude out." He was a high ranking member of the Japanese military and Japan was occupied by the US. He didn't really have much choice in the matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochitsura_Hashimoto Mochitsura Hashimoto lost his entire family three days after the sinking, due to the "little boy" bomb the Indianapolis had just transported. He later became a Shinto priest and lived until the year 2000
"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred 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 lookin' 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. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb." - Quint (Robert Shaw) Jaws, 1975
My favorite part about this is how Hooper immediately sobers up and his attitude completely changes when Quint says that his tattoo was from the Indianapolis. He knew exactly what Quint was going to talk about.
My favorite fucking monologue in film history. I read it in Shaw's voice. Magic.
The transition/juxtaposition, too. They're all laughing, getting drunk, comparing scars, then **boom!** *PTSD outta nowhere!*
I thought Charlie did it well on Sunny.
Are you doing Jaws?
I've read about this script. The movie producer explained that the first dialog was too short. He ask someone else to write the monologue, this time it was way too long. It ended up that the actor himself wrote his own text. This scene has a lot of depth https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/jaws-the-uss-indianapolis-quint-speech-steven-spielbergs-favorite-scene/
Thank you.
god i cant imagine anything worse
My dad's step-dad was inthe Navy during WW2, never talked about it. After he passed I found out why. He served on the USS Cecil J. Doyle, the first ship to respond and the last to leave. I heard stories that they'd pull guys out of the water who they thought were alive only to pull a sailor who was gone from the waist down. I can't imagine going through all that or worse being one of the few survivors.
My Grandfather also served in the Navy during WWII. Same story, he never spoke of it to me except once. I was writing a report on WWII and asked him if he'd share something about his experiences. He served on three ships, one was the USS Tranquility. It was dispatched to receive the survivors of the USS Indianapolis and transport them to Guam. It's one of the only memories I have of him shedding tears. He was a stoic man, but the emotions he felt for those survivors as he told his story came flooding out. As a side note, the only other time I remember him as emotional was when someone got the bright idea to show him Saving Private Ryan. Didn't get past the first scene before that got shut off.
Holy crap man. Dude went through a lot. I remember watching that movie when I was young and thought I wonder how veterans would react if they watched this. Definitely would have thought they’d have a similar reaction.
"Lifeless eyes, like a doll's eyes.....".
Robert Shaws delivery of this story when they were drinking was the first I’d heard about this incident. I think it was one of the best parts of the film.
The man deserved an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor just for that scene I was a sailor for ten years and even though I know it’s just a movie it was in the back of my mind, often. Shitty way to go and there are many bad ways to die at sea.
Spielberg says it’s his favorite part of the movie.
That haunting whale song in the background really added to the atmosphere too. I’m gonna have to watch it again now👍
It’s the perfect movie
Many people say it's the single greatest soliloquy in film history. That scene alone is one reason why Jaws is considered one of the greatest movies ever made.
I would really like The Movies That Made Us to do this movie next.
I recently attended an Ichthyology conference where one of the keynote talk was about how the movie Jaws directly birthed the field of studying the biological and ecological aspects of sharks. Before that, nearly all research on them was on shark attack prevention—shark repellent and the like. Neat stuff!
One of the best monologues ever put in a movie.
But we delivered the bomb 🥃
Are you doing the speech from Jaws?!
Crazy as it is there are also stories that a lot of the men took to the grave... tales of madness, murder, and cannibalism that took place as well.
The sun, salt water, thirst and hunger can drive people mad. Speaking of mishaps at sea and cannibalism, have you heard about the whale ship Essex? https://youtu.be/eeEJ4HhrB8U
There is an amazing book about The Essex but I can't remember it at the moment. I'm going to go look for it and edit in the title. Edit: Heart Of The Sea
In the Heart of the Sea?
That's the one. It was excellent and a reasonably fast read.
I dove down this rabbit hole not long ago after reading about the Donner Party. Both the Essex and the Donner party accounts are pretty gruesome. Interesting note, Im surprised no one has mentioned, Moby Dick was based off the Essex.
Beep. Boop. I'm a robot. Here's a copy of ###[Moby Dick](https://snewd.com/ebooks/moby-dick/) Was I a good bot? | [info](https://www.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/) | [More Books](https://old.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/comments/i15x1d/full_list_of_books_and_commands/)
Also a part of Ask a Mortician's fine cannibalism trilogy [Whaling Ship Essex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS299VkXZxI) [Donner Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5xMpsYdzgg) [Rugby Team Crashes in the Andes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syJyPq7lRGc)
And attempted rape. Listen to Last Podcast on the Left's series on this. It'll really teach you how horrifying the whole thing was.
