Posted on 07/07/2007 10:01:04 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
INDIANAPOLIS - Sixty-two years after Japanese torpedoes sank the USS Indianapolis in shark-infested waters, an exhibit in the vessel's namesake city documents its tragic end in the final weeks of World War II.
The exhibit at the Indiana War Memorial, opening Saturday, includes letters and telegrams about the cruiser's July 30, 1945, sinking, the ship's bell and even the type of life jacket that kept the oil-drenched servicemen who survived afloat in the ocean for more than four harrowing days.
"We're trying to keep the story alive and the museum would make it permanent. It will make the story live on forever," said 82-year-old Paul Murphy, chairman of the USS Indianapolis Survivors Organization.
The opening comes during a three-day reunion of about 40 of 81 men still alive who were among 317 survivors pulled from the Philippine Sea.
Murphy is eager to see the exhibit in downtown Indianapolis, although he and other survivors still dream of a full museum devoted to their ship's story, including its crucial role in the war's closing chapter. With the survivors now ranging in age from 80 to 100, he fears they may never see that day.
The 600-foot-long USS Indianapolis was attacked just days after delivering to a Pacific island the uranium-235 and other components of the atomic bomb that was later dropped on Hiroshima.
The ship's mission was so secret she sailed alone, unescorted by ships better equipped to detect and fight Japanese submarines.
Two days after leaving Guam, two torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-58 struck the cruiser and it sank in minutes.
Blast injuries, shark attacks, drowning and dehydration killed many of the sailors before the crew of an anti-submarine plane accidentally spotted them on Aug. 2, 1945, and radioed for help.
The Indianapolis' death toll — 880 members out of a crew of 1,197 died — is the U.S. Navy's worst single at-sea loss of life.
But reports of the tragedy were buried behind the news of the Japanese surrender, and interest in the ship's story was not revived until the movie "Jaws" featured a character who told of the sinking and the survivors' days of agony.
Indianapolis survivor Jim O'Donnell, 87, said he still vividly recalls the sinking and his days and nights adrift and thirsty in the tropical sea.
O'Donnell, a retired Indianapolis firefighter, hopes the exhibit resonates with the public, particularly young people unaware of World War II's epic battles.
"I hope the young people wake up and realize that the freedom they have today didn't come cheap," he said. "There was an awful price paid for it."
Kenneth McNamara, executive vice president of the USS Indianapolis Museum Inc., said the hundreds of mementos at the Indiana War Memorial exhibit already make it the best show ever on the ship. He hopes survivors and their relatives will donate or loan more items to round out the collection, which he and others hope eventually fills a museum devoted solely to the ship.
"This is an incubator for what we want to continue doing," he said.
The exhibit opens to the public after a parade honoring the survivors, but will then close before reopening to the public in August after additional items are added, he said.
“I hope the young people wake up and realize that the freedom they have today didn’t come cheap,” he said. “There was an awful price paid for it.”
So True. Thanks for the posting.
““Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief… 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 half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that when you’re in the water, chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail… Well we didn’t know that our bomb mission had been so secret no distress signal had been sent. They didn’t even list us overdue fir a week. Very first light, chief, sharks came cruising, so we formed ourselves into tight groups… you know, kind of like old squares in a battle like you see in a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and then you start pounding and hollering and screaming. Sometimes the shark goes, sometimes he wouldn’t go away… I don’t know how many sharks. Maybe a thousand, I don’t know how many men, they averaged six an hour…
Noon the fifth day, Mr Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low… and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down, starts to pick us up…
So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June 29th 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”
“
Beat me to it! That dialogue was the best part of the movie, IMHO..
“In Harms Way”-great book on the events.
Robert Shaw was born to play the part of Quint....
The MSM of today would have demanded surrender. The sharks were there because we were there. I’m almost done reading “Halsey’s Typhoon” Similar story of survival. What a debacle all the way up the chain of command.
The loss of life we are suffering today in Iraq must be looked at in the context of what this great country suffered in incidents like this. Any loss is tragic but to survive as a free nation we all must be willing to give something.....Some give it all.
"Heres to swimmin' with bowlegged women..."
Quint: Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we’ve received orders for to sail back to Boston. ...
My absolute ever favorite movie, and Quints story still sends shivers down me spine.
One of my favorites too. I only wish the shark ate Hooper instead of Quint.
Quint belonged inside the shark. He was destinied to be there, and he knew it.
It was only delayed by about 30 years, but he knew that was ultimately where he was going to end up...
Yea well, I still wish he ate Hooper instead.
I had the privilege of meeting LCDR Lewis Haynes back in the nineties...I spent several hours with him in the course of my work, and since I am an avid amateur military historian, Navy brat and Navy veteran, I often ask people I meet about their military service (I have met some amazing people...a guy who had been on both the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor, and then later on the USS Lexington at Coral Sea...I don’t think I would have wanted to go to sea with THAT guy!)
When our conversation drifted down that way, he said that, yes, he had been in the Navy in WWII. I brightened up and asked which ship...when he said the Indianapolis, I felt stunned, as if someone had struck my head with a hammer.
“THE Indianapolis...?” I asked, and he said yes. He began to tell me all kinds of things, which I was nearly too overwhelmed to absorb. At one point, he told me about being in the water all that time, and the thing that affected him to that day was hearing the Lord’s Prayer. He said that he could not hear it (at the time we spoke) to this day without being overcome with all the emotions of that time...the pain, sadness, terror, despair. As he said this to me, his face turned bright red, and he began to choke up and tears began to flow.
I told him that he didn’t have to talk anymore about it, but he persisted and said, no...I haven’t spoken of some of these things for many years.
I always remembered his name after that, and I looked his name up years later in a book about the sinking and was surprised to find that he had been the ship’s doctor. I seem to remember him saying that he became a minister after he got out of the Navy, but cannot remember accurately. Does anyone here know more about him?
I always thought that to be a minister and not be able to hear the Lord’s Prayer without being overcome with emotion must be a difficult passage through life.
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