Speaker 1: The Jesse Kelly Show. Let's have some fun on a Monday,
Speaker 1: a Memorial Day. Yes it is me. I am back. Yes,
Speaker 1: I missed you terribly, And let me just go ahead
Speaker 1: and set the table for tonight, which you probably already
Speaker 1: know what that's going to be, tomorrow, everything else. So
Speaker 1: I know I've been gone. I know it's been two weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm fine, I'm healthy. I was just on vacation. I
Speaker 1: am sorry you worried. I was not trying to worry you.
Speaker 1: I'll try to make sure I don't worry you next
Speaker 1: time it happens. But I'm back, I'm happy, I'm healthy.
Speaker 1: All is good now Tonight it's today's Memorial Day. Today
Speaker 1: is a day exclusively to honor the fallen, not veterans,
Speaker 1: by the way. It's not about anybody was to all
Speaker 1: who served and police and firefed. No, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: that's not today. Today is exclusively for the people who
Speaker 1: gave their lives in service to their country and the
Speaker 1: families they left behind. That is what today is about.
Speaker 1: It is Memorial Day and the people who gave their
Speaker 1: lives for this country, they deserve to have a day
Speaker 1: that is unwatered down by watered down, I mean the
Speaker 1: thing people do and I get it. It's done out
Speaker 1: of politeness and respect. Honor all the fallen and veterans
Speaker 1: and my aunt and the fire. No, no, no, nope,
Speaker 1: that's not today. Today's for the fallen. Every year, as
Speaker 1: you know, if you listen to this show every year
Speaker 1: on Memorial Day, I know it's a day people usually
Speaker 1: take off. We have never taken it off, and unless
Speaker 1: I am sick or something happens, we will never take
Speaker 1: today off. I believe it is important to honor the
Speaker 1: fallen for three hours on Memorial Day, and that is
Speaker 1: what we are going to do tonight. We are going
Speaker 1: to talk. It's going to be all kinds of battle
Speaker 1: history stuff, if that's what you're into, but we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the circumstances where people gave their lives
Speaker 1: for this country. And we are all over the map.
Speaker 1: There's the USS Indianapolis stuff of Korean War, Vietnam, we're
Speaker 1: the Philippine American War. I'll probably start out there. There
Speaker 1: are medal of honor, stories and citations I will read
Speaker 1: what We're going to be all over the map talking
Speaker 1: about the circumstances in which men gave their lives for
Speaker 1: this country as away the best we can do to
Speaker 1: honor those men, and that is all tonight is going
Speaker 1: to be. It's going to be all history and honoring
Speaker 1: the fallen. That's it. There's no politics. I won't even
Speaker 1: really goof off that. Look I want to goof off,
Speaker 1: I've missed you. I won't even do that. Tonight is
Speaker 1: exclusively honoring the fallen. Tomorrow we will get back to
Speaker 1: our regularly scheduled programming. Tomorrow we'll get back into politics
Speaker 1: and goofing off. And yes, I know there's been a
Speaker 1: thousand news stories since I've been gone, and I'll try
Speaker 1: to hit on this and hit on that. I got
Speaker 1: all your emails. Will deal with all that tomorrow. That's
Speaker 1: not tonight. So let's talk what hits me when I
Speaker 1: think about the fallen, or a couple things. One the
Speaker 1: circum stances in which they died. And here's what I
Speaker 1: mean by that. Maybe you have had a loved one,
Speaker 1: Maybe you're going through this right now. Who is reached
Speaker 1: an elevated age, I'll put it that way. They've reached
Speaker 1: old age. Maybe their health's failing them. Happens to everybody, body,
Speaker 1: doesn't last forever, and maybe maybe they are living out
Speaker 1: their final days right now in relative comfort as they
Speaker 1: prepare to pass this life. I've told you before, my grandpa,
Speaker 1: my Grandpa Hank, that's how he passed, lived into his
Speaker 1: nineties and look, couldn't be more blessed, lived out his
Speaker 1: final days surrounded by the children who loved him in
Speaker 1: prayer and love. And yeah, he died. That sucks, but
Speaker 1: that's wonderful, right, These stories of the people who've given
Speaker 1: their lives for their country. They were in misery to
Speaker 1: be in combat in general, whatever form that takes. I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about air crews, people shipwrecked, with all kinds
Speaker 1: of things, whatever form it takes. It's not pleasant. It's
Speaker 1: not comfortable. It's cold, hot, painful, exhausted, sad, angry. That's
Speaker 1: how they lived out their final days before they passed.
