After decades of fruitless searches, the wreckage of heavy cruiser U. Indianapolis was found on the floor of the Philippine Sea on August 19, Searchers located the remains of the ship 5, meters 18, feet below the sea, according to billionaire Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who led the expedition.
Navy heavy cruiser that was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30, , shortly after delivering the internal components of the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Shortly after midnight on July 30, halfway between Guam and Leyte Gulf, a Japanese sub blasted the Indianapolis , sparking an explosion that split the ship and caused it to sink in approximately 12 minutes, with about men trapped inside. There are now only 8 living survivors of USS Indianapolis.
Help us honor them all by sharing their stories and preserving the legacy. Under the scorching sun, day after day, without any food or water for days, men were dying from exposure or dehydration.
Their lifejackets waterlogged, many became exhausted and drowned. The life preserver had blisters on my shoulders, blisters on top of blisters. It was so hot we would pray for dark, and when it got dark we would pray for daylight, because it would get so cold, our teeth would chatter.
Struggling to stay alive, desperate for fresh water, terrorised by sharks, some survivors started to become delirious. Many started to hallucinate, imagining secret islands just over the horizon, or that they were in contact with friendly submarines coming to the rescue. Cox recalls a sailor believing that the Indianapolis had not sunk, but was floating within reach just beneath the surface.
All of a sudden his life-preserver is floating, but he's not there. And then he comes up saying how good and cool that water was, and we should get us a drink. He was drinking saltwater, of course. He died shortly afterwards. And as each day and each night passed, more men died. Then, by chance, on the fourth day, a navy plane flying overhead spotted some men in the water.
By then, there were fewer than 10 in Cox's group. Initially they thought they'd been missed by the planes flying over. Then, just before sunset, a large seaplane suddenly appeared, changed direction and flew over the group. Now that was when the tears came and your hair stood up and you knew you were saved, you knew you were found, at least. That was the happiest time of my life. Navy ships raced to the site and began looking for the groups of sailors dotted around the ocean.
All the while, Cox simply waited, scared, in a state of shock, drifting in and out of consciousness. But it was the rescue ship shining its spotlight up into the sky to give all the sailors hope, and let them know that someone was looking for 'em. Just knowing I was saved was the best feeling you can have. Looking for a scapegoat, the US Navy placed responsibility for the disaster on Captain McVay, who was among the few who managed to survive.
For years he received hate mail, and in he took his own life. The surviving crew, including Cox, campaigned for decades to have their captain exonerated - which he was, more than 50 years after the sinking. Cox spent weeks in hospital after the rescue. So that now puts us at live people attacked by sharks.
The defining factor in this incident vs. There were four days for which they were exposed to sharks. The Nova Scotia sinking is one of the most comparable maritime disasters. It was off South Africa in the Natal region. The first key thing to note was the time factor, with the Nova Scotia having ships on site for rescue within a day. Then there is the factor of what shark species are prevalent there. Whitetips are probably the best scavengers of all the shark species.
Like a hammerhead is specialized for picking up prey that is buried, OWTs are specialized at finding food in large open oceans. They cover a tremendous amount of distance searching for food and they are tuned to pick up long distance sources. If every shark species was to be compared to a land species, the OWT would be like the Polar bear.
Where the Indianapolis sank, the population of OWTs would have been significant. The Nova Scotia would have encountered Tigers, which would have played a much greater factor.
So the number of sharks overall at the Nova Scotia would most likely not have been anywhere near the numbers at the Indianapolis. The number of sharks at the Indianapolis are estimated, based on reports by both the crew and the PBY that came in, to be over The OWTs at the Nova Scotia would probably not have been as high as that, with a handful or more most likely, and total number of sharks a few dozen. In fact, the hundreds of bodies washing ashore as long as a week later tells me the shark numbers and species were not comparable to the Indianapolis.
A total of over people were lost and only 24 survivors. Sharks were reported to be prevalent in that incident as well. However, again the factors were different than the Indianapolis. A rescue ship was on site within a couple hours and another key factor was that there were thousands of gallons of oil in the water and on fire. Because most of the victims appeared to be burned, sharks attacking live people was minimal based on the physical evidence found.
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