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USS Indianapolis, July 10th, 1945


It’s been eight decades since the sinking of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis and the devastating subsequent loss of 879 sailors and marines onboard in the worst loss of life suffered by a single vessel at sea in United States naval history. 


The ship had departed San Francisco under the command of Captain Charles Butler McVay III on July 16th, just hours after the successful Trinity Test in which the first atomic bomb was tested at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and carried aboard her the components of a second device - this to be the “Little Boy” bomb eventually dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th. 


After a speed record breaking but otherwise uneventful voyage to Pearl Harbor, Indianapolis docked briefly before sailing onward to the Pacific island of Tinian, her top secret cargo successfully offloaded there on the afternoon of July 26th. 


From the island she moved on to Guam, where the cruiser switched out a number of her crewmen in preparation for her eventual transfer to a supporting position off the coast of Okinawa as a member of Task Force 95. 


She left Guam the next day for Leyte in the Philippines, where she was due to arrive on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 31st, 1945.


Instead, shortly after midnight on July 30th, Indianapolis was spotted by the Japanese B3 cruiser submarine I-58 under the command of Captain Mochitsura Hashimoto, who fired two torpedoes into the Indy’s starboard side at 12.15 AM. 


The resulting explosions were catastrophic, tearing off the ship’s bow entirely and immediately sending her into a severe list as her power failed and fires broke out all over the vessel. 


Twelve minutes later, the stern of the Indianapolis upended and disappeared beneath the surface, carrying an estimated 300 of the 1,195 men aboard down to the bottom with her. 


Following the chaotic evacuation, roughly 900 surviving sailors and marines were then faced with the true beginning of their nightmare at sea.


For three and a half days, those who had survived the destruction of their ship drifted in the open ocean, plagued by thirst and stalked by hundreds of of sharks which had congregated around the flotilla of rafts and debris. 


The oil soaked, injured men baked under a scalding equatorial sun by day and did their best to avoid shark attacks and hypothermia by night, though hundreds succumbed to both over the course of their time adrift.


Madness and hallucinations set in within hours. A few of the men were even reported to have eventually given in to their temptations and tried drinking seawater to sate their thirst, an action which inevitably resulted in their faster deaths. 


By the fourth day, an estimated 600 more had perished. 


Late in the morning on August 2nd, a PV-1 Ventura piloted by Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn and a PBY-2 Catalina flown by William Kitchen simultaneously spotted an oil slick on the ocean’s surface during a routine patrol and flew lower to identify the source, immediately observing men and rafts in the water being closely followed by sharks. 


Shortly thereafter, an amphibious PBY-5 flown by pilot Robert Adrian Marks became the first to reach the survivors, with 56 men scrambling aboard the plane to apparent safety. 


Marks could not take off with so many aboard, and so waited with the men until nightfall when they were joined by destroyer escort USS Cecil J. Doyle, at which time the rescue of the survivors began in earnest. 


After nearly four days adrift, only 316 remained alive. 


In memory today of all 1,195 men of the last voyage of the USS Indianapolis, July 30th, 1945. May they all now rest in peace.



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