Speaker 1: And I think about that a lot. It's not a
Speaker 1: not a happy send off, if you will. There's another
Speaker 1: part of it I think about, and this is a
Speaker 1: big part of it, and this one we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: What they gave up. You know, I'm not an old
Speaker 1: man yet, but I'm getting there, forty four years old,
Speaker 1: and so what does that mean. It means I've experienced
Speaker 1: life as a child, as a teenager, my twenties, my thirties.
Speaker 1: Now I'm mid forties and forty four. I know what
Speaker 1: it's like now to have children, raise them, watch them
Speaker 1: go up, grow up, get married. I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to experience life after eighteen nineteen years old. There
Speaker 1: is so much life that happens after eighteen or nineteen
Speaker 1: years old. And yes, there's all kinds of pain and
Speaker 1: sorrow and hardship that comes with it, but there's so
Speaker 1: much joy too. So many wonderful things come with life
Speaker 1: as you continue to age, and I'm sure I will
Speaker 1: experience more wonderful things and terrible things. That's how it goes.
Speaker 1: But these men who died, and some women obviously, But
Speaker 1: these men who died, they're eighteen seventeen nineteen. And yes,
Speaker 1: obviously some are a little older than that, but in
Speaker 1: general they're twenty years old. They lived until eighteen nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: They died, and they never got married. They never had kids,
Speaker 1: No tee ball games, no lunch with the family after
Speaker 1: church on Sunday, Christmas mornings, all gone. They gave all
Speaker 1: that up in service to you and service to me,
Speaker 1: in service to this wonderful country we live in. And
Speaker 1: it is a wonderful country, isn't it. By the way,
Speaker 1: I was in Japan for the last two weeks. I
Speaker 1: had told you before that I had a World War
Speaker 1: II trip. I think I told you this set up
Speaker 1: for Japan, where I was going to go bounce around Japan, Togo, Okinawa,
Speaker 1: whatnot on see World War two sites and museums and
Speaker 1: just nerd out on some World War two stuff, right
Speaker 1: And look, I'll get into it more tomorrow. That's not
Speaker 1: important for tonight. But I really, you know, I love Japan.
Speaker 1: I love Japanese people. I think it's a cool culture. Really,
Speaker 1: I really enjoy it. I was just telling Jewish producer
Speaker 1: Chris and producer Corey before the show started. Great trip,
Speaker 1: I love it. I'd go back so clean and safe
Speaker 1: and one. If I don't have a bad word to
Speaker 1: say about Japan, I don't have one. I'll probably come
Speaker 1: up with some, but I'm a big fan. It's not America.
Speaker 1: By the end of it, I was ready to see
Speaker 1: America again. You don't truly appreciate how blessed you are
Speaker 1: to live in this country and be in this country
Speaker 1: until you have spent any amount of time in other countries,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be some third world dump.
Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't have to be Iraq. If you
Speaker 1: go to even other first world countries and you've lived
Speaker 1: your life in America, you will miss the United States.
Speaker 1: We live in a wonderful, wonderful country that I get
Speaker 1: homesick for when I leave it. And we live in
Speaker 1: that country because eighteen year old men gave up their
Speaker 1: lives for it and still do to this day. To
Speaker 1: this day, you know, we've had recent combat deaths with
Speaker 1: this Iran stuff and everything else. To this day, there
Speaker 1: are eighteen year old men and women out there risking
Speaker 1: their lives and giving up their lives so you and
Speaker 1: me can enjoy the greatest country on Earth. I hope
Speaker 1: you have had or are going to have a hot
Speaker 1: dog today and enjoy yourself and your family. There's not
Speaker 1: a thing in the world wrong with that. The people
Speaker 1: who gave up their lives would want you to to
Speaker 1: take a minute and remember. We are going to remember
Speaker 1: in a moment. In fact, we'll talk about a little
Speaker 1: known conflict. We've discussed it before on the show. Next
Speaker 1: we'll touch on a little bit of the Philippine American War.