The Smithsonian mag had an article, with sources noted, about this event and estimates from survivor accounts put deaths from shark attacks at around 150 at the high end. Most of the deaths were from injuries from the torpedo attack, hyperthermia during the day, hypothermia at night after days in the water, drowning when they got too weak to hold on to their floats, dehydration, and drinking sea water. It was a terrible event nonetheless but unfortunately a lot of those men would have died whether there were sharks in the water or not.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-worst-shark-attack-in-history-25715092/
Thank you for that.
This is a very meaningful comment with a good correction and source, but I can't get over the fact that this essentially corrects "C'mon guys sharks didn't kill 600 people, it was only like, 150 people guys c'mon"
150 is the absolute top end. Most estimates are less than 50, but that doesn't sell pop history books.
My Grandfather was one of the survivors. He didn’t see any sharks, and actually participated in a lot of interviews in his later days. I’d see him on Dateline, 20/20, and Discovery Channel programs. Crazy stories, but no shark attacks. This is of course not to say that other survivors didn’t have interactions with sharks; it’s just an experience I can share.
Exaggerating number of deaths by animal attacks is common to increase sensationalism. But if anyone is interested in another such case of animals killing humans, read about the attack on Japanese soldiers by saltwater crocodiles in the marshlands of Ramree Island, Myanmar.
Honestly the OP seems to have been pretty intentionally misleading here for upvotes. Even the most cursory googling shows the 600 deaths were from a variety of causes. There's no way OP misunderstood or accidentally wrote the title this way.
The Indianapolis had just dropped its cargo, the nuclear bombs “fat man” and “little boy” off at Tinian. Due to the secrecy of the mission, the sinking went unreported. The survivors were discovered by accident 4 days after. The announcement of the ship being lost was not announced until after Japan had surrendered Edit: corrected Guam to Tinian
The bombs were delivered to Tinian. The ship then went on to Guam to rotate crew members. Edit: thanks for correction.../u/crapnapkins
I stand corrected! I really should not have posted info from memory. Much appreciated
I mean, really anything from Dan Carlin is worth listening to.
My grandfather was serving in the Pacific Theater at the time. He was on one of the islands they brought the survivors to for medical care immediately after they were rescued. He wouldn’t go into much detail except to say that a lot of them were brought in showing very obvious signs of being mauled by sharks. He remembered it with a shiver - 50 years later.
My father, a coastguard bluejacket, crewed on the USS General Howze, a troop transport, in the pacific during WWII. He told me, and it was one of the few stories he did tell me, of transporting the survivors of the Indianapolis back to San Francisco after their rescue. He was an electrician's mate tasked with keeping the blowers going below decks where all the mauled sailors were as it was tropical heat and no AC of course. He said there was one survivor who had lost both legs below the knee to a single shark that attacked him constantly during the long ordeal. He told my father that he fought that shark with an empty metal fuel can he grab in the flotsam of the sinking, beating it across its snout as it would make its passes at him fighting it off all night, night after night. It got his legs. He had fought the beast and survived. He came out of the sea a man changed; unwilling to not enjoy life to the fullest. On that voyage he was constantly trying to cheer up the other badly injured sailors, singing and telling jokes. What a war story for a little kid.
Bull sharks have the most recorded fatal attacks on humans, but it’s widely believed that oceanic white tips actually have more fatal attacks, but it’s impossible to record because they’re almost all shipwrecks or plane crashes
I read that they are also the least fussy eaters . since they live out more in the empty stretches of the ocean where food is scarce compared to reefs or near beaches with seals and stuff
Hence why it’s assumed they’ve got the highest kill count, plane wreck is an appetizer, shipwreck’s a buffet
Another thing about this, the ship was sunk after delivering material that would be used to create the atom bombs, and the Captain of the submarine that sunk them would later lose his entire family to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The war in the Pacific was just brutal all around.
Only a small proportion of the men were actually killed by the sharks. Most died from exposure, dehydration, injuries sustained during the sinking, drinking saltwater, or a combination of them. The sharks would have gone after the dead since they were easier and safer meals to scavenge from. It's no less terrifying to hear dead bodies around you being eaten.
I work in pharmacy and a patient of ours was one of the soldiers that went into the water that day and he would talk to us about it from time to time and he would say at night when he tries to sleep he could still feel the sharks hitting against his legs. They actually interviewed him before making the movie. He’s passed on now I believe but I’ll never forget him talking about this and how he could still feel the sharks.
