Sharks and Bombs

The big battle cruiser slipped silently through the waves at a speed of 17 knots that warm night. The sky was overcast, the sea was moderate, and visibility was poor, but improving. She had delivered her top secret cargo, was bound for gunnery practice and refresher training. There was no escort…after all, she was in the backwaters of the war…safe waters, controlled by her own country…no need to fear here…

A mile or so away, a submarine swept through the water, as Captain Mochitasura Hashimoto scanned the surface, looking for ships. The sub, designated I-58 also had a passive sonar, listening for the tiniest of sounds…and finally, it heard one. The Captain waited as they drifted closer…and finally he could see the ship in his periscope. A heavy battle cruiser! A lovely target! Shouting out orders, he positioned his boat, checked his figures…and fired six torpedoes in a fan shaped pattern.

At 12:14 AM, on the morning of July 30, the first torpedo struck the cruisers’ bow…and blew it off. Within seconds, 3 SOS messages went out, and three different commanders received them…but…one of the commanders was drunk, and ignored the warning…the second had gone to bed early, and left orders not to be disturbed for any reason…and the third thought it was a prank, being played by the enemy…psychological warfare, if you will…he ignored it too.

Seconds later, the second torpedo struck, on the starboard side, near a powder magazine and one of the cruisers’ fuel oil bunkers. The resulting explosion blew out the side of the ship. The ship, now dead, continued to plow ahead through the water, sending thousands of tons of water through the missing bow and the gaping hole in her side. She began to roll, slowly…orders were yelled…all hands to abandon ship. Hundreds of men jumped…others threw burned and wounded comrades into the dark sea. Twelve minutes later, the ship rolled over completely and went down…

The ship carried about 1197 men…and about 320 died in the explosions. About 880 men went into the water, badly burned, maimed, wounded, but alive…for now. The men were scattered over thousands of square yards of open sea. They had no water. They had no food. Some had life jackets; most did not. Oil from the ruptured tanks coated both the men and the water, making many of them violently ill. However, optimism abounded…they had sent out SOS’s…people knew they were in trouble…rescue was imminent.

Even with the optimism, despair raised its’ ugly head. There were screams and curses as the salt water seeped into wounds, abraded burns. Massive thirst set in, terror came out to play. Blood oozed into the water, spread out, dissipated. Many of the men, wounded, burned, tired, scared, gave up the struggle, slipped beneath the waves. Prayers were heard, curses…toward God and Navy…were screamed out. The struggle of man versus nature took shape.

Five miles away, a large Oceanic Whitetip Shark is cruising through the ocean. It’s sense of smell is causing it to twitch and hesitate…it smells something…very faintly. It turns, begins to swim rapidly toward the smell…it was a large brute…thirteen feet long, 370 pounds…and it swam quickly toward the possible source of food. It arrived at the site in rapid order and found several other sharks arriving also…all of them immediately moved in…peeling off and going after the hundreds of men in the water. Hard snouts ram into soft abdomens, teeth rending flesh, seeking food, blood flowing, entrails floating out…screaming, cursing, frantic efforts to escape the death from below…hundreds of sharks gathering…and the terror begins.

Help did not arrive…for three days the sailors floated, being taken by sharks, floating without food, floating without water, the salt starting to poison their bodies. For three days, the sailors went mad, hope faded, terror took its’ toll on their minds, many began to hallucinate. By the end of three days, only about 400 men remained alive…480 men had died in the sea, victims of thirst, wounds, sharks. Dead men littered the seas for thousands of yards.

At about 10:25 AM on the morning of the fourth day, Lieutenant Chuck Gwinn was flying on a routine antisubmarine patrol. He glanced out of the plane, noticed a huge oil slick below him. Thinking it may be a submarine submerging, he dropped down several hundred feet, opened his bomb bay doors for a depth charge run…glanced out his window again…and saw several hundred men spread out, waving at him. He gained altitude, radioed in…he was not believed…they thought it was a prank.

Finally, about three hours later, a flying boat was dispatched. As the pilot flew toward the site, he overflew the Destroyer USS Cecil Doyle…whose Captain was a friend. He informed the Captain of his mission, and the Captain decided, on his own initiative, to lend assistance. When the pilot arrived at the location,he dropped down and began dropping rafts and supplies to the men below. As this was happening, it was seen that the men in the water were being attacked and eaten alive by sharks. The pilot decided to ignore the standing order against landing in open seas. He landed the plane, taxied to the nearest group and began taking survivors aboard. Some of the men in the water were so weak, that when they slipped out of their life jackets, they drowned while attempting to swim to the plane. When the plane was full, the crew carried men onto the wings. They managed to save 56 men that day.

Responding to the pilots calls for help, three Destroyers and three Auxiliary Ships arrived at the scene. Finally, all the remaining living men were pulled from the sea. One thousand, one hundred ninety seven men left port on that ship…eight hundred eighty living men went into the water after the explosion…three hundred seventeen men came out of the water…eight hundred eighty men died on those four days of dehydration, their wounds, giving up the will to live, and sharks…on the last voyage of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, sunk July 30, 1945.

A couple of days later, the top secret cargo delivered by the Indianapolis was loaded into the belly of a B-29, flown a few hundred miles, and dropped…out of the Enola Gay…onto the city of Hiroshima…