Speaker 1: Hang on, it is the Jesse Kelly Show on a
Speaker 1: Magnificent Monday, a Medal of Honor Monday, where we are
Speaker 1: going to talk battle history, war history, honor the fallen
Speaker 1: on tonight's show. We have all kinds of different things
Speaker 1: different Look, we even got emails like this, Jesse, please
Speaker 1: keep my cousin in mind this Memorial Day Jeffrey Alfred Phillips.
Speaker 1: He was a Lance corporal from South Carolina. He died
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. Today is a day to honor people like that.
Speaker 1: So Spain at one point in time, it's absurd the
Speaker 1: amount of territory in this world Spain controlled. It really
Speaker 1: is wild. If you ever look up a map of
Speaker 1: Spain at the height of its empire, man, it looks
Speaker 1: like they had half the globe and they don't get
Speaker 1: great pub for it. You know, the sun never sets
Speaker 1: on the British Empire. No one ever talks about the
Speaker 1: Spanish Empire. They had it all and then, for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, their empires started to contract. They got
Speaker 1: to a point when they controlled for our purposes here
Speaker 1: they controlled Cuba. Still, that was a Spanish colony and
Speaker 1: they controlled the Philippines. We were having our issues with
Speaker 1: Spain and we decided we were going to kick off
Speaker 1: war with Spain. There are all kinds of Look, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of controversy about the exact circumstances where that
Speaker 1: war kicked off, but doesn't matter. Spanish American war kicks off.
Speaker 1: We might as well touch on this because men are
Speaker 1: down there dying. We have to send men down into Cuba.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to touch on something and it may
Speaker 1: sound stupid and ridiculous, but it's going to come up
Speaker 1: several times tonight, and I'm bringing it up because it's true. Weather.
Speaker 1: The weather. Do you know why old men talk about
Speaker 1: the weather? You know that stereotype, old men get together,
Speaker 1: see the weather. Weather's going to be bad, Weather's great today. Weather.
Speaker 1: But do you know why old men talk about the weather.
Speaker 1: It's not because they're boring, and it's not because there
Speaker 1: aren't other things to talk about. Old men talk about
Speaker 1: the weather because when you live long enough, the wisdom
Speaker 1: you gain lets you know that weather is really, really,
Speaker 1: really important for your general happiness in any given day.
Speaker 1: It just really is. When it is seventy four degrees
Speaker 1: little breeze outside. It's just pleasant to be out there.
Speaker 1: I live in Houston, Texas. Right now, it's eighty nine
Speaker 1: degrees today with one hundred and sixty five percent humidity.
Speaker 1: I didn't verify that, but that's what it feels like.
Speaker 1: If you're outside for fifteen seconds, you were hot and
Speaker 1: sticky and sweating and miserable. Now, when we talk about
Speaker 1: especially early wars, but keep in mind, our troops are
Speaker 1: going through this right now over in Iran and things
Speaker 1: like that. One thing we don't think about is the heat.
Speaker 1: In misery, I mentioned that I was in Japan over
Speaker 1: the last two weeks. At one point in time, I
Speaker 1: was in Okinawa. We finished it in Okinawa. We wanted
Speaker 1: to go see battle sites in Okinawa, you know Hacksaw Ridge.
Speaker 1: I was standing on Hacksaw Ridge a few days ago
Speaker 1: that things like that, Well, it's not even the height
Speaker 1: of summer, the heat of the summer. Right now in Okinawa.
Speaker 1: It's hot, but not the heat of the summer. I
Speaker 1: want to say. It was eighty six degrees eighty seven degrees,
Speaker 1: ninety percent in humidity. I was drenched with sweat by
Speaker 1: the time I got off of Hacksaw Ridge. Drenched with sweat, drenched.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in civilian clothes, short sleeve shirt, got all
Speaker 1: the shade, nice cool water bottle. What's that like? Carrying
Speaker 1: a full combat load, and at the end of it,
Speaker 1: you don't go back and sit on an air conditioned
Speaker 1: bus and cruise back to the hotel where you can
Speaker 1: get a quick shower before eating some noodles and beef.