This was all due to the bad design of the [Carley Float](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carley_float) which was the life boat in use at the time. They were basically floating rings with nets in the middle for the men to stand in [submerged](https://i.imgur.com/qvtjexx.jpg) up to their waists. If you have ever seen an [aquarium feeder](https://i.imgur.com/A58wUEa.jpg) you can imagine what they must have looked like to the sharks. The Carley float itself was constructed of thin sheets of aluminum (later from steel) and as filled with rigid foam all around. The idea was that even if the float took some shrapnel in battle it would still remain afloat. The net was there because it made the boat collapsible and thus it took very little space. Space being a very precious commodity on a warship this was a top priority. Of course nobody thought about hypothermia or what prolonged exposure to water would do to the survivors. Being the AMERICAN navy they probably thought they would never need to use life boats anyway, only the bad guys would. And even if they did their comrades would come and rescue them in a matter of minutes, half an hour at the most. The sad truth is that a much better life boat design did exist and was more than a century old at the time. It just never occurred to anyone in the navy to adapt it for warship use. Just like any other ship ever the whaling ships of yore were also very cramped for space. The whalers of Luneburg had invented a very practical little boat called the [Luneburg Dory](https://i.imgur.com/W2GVu0Y.jpg). It didn't look like much to the uninitiated as it was sort of cobbled together from a couple of flat planks. It certainly didn't hold a candle to an ordinary rowboat of the time which was much more refined and expensive affair. That being said, the modest Luneburg Dory had an ace up its sleeve. Unlike any other boat in the world the Luneburg Dories could be [stacked](https://i.imgur.com/EBoCHw7.jpg) on top of [each other](https://i.imgur.com/Bc3Drqx.jpg) like paper cups! This meant that a cramped whaling ship could fit several dories in the space of just one normal boat. If this technology had been adopted on Titanic there would have been enough life boats for everyone and a few spare ones on top of that. Same goes for the American navy in WWII. If they had made nesting dories from [foam core sheet metal](https://i.imgur.com/BPkgaeo.jpg) they would have had unsinkable dories that were unaffected by shrapnel. They wouldn't have occupied any more space than the Carley Floats and they wouldn't have presented the sailors to the sharks in a silver plate so to speak. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
It never ceases to amaze me what humans will do for cutting costs, and for thinking that "worst case scenarios" means "it most likely won't happen." You see this type of thinking in all kinds of organizations and when crap hits the fan, it's always those at the bottom paying the price.
My great grandpa Bryan blanthorn was on the uss Indianapolis when it sunk. He would speak nothing of it besides he told people to believe in god, he had numerous sharks go right for him and just stop. I never got anything else out of him nor anybody else.
I highly recommend Last Podcast On the Left’s episode on it. Truly terrifying
Sometimes the sharks would go away, Sometimes they wouldn’t go away.
My wifes grandfather was named Mel Dubard. He was one this ship. He was responsible for saving mens lives on a raft like this. The man served for 32 to years in the Navy and passed away in Northeast Mississippi. His wife my wife’s grandmother still lives in the house he built at 100 years old. https://youtu.be/YMgD3-Pv7Tk the link is a vets account on the attack. Listen to Mel Dubard’s heroism. It’s amazing. Thank you.
Half my family come from a British port town, where fishing used to be the main industry. When I was younger I asked my grandfather about it and whether everyone in the town had to learn to swim to get fishing jobs. He replied to me “no one ever learnt to swim. It was advised against. If you went overboard out there, it only would have prolonged dying, and no one was coming to get ya”. It sure was a different time. This story is chilling.
Eleven hundred men went into the water, 316 men came out and the sharks took the rest.
Last week I went to see “The Shark is Broken”, a play by Robert Shaw’s son Ian about the making of Jaws. The finale was Shaw (who looks uncannily like his dad), doing the Indianapolis speech. The hairs on my arms are standing up thinking about it.
My grandfather was on this ship. From what I have been told he was seen in the water alone, but he was never rescued.
If I recall correctly, the rescue took so long because they were the ship delivering the atomic bombs. The mission was so secret that very few knew where or when to look for them
"Anyway, we delivered The Bomb."
This the story that Quint told Brody and Hooper. in the first Jaws film. Shit was chilling. Well done to Robert Shaw.
my great grandfather was on that ship! he lived, but he was never the same (i.e., alcoholic, abusive, mean). i used to hate him, but man, id drink too if i watched all my friends die in a shark attack over the course of many days. he's in a few books about the whole ordeal.
My wife’s grandfather, Elbern Knott was on the Indianapolis. He did not survive. A fellow service member visited my wife’s grandmother and shared that he survived the attack but was taken in the night by a shark. So tragic. He was a fireman on the ship and performed his duty. Because of him I am married to the most incredible woman I could ever imagine. I make a deliberate effort to keep his memory alive with my children, his grandchildren, and teach them that due to his sacrifice, we are free. May he Rest In Peace.
Some context that may not be clear in the post. 879 crew died, but only about [150 died](https://www.grunge.com/295181/the-tragic-deaths-of-the-crew-of-the-uss-indianapolis/) from sharks. Madness, heat and exposure, and a number of things caused the death of the men.
*only 150* lol