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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that pays tribute to people of the past by

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Speaker 1: telling their stories. Today, I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the largest loss of life at sea

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Speaker 1: in the history of the US Navy, the sinking of

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Speaker 1: the USS Indianapolis. As a warning, today's episode deals with

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Speaker 1: traumatic events, violence, and suicide, which may be upsetting for

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Speaker 1: some listeners. The day was July thirtieth, nineteen forty five.

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Speaker 1: The USS Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.

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Speaker 1: The ship and its crew had recently delivered vital components

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Speaker 1: of the atomic bomb to a naval base on Teenian

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Speaker 1: Island in the South Pacific. They were en route from

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Speaker 1: Guam to the Philippines when the first torpedoes struck just

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Speaker 1: after midnight, quickly followed by another. The six hundred foot

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Speaker 1: long warship sank in just twelve minutes, and it took

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Speaker 1: about three hundred crewmen down with it. The remaining nine

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Speaker 1: hundred sailors were able to abandon ship, but even though

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Speaker 1: they'd survived the blast, their nightmare was just getting started.

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Speaker 1: Only a handful of lifeboats had been deployed before the

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Speaker 1: ship went under. This left most of the survivors bobbing

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Speaker 1: in the water if they had life jackets, while the

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Speaker 1: rest clung to whatever floating debris they could find. In

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Speaker 1: the early hours, the survivors stayed remarkably calm given their circumstances.

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Speaker 1: Many of the crew formed into groups to keep watch

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Speaker 1: on one another. They reassured themselves that their ship was

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Speaker 1: expected in the Philippines on July thirty first, and that

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Speaker 1: a rescue would be mounted swiftly after when someone realized

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Speaker 1: they were missing. Sadly, though, so, that wasn't the case.

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Speaker 1: The Indianapolis's mission had been so top secret that the

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Speaker 1: crew wasn't even told of its cargo. That secrecy extended

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Speaker 1: throughout the chain of command, so much so that when

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Speaker 1: the ship failed to arrive on July thirty first, no

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Speaker 1: one reported it missing, and although at least three naval

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Speaker 1: stations received distress signals from the Indianapolis for one reason

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Speaker 1: or another, none of them responded. The survivors of the

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Speaker 1: Indianapolis were on their own. Over the next several days,

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Speaker 1: they would do their best to stave off exposure, dehydration,

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Speaker 1: and exhaustion. Many of the men died early on from

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Speaker 1: injuries sustained in the blast. Others succumbed to saltwater poisoning,

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Speaker 1: and some lost their grip on sanity and swam off

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Speaker 1: in search of imaginary islands or rescue ships. The crew

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Speaker 1: members who managed to endure the relentless heat, thirst and

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Speaker 1: uncertainty still had to contend with the most dangerous threat

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Speaker 1: of all shark attacks. Several aggressive sharks, most likely oceanic

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Speaker 1: white tips, arrived by sunrise on the first day. They

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Speaker 1: had been drawn by the sinking of the ship, the

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Speaker 1: thrashing of the crew, and the scent of blood in

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Speaker 1: the water. At first, the animals focused on the easiest prey,

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Speaker 1: the dozens of floating dead sailors, But as survivors scrambled

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Speaker 1: to keep their distance from the predators, their frantic motion

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Speaker 1: attracted more and more sharks, which quickly began to target

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Speaker 1: the living. The sharks fed for days, dismembering and killing

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Speaker 1: one sailor after another, while the others could do little

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Speaker 1: more than watch and pray they weren't next. During this time,

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Speaker 1: Navy intelligence intercepted a transmission from a Japanese submarine that

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Speaker 1: claimed to have torpedoed in American battleship along the Indianapolis's route.

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Speaker 1: The message turned out to be all too true, but

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Speaker 1: at the time it was written off as a Japanese

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Speaker 1: trick meant to lure US rescue boats into an ambush.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until just after eleven a m on their

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Speaker 1: fourth day in the water that the survivors happened to

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Speaker 1: be spotted by a Navy plane flying overhead. The pilot

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Speaker 1: hadn't been searching for them. In fact, he wasn't even

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Speaker 1: sure if they were friends or foes, but he radioed

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Speaker 1: in for assistance, and within a few hours another seaplane

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Speaker 1: arrived on the scene. The pilot at the controls was

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Speaker 1: Lieutenant Adrian Marx. His orders were to drop emergency supplies

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Speaker 1: and rafts so that the men in the water had

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Speaker 1: a better chance of surviving until a ship could arrive