Speaker 1: At the end of it, if you didn't die that day,
Speaker 1: you will go back to your fighting hole and sit
Speaker 1: in your sweat in misery, and you'll get up the
Speaker 1: next day and do it again, and then do it again,
Speaker 1: and then do it again, and you're so gross the
Speaker 1: flies don't want anything to do with you. The Spanish
Speaker 1: American War was fought in Cuba. Cuba's in the tropics,
Speaker 1: and guess what, they didn't have air conditioning. We sent
Speaker 1: our troops down there, and they came patriotic American troops
Speaker 1: came from all over the country, and they went down
Speaker 1: there and fought in a tropical island they'd never been
Speaker 1: to before and would probably never return to. And we
Speaker 1: fought to get the Spanish out of that place. And
Speaker 1: it was hot and miserable, and people were getting dysentery
Speaker 1: and people are getting shot, and it's just a miserable
Speaker 1: state of affairs. We're charging up hills and men are
Speaker 1: dying in this foreign place, hot, sweaty, miserable, with no
Speaker 1: end insight. Now, thankfully, by the grace of God, the
Speaker 1: United States of America prevailed in the Spanish American War.
Speaker 1: And after we prevailed in that war, we got the
Speaker 1: spoils of war, and two big spoils we got from
Speaker 1: that were Cuba. We got control of Cuba, so that
Speaker 1: dirty Comi Castro took it over. But we got control
Speaker 1: of Cuba, and we got control of the Philippines. But
Speaker 1: that may have been great news for America, the Filipino
Speaker 1: people did not consider the news to be quite as good.
Speaker 1: You see, they had been colonized by the Spanish, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't that pleasant. Spanish were famous for not being
Speaker 1: the most pleasant colonizers in the world. You know, some
Speaker 1: people do it really mean, some people do it really nice.
Speaker 1: Spanish were not the nicest ones, and the Filipinos thought
Speaker 1: they were going to have their own independent country, and
Speaker 1: we had to inform them that, ah, not so much.
Speaker 1: But now we had to go over to that hot humid,
Speaker 1: visible place and fight hang on. It is the Jesse
Speaker 1: Kelly Show. On a wonderful Memorial Day, as we honor
Speaker 1: the fallen here, let's talk very briefly because we have
Speaker 1: many other battles and things we want to discuss about
Speaker 1: the Philippine American War. Did you know over four thousand
Speaker 1: Americans lost their lives in the Philippine American War. Did
Speaker 1: you know that only roughly These are rough numbers. Roughly
Speaker 1: a thousand of those were combat deaths, shot, stab, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Remember, I just brought up the weather
Speaker 1: and misery. Over three thousand Americans in the Philippine American
Speaker 1: War died from things like malaria, coolera. You ever seen
Speaker 1: or read about somebody dying from malaria. They'd take getting
Speaker 1: shot any day of the week over dying from malaria.
Speaker 1: But American troops got on ships and they cruised across
Speaker 1: the oceans and went into a dark, jungle tropical place
Speaker 1: like the Philippines, and they started fighting the Filipino rebels.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll call them rebels now yours. How it
Speaker 1: went one of these miserable things we find ourselves in
Speaker 1: because we are such a strong nation with a strong military.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful. You want to be a strong nation with
Speaker 1: a strong military. But the problem is, whenever you are
Speaker 1: a militarily superior to your opponent, and you are clearly
Speaker 1: militarily superior, if he doesn't give up, if that's not
Speaker 1: in the cards quite yet, then what he will do
Speaker 1: if he can't fight you conventionally is he will simply
Speaker 1: change and start fighting you unconventionally. Again. We run into
Speaker 1: this everywhere, Vietnam, in Afghanistan, you name it, over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. We have run into this. Pinos
Speaker 1: tried to square off with the Americans when we wouldn't
Speaker 1: just hand them their island back. They said, no, we'll
Speaker 1: fight you for it. And then they found out, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, these guys are really great fighters with big guns,
Speaker 1: lots of them, endless ammunition, and we're just all going
Speaker 1: to die if we continue to fight. So they decided
Speaker 1: to do it differently, and they decided to fight a
Speaker 1: gorilla war. Gorilla war's no fun for anybody, but man alive.
