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.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Плейлист
Morbid
When Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, the media called it a senseless crime. But online, a different story emerged—one of rage, reckoning, and a suspected killer turned fol...
On the night of August 14, 1985, twenty-year-old Kristin O’Connell left a party in Ovid, NY to go for a walk. Two days later, her nude body was discovered near a cornfield along a rural county road; s...
Weirdos! Today we just wanted to be ourselves- and enjoy some Listener tales that are brought TO you, BY you, FOR you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you! Throw on a comfy sweatshirt and join use as we ta...
January 15, 1919 was an unusually warm day in Boston, a welcome change from the typically cold temperatures Bostonians had experienced in the previous days. A little after 12:30 pm, the residents of t...
On December 18, 1994, twenty-seven-year-old Alison Botha was abducted from the parking lot of her apartment in Port Elizabeth by two men she didn’t know and had never seen. After forcing her into her...
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...
Spooky Lakes time, everyone! Alaina brings us to Big Moose lake in New York State and shares the tragic story of Grace Brown’s murder. Grace’s ghost has been seen many times at the lake since she was...
When Jean Harris met Herman Tarnower in the winter of 1966, she quickly fell in love the charming doctor. Having just come out of a disappointing twenty-year marriage, Harris was desperate to find the...
Join us for a special bonus episode with Tobias Forge, the man behind the mythos that is The Band Ghost. Hear exclusive news about their latest album, the process behind the music and some you heard i...
When Jean Harris met Herman Tarnower in the winter of 1966, she quickly fell in love the charming doctor. Having just come out of a disappointing twenty-year marriage, Harris was desperate to find the...
Weirdos! Today we've got a special guest -Andrew McMahon of 'Something Corporate', 'Jack's Mannequin', and 'Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness'. In addition to heating about his journey as an artist, Al...
Weirdos! Grab your sleepingbag, bags of snacks, and facemasks, and get ready for a slumber party! This month, we're giving you a fresh batch of listener tales brought TO you, BY you, FOR you, FROM you...
You know those messages that you get all the time, the ones that pop up out of nowhere? They could be real, but something about them seems fishy. You likely dismiss these texts and emails as mere anno...
On the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman walking with her young daughter spotted something pale and white lying in the weeds of a vacant lot. When the woman walked closer to get a better look, she...
On the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman walking with her young daughter spotted something pale and white lying in the weeds of a vacant lot. When the woman walked closer to get a better look, she...
On the afternoon of August 7, 1972, sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma left her house in Springfield, NJ and was never seen alive again. Six weeks later, Jeannette’s remains were discovered when a nei...
Two decades before the Lindbergh baby became America’s most famous missing child, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, went missing in Opelousas, Louisiana, setting in motion one of the strangest kidnapping st...
Today we are joined by Emmy award winning film directors, Chapman & Maclain Way to discuss the wild story behind their Netflix Documentary "The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga". This documentar...
After his arrest, investigators would learn that, by the time he appeared on the game show, he was also a killer. In the year that followed, Alcala would go on to murder several other women until he w...
At the time of his appearance on The Dating Game in 1978, Alcala was a convicted sexual predator who had served time for sexual assault and had only avoided a charge of attempted murder on a technical...
Weirdos! We're giving you a fresh batch of listener tales brought TO you, BY you, FOR you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you!Today we have ghostly peaches, possessed dogs (question mark?), dolls in a wal...
When Cheryl Bradshaw appeared on the popular game show The Dating Game in 1978, she was charmed by bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala, and by the end of the episode, she’d chosen him to take her on a...
On December 1, 1994, nineteen-year-old Melissa Witt planned to meet her mother at a Fort Smith, Arkansas bowling alley, but by all appearances, she only made it as far as the parking lot. Two days lat...
On October 13, 1972, a chartered aircraft carrying forty-five passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians’ Club rugby team, departed from Montevideo, Uruguay bound for Santiago, Chile. Abou...
In the winter of 1924, the boroughs of New York City were plagued by a series of robberies ostensibly committed by a young couple. This was not the first time a woman had been involved in armed robber...
In February 1942, Gordon Cummins, a twenty-eight-year-old Royal Air Force Serviceman, murdered four women and attempted to murder two others over a six-day period in London, leading the press to dub h...
In response to the onset of German bombing raids during World War II, many of England’s most vulnerable citizens evacuated or were temporarily evacuated out of urban areas to safer, more rural parts o...
On January 12, 1983, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department received a call from a frantic driver who reported they’d just witnessed a shooting on the side of the side of the road in Fulton, Californi...
Happy New Year, weirdos, and we're celebrating the holidays with Holiday tales brought TO you, BY you, For you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you!Today we have boogens, a Hanukkah haunting, horrible Four...
When a girl walking on a Provincetown, Massachusetts beach discovered the decomposing body of a young woman in the summer of 1974, it began an investigation into what would become one of the most noto...