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Speaker 1: to pick them up. However, when Mark saw the men

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Speaker 1: being menaced by sharks, he decided to disobey orders and

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Speaker 1: took his plane in for a landing. He then taxied

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Speaker 1: through the water around the perimeter of the group so

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Speaker 1: that those in the most danger could take refuge on

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Speaker 1: the plane's fuselage and wings. Late that night, the USS

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Speaker 1: Doyle arrived and the last of the survivors was finally

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Speaker 1: pulled from the water. Of the roughly nine hundred men

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Speaker 1: who had escaped from the sinking ship, only three hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixteen were rescued. It's impossible to know exactly how

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Speaker 1: many of the crew died from shark attacks. Estimates range

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Speaker 1: from several dozen to as many as one hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty people. In either case, it ranks as one of,

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Speaker 1: if not the worst shark attacks in modern history. On

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Speaker 1: August sixth, four days after the crew's recovery, the United

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Speaker 1: States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, followed by

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Speaker 1: another on Nagasaki three days later. The US government kept

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Speaker 1: quiet about the Indianapolis until August fifteenth, the same day

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Speaker 1: that Japan surrendered. This ensured that news of the controversial

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Speaker 1: tragedy would be overshadowed by the end of the war.

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Speaker 1: Later that year, Captain Charles McVeigh, the commander of the Indianapolis,

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Speaker 1: was blamed for the sinking of the ship. He was

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Speaker 1: court martialed for failing to sail on a zigzag course,

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Speaker 1: which may have helped the ship evade enemy submarines. He

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Speaker 1: was convicted of that charge, but was later restored to

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Speaker 1: active duty and eventually retired as a rear admiral in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. Many surviving crew members rose to mcveigh's defense,

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Speaker 1: believing that the government was merely using him as a

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Speaker 1: scapegoat to draw attention from its own culpability. Some of

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Speaker 1: the families of the dead, however, disagreed. They blamed McVeigh

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Speaker 1: for the loss of their loved ones, and they sent

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Speaker 1: him letters and even Christmas cards to remind him of

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Speaker 1: his guilt. It's unclear whether Charles McVeigh agreed with them

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Speaker 1: or not, but in nineteen sixty eight he took his

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Speaker 1: own life at the age of seventy. By that point,

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Speaker 1: the American public had largely forgotten the tragedy of the Indianapolis,

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Speaker 1: but in nineteen seventy five they got an unlikely reminder

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Speaker 1: from Steven spiuelberg summer blockbuster Jaws. One of the main characters,

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Speaker 1: a shark hunter named quint is a survivor of the Indianapolis,

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Speaker 1: and in the film's most powerful scene, actor Robert Shaw

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Speaker 1: delivers a haunting monologue detailing Quint's experience in the water.

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Speaker 1: Here's a clip.

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Speaker 2: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side. Chief who's

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Speaker 2: coming back from the island of Tinian the lady and

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Speaker 2: just delivered the bomb the Hiroshima bum Eleven hundred men

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Speaker 2: went into the order vessel went down in twelve minutes.

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Speaker 1: The memorable scene in Jaws led to a renewed interest

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Speaker 1: in the maritime disaster, and the more that people examined

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Speaker 1: the chain of events, the more they became convinced that

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Speaker 1: Captain McVeigh wasn't a blame after all. According to the

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Speaker 1: testimony of a Japanese submarine commander, zigzagging wouldn't have prevented

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Speaker 1: the Indianapolis from being torpedoed. Additional torpedoes had already been launched,

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Speaker 1: so it would have just swerved into one of those.

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Speaker 1: It also came to light that McVeigh had requested, but

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Speaker 1: was denied, a protective escort, and that the US Navy

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Speaker 1: had failed to warn him that Japanese subs were known

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Speaker 1: to be operating along his route. It took twenty five

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Speaker 1: years of evidence gathering and lobbying, but in two thousand,

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Speaker 1: the US Congress finally passed a joint resolution clearing Captain

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Speaker 1: McVeigh of all wrongdoing. That vindication was bittersweet given the

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Speaker 1: fate of the captain. Put in a story about the

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Speaker 1: deaths of eight hundred and eighty young men. That's as

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Speaker 1: close to a happy ending as we're going to get it.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gay, Blues Gay, and hopefully you now know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to keep up with the show, you can

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show,

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Speaker 1: and if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free

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Speaker 1: to send them my way by writing to This Day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Kasy Bias for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll see

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Speaker 1: you back here again tomorrow for another day in History

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Speaker 1: Class