Speaker 1: The stories you read about the men suffering in a
Speaker 1: gorilla war, it's brutal. What's it look like, Well, you're
Speaker 1: dying to square off with the enemy. You're a young,
Speaker 1: ambitious man full of testosterone. You signed up to pick
Speaker 1: up a weapon and let's exchange some gunfire out on
Speaker 1: the battlefield. You know what, you didn't sign up for
Speaker 1: three rebels jumping on you in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night while you're standing post and cutting your guts out
Speaker 1: in eating them to you. That's what you didn't sign
Speaker 1: up for. This Philippine American War most people don't know about,
Speaker 1: had things wonderful, things like Americans getting buried up to
Speaker 1: their neck in the ground if they were captured, having
Speaker 1: their mouths propped open with a wooden stick, and then
Speaker 1: fire ants being led into their mouths to eat them
Speaker 1: from the inside out. Did you know these stories? It's terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible jungle war. There's a story here, the siege of
Speaker 1: Kataboo Cadoo Big. I don't know how you say that.
Speaker 1: Whatever what happened there, American troops were going to a
Speaker 1: Filipino town. American troops thought we should be safe. We
Speaker 1: have numbers. The gorillas found out they were coming, had
Speaker 1: them heavily outnumbered and laid siege to these troops. These
Speaker 1: troops were hidden in it not hidden. They were inside
Speaker 1: of a church and the Filipinos start trying to burn
Speaker 1: the church down. The Americans are running out of things,
Speaker 1: running out of food, running out of ammunition. They know
Speaker 1: they can't survive if they stay in the church, so
Speaker 1: they have to do a fighting retreat, shooting. Men are dying,
Speaker 1: Most of them are not making it. These are the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that have happened. And the reason I
Speaker 1: brought this up. We're going to move on to bigger
Speaker 1: things like World War two in the Indianapolis and Vietnam
Speaker 1: is those men who gave their lives in the Philippine
Speaker 1: American War are just as dead as the men who
Speaker 1: died in World War Two. They gave up just as
Speaker 1: much as the men who died in Vietnam or Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: And most people have never even heard of the Philippine
Speaker 1: American War, have never even heard about it. Four thousand
Speaker 1: plus dead men crossed the ocean and died hot, humid, sick.
Speaker 1: Terrible way to go, and they gave the lives for
Speaker 1: this country. Now, speaking of a terrible way to go,
Speaker 1: let's talk about a story. You probably know, a story
Speaker 1: we've discussed on the show. It was touched on briefly. Really,
Speaker 1: the story got a little boost to its fame courtesy
Speaker 1: of the movie Jaws. Remember the movie Jaws. Everyone's seen it.
Speaker 1: Remember that scene where the grizzled captain of the boat
Speaker 1: he's sitting in there. I think they were getting drunk.
Speaker 1: They were all getting drunk on the boat one night,
Speaker 1: and he starts talking about the sinking of the Indianapolis
Speaker 1: and the sharks and everything else. But what actually happened there. Well, first,
Speaker 1: let me clarify this. The USS Indianapolis had a wonderful
Speaker 1: battle history. This isn't like this was her maiden voyage.
Speaker 1: The USS Indianapolis had a lot of notches on the
Speaker 1: belt in World War two four that terrible fateful night
Speaker 1: that we well, those of us who know it, no
Speaker 1: were we think their story began there. It did not
Speaker 1: wonderful history to the USS Indianapolis. But world War two,
Speaker 1: world War two in the Pacific, it was terrible in
Speaker 1: every possible way. We were desperately trying to bring it
Speaker 1: to a conclusion. We'll touch more on that tonight. I
Speaker 1: was just there, after all, and it's gonna be Memorial
Speaker 1: Day stuff, But we are trying to bring it to
Speaker 1: some sort of a conclusion that wouldn't cost millions of lives.
