The sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945 led to the deadliest shark attack in history with 150 people brutally mauled to death at sea over four horrifying days
USS Indianapolis: The story of the 1945 shark attack
More than 150 died in the worst shark attack in history and few survived to tell the tragic tale.
Scores of US sailors fell victim to the deadliest shark attack ever after their ship, the USS Indianapolis, was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1945. Roughly 900 men survived the naval ship sinking, but devastatingly, it was only the start of the horrors facing the soldiers onboard.
Those who escaped the marooned vessel had little time to feel relieved, as something sinister soon sparked fears. On July 30, 1945, their torpedoed ship turned into a fireball after a tank containing 3,500 gallons of aviation fuel exploded. The cold ocean was the only place to flee.
But lying in wait were the jaws of some fearsome beasts, as tiger sharks and oceanic whitetip sharks were swimming beneath the surviving crew. Sergeant Edgar Harrell, who was just 20 years old at the time, witnessed hundreds of his shipmates perish in the frenzy.
He remembers his friends screaming as they clung to each other while sharks ripped chunks out of their legs.
“You would hear a blood-curdling scream and look and see someone going under – all we heard was men being eaten alive, every day, every night,” the veteran said in 2019.
“You’d find your buddy and check him and find that he’s disembowelled, or the bottom was gone… I swam away from the ship and towards a group of marines who had already fled the boat – one was badly injured and he died in my arms within the next hour.”
The sustained attacks lasted around four days when the weakening troops started to flag as the sharks refused to stop circling. Mr Harrell was one of the few who kept themselves alive for days in the open water. Of 80 men who huddled together in the ocean, just 17 were alive three days later.
Mr Harrell and a friend only escaped because a group of sailors urged them to board a makeshift raft and paddle toward land. Those who didn’t go, didn’t survive, he said.
On August 2, 1945, the survivors were discovered by accident by a US bomber carrying out an antisubmarine patrol. Mr Harrell later said: “We were the lucky ones – when you get some 900 boys out there decaying in misery, sharks are gonna swim through there and they’re gonna attack what’s in their road.”
Of the 1,195 crew on the ship, just 316 survived. The ruins of the ship were found in August 2017. Mr Harrell, the last survivor of the attack, died in May 2021.
