Posted on 07/30/2014 10:09:37 AM PDT by Saint X
In the closing days of World War II, torpedoes from a Japanese submarine slammed into the side of USS Indianapolis and doomed the heavy cruiser. The sailors who didn’t drown were left adrift on the open ocean for four days during which they battled the elements, starvation and shark attacks. Fewer than 320 from the ship’s original crew of 1,196 survived.
(Excerpt) Read more at usni.org ...
Mostly bullsharks were the culprits.
The US Naval Institute, which we fund with our tax dollars, presumably, makes you link and excerpt?
Got their teeth into it....
Not much of an article there, but the photos are a slide show.
No I believe they were oceanic whitetips.
That scene in Jaws where the Captain speaks about it was one of the most powerful dialogues in movie history.
USNI is private organization.
Posts only articles from that source, too:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:saintx/index?tab=articles
Apparently, our tax dollars aren’t enough, they have a kickstarter campaign going to raise funds to help preserve this collection of photos:
“Our $3,000 goal would provide the funds to digitize the entire 1,650 photo collection and preserve the original photos, including preservation materials (archive boxes, poly slides for each photo). The Institute’s stretch goal of $7,000 would enable the purchase of a quality digital camera and copy stand mount allowing for the photo albums to be digitized without being taken apart.”
Yep.
Shaw made the final edits personally. I get chills every time I watch this.
Yep. Apparently they did two takes of that scene, one with Shaw sober, and one with Shaw drunk, and then spliced together the best parts to get the scene we know and love.
A cousin of mine went down with the ship. Another was a member of the crew, but just before it sailed on its final voyage, he got thrown in the brig for being drunk and rowdy, so he missed its departure. For the rest of his days, his nickname was “Lucky.”
Any way they delivered THE BOMB.
One of the survivors Harold Bray lives in my town. I had the honor of meeting him one day and spoke to him about this and other things. He was 17 years old when the Indianapolis went down.
He speaks annually at the high school on this subject
RE Robert Shaw’s monologue:
I know what you mean about the chills. “Powerful” is stating it mildly.
It truly WAS the very first time I ever heard of the USS Indianapolis. I was 14 when “Jaws” came out. I remember hearing that speech, and then actually going to the library to look up information about that ship.
All those good men, God rest their souls... but by delivering that bomb to Tinian, they helped speed the end of the war, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
“We were coming back from the isle of Tinian to Leyte. We delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb.” I will do the whole passage in exchange for a glass of Jack Daniels.
Your tax dollars do not factor into it. The U.S. Naval Institute is a private, non-profit professional organization with a membership made up primarily of current and former military members. But anyone with no military experience at all can join. Tom Clancy was a member.
How did they get him sober?
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