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to do. We had been working
Speaker 1: for a long time, as you already know, on an
Speaker 1: atom bomb, on a nuclear weapon, an atomic weapon, a
Speaker 1: city killer. Oh, we'd taken out several cities in World
Speaker 1: War two, Japanese, German and others. But that took a
Speaker 1: lot of bombs, a lot of fires, a lot of this,
Speaker 1: a lot of the what if one plane with one
Speaker 1: bomb could just take care of all of it? A
Speaker 1: big deal? Right, Well, we got that technology, but logistics
Speaker 1: are so boring we don't pay attention to them. Once
Speaker 1: you're in the United States of America and you've tested
Speaker 1: and perfected this atom bomb thing, that's all well and good,
Speaker 1: But the actual war is thousands of miles across the ocean.
Speaker 1: You now have to get the bomb, and you have
Speaker 1: to get it across the ocean. Oh, and you don't
Speaker 1: really want to do the put all your eggs in
Speaker 1: one basket thing, so you've got to piece it up
Speaker 1: a little bit and send the parts over there and
Speaker 1: then assemble it over there. And because this is a
Speaker 1: bit of a secret we don't want the rest of
Speaker 1: the world to know about, you can't necessarily tell the
Speaker 1: crew anything loose lips sink shit after all, and the
Speaker 1: ship itself, the captain would have been told what was
Speaker 1: on board, and the captain would have been told, you
Speaker 1: need to be quiet. You need the ultimate in secrecy.
Speaker 1: That means, Captain, even if something bad happens out there
Speaker 1: in the open waters, we can't have you firing off
Speaker 1: distress signals. We can't risk it's too important. We cannot
Speaker 1: risk the Japanese somehow acquiring the knowledge that we have
Speaker 1: what we have, or we're about to do what we're
Speaker 1: about to do. And if they happen to get their
Speaker 1: hands on one of our sailors, we know, because they're
Speaker 1: the Japanese in World War two, they will eventually get
Speaker 1: that information out of them, no question. So captain, keep
Speaker 1: it quiet. The Indianapolis dropped off parts of the bomb,
Speaker 1: then took off. It was nighttime and the horror story begins.
Speaker 1: Next it is Jesse Kelly Show on a Memorial Day,
Speaker 1: as we talk about war stories, battles, stories, honor the
Speaker 1: fallen the USS Indianapolis top secret mission dropping off parts
Speaker 1: of the bomb, turns around, takes off. Now the Pacific War,
Speaker 1: I mean this was the Atlantic too, but the Pacific War.
Speaker 1: It's just so scary. Let me explain. I'm not even
Speaker 1: talking about the land combat, which we will get to
Speaker 1: in a little while. The oceans were such an incredibly
Speaker 1: dangerous place. The ocean's dangerous anyway. The ocean's dangerous in
Speaker 1: peace time with nobody trying to kill you. That's part
Speaker 1: of why I've always loved it. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I just find it very appealing, scary. This big seems endless.
Speaker 1: You get out on a boat and you get out
Speaker 1: into the ocean far enough away you can't really sea land,
Speaker 1: and you look around and you think, man, I am
Speaker 1: a tiny speck out here, and I can be washed
Speaker 1: away like it's nothing. And that's in peacetime. If you're
Speaker 1: deep sea fishing in Mexico, what's it like when there
Speaker 1: might be a submarine under the water getting ready to
Speaker 1: fire a torpedo into your side. The Indianapolis at night
Speaker 1: was cruising along. We're talking about roughly eleven hundred men
Speaker 1: on the ship. A Japanese submarine was watching the Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: Would not have known, wouldn't have any way of knowing.
Speaker 1: That's part of being in a submarine. You don't tend
Speaker 1: to announ dounce your presence, it's nighttime your cruise, and
Speaker 1: along Japanese submarines starts firing torpedoes at the Indianapolis. Memory
Speaker 1: serves me. I believe they've fired six of them. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't how many they fired that mattered. It was
Speaker 1: how many landed and where they landed. Two Japanese torpedoes
Speaker 1: hit their mark. Now, ships, especially our wonderful ships in
Speaker 1: World War Two, can actually sustain a shocking amount of
Speaker 1: damage depending on where they take that damage. But there
Speaker 1: are two things on a ship you have to be majorly,
Speaker 1: majorly concerned about. One the fuel source. For obvious reasons,
Speaker 1: it's a bit flammable, as you can imagine. The second
Speaker 1: one is the magazine. What is the magazine. It's where
Speaker 1: you keep all that explosive stuff, black powder, things like that.
