In what was to become one of the most harrowing wartime accounts of all time, seamen aboard the USS Indianapolis were left stranded in shark-infested waters, helpless as their fellow crew members were picked off by circling predators
In the summer of 1945, the USS Indianapolis set sail from San Francisco to the small Northern Mariana island of Tinian, carrying with it components for ‘Little Boy’ – a deadly nuclear weapon that, on August 6 of that year, would be used to bomb the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The blast would be unlike anything the world had seen before, and continues to strike fear into the hearts of all those who learn about it, 80 years on. There was also further horror in store for the USS Indianapolis, with the crew ending up in what is widely regarded to be the worst shark attack ever recorded.
After dispatching uranium and other such materials to the Tinian Naval Base, in what had been a top-secret mission for the Portland-class heavy cruiser, the USS Indianapolis continued on its high-speed journey towards the Philippines.
It was then that, at 00:15 on July 30, the Japanese submarine I-58 struck, launching two Type 95 torpedoes into the starboard side of the prized US vessel.
In a matter of just 12 minutes, the USS Indianapolis – described as being “two football fields in length” – sank beneath the waves, bringing down with her some 300 crewmen. Of the nearly 1,200 men on board the doomed ship, some 900 were left stranded on the surface, with just a few life jackets and life rafts protecting them from the ocean.
Unfortunately, there was nothing the helpless men could do as hungry sharks began to circle, in a bloody feeding frenzy that would forever haunt those who managed to survive.
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The predators, believed to be a mix of oceanic whitetip sharks and potentially tiger sharks, feasted on the bodies of the drowned men before turning their attentions to fresh prey.
In an interview with BBC News in 2013, survivor Loel Dean Cox, who was just 19 years old at the time of the nightmare ordeal, spoke of how he and his fellow seamen initially hoped they could “hold out for a couple of days” for help to arrive.
Sadly, due to communications errors and other issues, USS Indianapolis was not reported missing after it failed to arrive in Leyte Gulf on July 31, as planned. Nobody on land knew the crew, many of whom were just teenagers, were floating in the open water, huddling together and kicking in a desperate attempt to ward off the sharks’ unstoppable jaws.
At first, the men attempted to push away the dead bodies in their midst, hoping this would at least temporarily distract the sharks from those still breathing. However, the predators were far too cunning, and there was no escape from their extraordinary senses.
Loel remembers some of the beasts as being “15ft long”, and recalls how they would pick off around “three or four each night and day”. He said, “You were constantly in fear because you’d see ’em all the time. Every few minutes, you’d see their fins – a dozen to two dozen fins in the water.
“They would come up and bump you. I was bumped a few times – you never know when they are going to attack you.”
Another sailor, by the name of Harold Eck, who was 18 years old at the time, opened up about the first harrowing attack he witnessed, sharing: ‘The first attack I saw was on a sailor who had drifted away from the group. I heard yelling and screaming and saw him thrashing… then I just saw red, foamy water.’
It was noted that the sharks had been picking off those who’d drifted away from the group, and so the men did their best to stick together,
According to the World War II Museum, Harlan Twible, then a new graduate of the US Naval Academy, helped organise “shark watches” to keep larger groups together as they fended off the constant attacks, kicking and beating them away.
Anyone who perished was cut away from the group and pushed out into the waters.
Those who risked opening a tin of spam to sate their hunger were quickly devoured by the animals, while others were too terrified to eat. In the burning heat, some men gave in to their first, only to be left hallucinating in the shark-infested waters, making themselves even more vulnerable.
In his 2014 book, Out Of The Depths, US Marine Corporal Edgar Harrell wrote: “With our minds becoming unhinged, our tongues swollen and our throats squeezing shut, it’s easy to understand why some of the survivors began drinking the saltwater.
“The boys who fell into this trap soon had violent fits, whooping and hollering and twisting around in the water with flailing arms. Suddenly, as if an explosion had taken place, they would fall into a coma and go limp. Sometimes this would happen in the middle of a ring of sharks.”
Describing his own terror as the onslaught went on and on, Harrell continued: ‘On numerous occasions, I recall seeing a large fin coming straight at me. In horror, I would take what I thought would be my last breath and bend my knees up to my chest.
“Sometimes I could feel a fin brush my body. Other times, I would merely feel the wake of the massive beast streaking through the water just underneath me.
“These gut-wrenching encounters caused me to feel as though I was constantly tied up in a knot, and my abdominal muscles became completely exhausted, leaving my legs to dangle helplessly in the path of the mighty marauders.”
After four long days and five nights, the seamen were finally spotted by a passing U.S. naval aircraft, completely by chance. By this point, their numbers had dwindled to just 316. The US government made the decision to delay reporting the incident until August 15, 1945, the same day that news broke of Japan’s surrender, putting an end to the dark days of World War II.
Decades later, accounts of this ordeal still continue to horrify. In 2016, the story was told for a new generation through the movie USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, starring Nicolas Cage.
In 2017, the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis was finally discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, nearly three-and-a-half miles below the surface, by a team headed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
At the time, the businessman stated: “To be able to honour the brave men of the USS Indianapolis and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role in ending [the war] is truly humbling.”
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