Ocean of Fear (The Story of the USS Indianapolis Shark Attacks)

Discovery Channel | 7/29/2007 | n/a

[Pyro7480]

Documentary on the USS Indianapolis, its sinking, and the worst shark attacks in history, on Discovery Channel right now.

[Pyro7480]

Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss

[Pyro7480]

BTTT

[JennysCool]

Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss

Appropriately enough! Too bad Robert Shaw wasn't around to do the voice-over, though.

[Pyro7480]

He died kind of young. He died only 3 years after Jaws premiered, almost 3 weeks after turning 51.

[martin_fierro]

Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss): You were on the Indianapolis?

Brody (Roy Scheider): What happened?

Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian Delady, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb.

Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail.

Well, we didn't know. `Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark would go for nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes.

You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.

Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. 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'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start 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, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks ttook the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

[Snoopers-868th]

This is probably one of the saddest documentaries I have seen. It is very disturbing. What a terrifying ordeal the survivors must have gone through. Yet, I never many speak of the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome the WWII guys suffered. They just sucked it up. No one needs to wonder why these fellas are called the Greatest Generation—just watch this documentary.

[metmom]

I just couldn’t.

I couldn’t even watch the commercials.

[Snoopers-868th]

It is just simply the worst horror film I have ever seen. My mind can’t begin to comprehend the tortured minds from suffering such a horror (the only word I can come up with). I just want to sob and sob. It is such a devastating documentary.

[MotleyGirl70]

Good movie reference; you beat me to it.

IMO, one of the best scenes in movie history.

[MotleyGirl70]

Thanks for the post. I missed the first hour but hopefully it’ll be replayed.

[metmom]

It is just simply the worst horror film I have ever seen.

I don't like horror movies to begin with, but some of them are so fake that they don't have much effect on me.

IMO, the worst horror films are ones like this one; because they are real.

[Jeff Chandler]

I read a book about this when I was a teenager. It was a detailed, largely first-hand account. Horrifying.

[marine86297]

My grandfather was part of the Indianapolis crew. He would never talk about any of it to the family. No one even new until I graduated boot camp and he shared the story with me. He swore me to secrecy until after his passing. I found out later that he only told his son who was in the Army and me a U.S. Marine.

He was one helluva man.

Semper Fidelis Gramps

[af_vet_rr]

This is probably one of the saddest documentaries I have seen. It is very disturbing.

It was very well done and was very sad. When the shark attack expert was talking about how the sharks were going after the easiest first - i.e. the dead, and then the survivor talking about how their dead friends and fellow sailors being taken by the sharks probably saved their lives and he was on the verge of tears...it was hard to watch.

As a kid, I grew up hearing about it, and I always thought it was mostly sharks that killed them, and then I saw this show, and the survivors on the show were saying it was exposure/dehydration and the guys drinking salt water. I could not get over them talking about people drinking the seawater and dying. You could tell it was just as bad or worse than the sharks.

Yet, I never many speak of the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome the WWII guys suffered. They just sucked it up. No one needs to wonder why these fellas are called the Greatest Generation—just watch this documentary.

I had an uncle that suffered from it (and the first time I saw it happen, I was all of about six or seven years old) - he was a Marine and had went through several landings in the Pacific. My grandfather suffered from it from what he saw and experienced in WWI. A friend's dad that was a B-24 gunner and was shot down and in a POW camp the last six months of the war (he wasn't in one of the Luftwaffe POW camps either, from what I remember, he was lumped in with Soviets, etc., as by that time internal German communications and transportation were severely disrupted).

The first time I encountered it was my uncle - we were on a typical fishing trip, just my dad, two of my uncles, and a bunch of my cousins. It was just not something you talked about - my cousins were like "please don't tell anybody, they'll think our dad is crazy and he's not". It's hard to describe and not something I'm going into, but those who experienced it with family members know what I'm talking about.

It's interesting, looking back at it, they hinted about the stress many suffered, in some of the WWII movies in the early and mid '50s, but I don't remember it being openly discussed until much later on. It was just something that you did not talk about it, because people didn't understand it.

[NCC-1701]

One of the saddest things about the Indianapolis event was that the commander of the Japanese sub that sunk the Indy was brought in to help convict Captian McVay, commander of the Indiapolis. After what McVay and his crew went through, this was the lowest of the low.

BTW, that scene in “Jaws” with Quint, Brody, and Hooper is still one of the best around. Very chilling.