Speaker 1: That's the magazine. The two torpedoes that hit the Indianapolis
Speaker 1: in the worst set of luck ever hit not only
Speaker 1: the magazine, the other one hit the fuel. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Well, do you know how long it took
Speaker 1: for the Indianapolis to sink beneath the waves after it
Speaker 1: had been hit. I want you to pause for a
Speaker 1: second when you wake up in the morning. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're even at home, decent night's sleep, and you wake
Speaker 1: up in your own bed, how long does it take
Speaker 1: you to kind of get moving. You're getting your clothes on,
Speaker 1: teeth brushed, and you're getting moving. You don't move that
Speaker 1: fast to you at home in your own bed. Okay,
Speaker 1: now let me take you out of that bed. Let's
Speaker 1: go down. We'll call it. We'll be generous, we'll call
Speaker 1: it two flights of narrow stairs into the bowels of
Speaker 1: a ship. You are going to crawl into your bunk.
Speaker 1: In fact, I just recently saw one of these bunks.
Speaker 1: I was on a Japanese submarine. I'll get into that tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But saw one of these bunks. They jokingly asked me
Speaker 1: if I would try to get in it. I fled out, refused.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I don't even think I could
Speaker 1: get into the bunk without hurting myself. It's all so
Speaker 1: tight and small and miserable. Now, remember your two flights
Speaker 1: of stairs down. You just had to squeeze yourself into
Speaker 1: a little bunk. You are probably in your undies. You
Speaker 1: are probably exhausted, because being on a ship is exhausting.
Speaker 1: Certainly in wartime, you're always working, always doing things. You
Speaker 1: have crawled into your bed. It's nighttime now. Foam foam.
Speaker 1: Two torpedoes hit. Do you know how long you had
Speaker 1: to get out of your bunk? Remember the lights go
Speaker 1: out and things are on fire and things are smoky,
Speaker 1: So in the darkness, in the smoke, while trying not
Speaker 1: to burn to death, you have to get out of
Speaker 1: your bunk, get up two flights of narrow stairs, if
Speaker 1: you can find them. It's pitch black. Two flights of
Speaker 1: narrow stairs. And again I'm being generous with that. Some
Speaker 1: men had to do more. Two flights of stairs. And
Speaker 1: then once you get to the top, it's not as
Speaker 1: if your problems are over. You have to get off
Speaker 1: the ship somehow safely and get your butt into the water.
Speaker 1: And you have grand total twelve minutes. Because of the
Speaker 1: catastrophic damage the Indianapolis took with those two torpedoes hitting
Speaker 1: their mark in the exact spot, those men on the
Speaker 1: Indianapolis had twelve minutes twelve minutes from impact to the
Speaker 1: ship vanishing beneath the water. We talk a lot about
Speaker 1: the shark attacks and things like that that came after
Speaker 1: which I'll get to in a couple minutes here. But
Speaker 1: you know, over two hundred men didn't even make it
Speaker 1: off the ship. You know, some of them burn to death.
Speaker 1: Some men had to listen to their friends burning to
Speaker 1: death behind a door as they're making their way off
Speaker 1: the ship. That sailor from Idaho who joined the Navy
Speaker 1: out of love of his country, Pearl Harbor, happened. Patriotic
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, went through all the training, goes through
Speaker 1: a war on the Indianapolis, writing letters home to his mom.
Speaker 1: He dies in the dark, burning to death in the
Speaker 1: middle of the Pacific Ocean. That's before they hit the water.
Speaker 1: About nine hundred men went into the water. Remember you
Speaker 1: started out with eleven hundred plus nine hundred even made
Speaker 1: it into the water, and then their real problems began.
Speaker 1: Hang on