'And the sharks took the rest ...'

At 11 p.m. on this day in 1945, Japanese submarine I-58 surfaced into a calm Pacific night, some 250 miles north of Palau. A deck officer soon spotted an approaching ship. She was making 12 knots and not zigzagging. The sub skipper mistook her for an American battleship. But it was actually the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis. She was bound for San Francisco after delivering parts and enriched uranium to Tinian for Little Boy, the Hiroshima atomic bomb. She was alone in the blackness. At 11:23 p.m., the sub fired a rapid spread of six torpedoes. Three hit the Indianapolis' starboard side. She sunk in 12 minutes, killing 300. The rest, nearly 900 sailors, went into the water. The sub loitered, confirmed its kill, then stole away into the deeps. But for the surviving crew of the Indianapolis, the nightmare had only just begun.

In the movie Jaws, Sam Quint (Robert Shaw) describes what happened after the sinking. It's based on historical fact. I've posted Shaw's monologue before. But since it’s a great piece of storytelling, I'm re-posting it today on the 66th anniversary of the tragedy. It's well worth a read.

Hooper: [surprised] You were on the Indianapolis?

Brody: What happened?

Quint: [low voice] Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... 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 an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been 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', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. 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'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all 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, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper.

Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts 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 in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

The Indianapolis (CA-35) was last major U.S. Navy ship sunk by enemy action in World War II, per Wikipedia. Of the 1,196 sailors aboard, about 300 died in the sinking, 880 went into the ocean, and 316 ultimately survived to tell the tale. The survivors would remain in the water for nearly four days. Grievous injuries, exposure, dehydration, delirium-driven suicide, and shark attacks "took the rest," some 564 men. And I too will ponder the wisdom of putting on a lifejacket again.