Wreckage of the USS Indianapolis Found

[Ray Dog]

The USS Indianapolis has been located at the bottom of the Philippine Sea.
The sinking was quick and many didn't make it out.
Many that did were lost to shark attacks. Which was made worse by the fact it was not reported over due.
The character Quint from Jaws was a survivor of the sinking to explain his hatred of sharks.
The Captain Charles B. McVay III was court marshaled because he was not zig-zaging, a maneuver to make sub attacks harder.
A fact that the Japaneses sub commander testified at the trial would have not changed any thing.
A 12 year old after watching Jaws advocated the overturning of the ruling.
Unfortunately too many years too late as the pressures of guilt and harassment from the families of the lost lead him to take his own life.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/19/us/uss...und/index.html

It was returning from delivering the uranium components of the first atomic bomb dropped in WWII to Island of Tinian.

[TNT]

The Jap commander probably told the truth. He didn't even use his most effective weapons against the Indianapolis because they were too easy a target. Had they been maneuvering, he could've just launched some Kaiten at the ship...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten

Kind of hard to outmaneuver a torpedo guided by a human pilot


I read a pretty good FICTIONAL account of this a few years ago, The Devil's Voyage by Jack L Chalker. He does a lot of speculating that the Japanese may have known about the Indianapolis' route. That the Russians were trying to prevent the US from ending the war in the Pacific quickly. Because, given more time, Stalin was trying to move troops across Siberia to invade Japan. Had the Soviets helped more in toppling Japan, they would've been in position to set up something like Eastern Europe over there. The nukes and subsequent surrender put an end to that.

[jessesandy]

Not exactly a bed time story... or a movie for a seven year old.



A little kid in the 70's... sharks, killer bees, mutually assured destruction, AIDs, - something's going to get you !

[TNT]

Not exactly a bed time story... or a movie for a seven year old.



A little kid in the 70's... sharks, killer bees, mutually assured destruction, AIDs, - something's going to get you !

I don't think I was much older than that when I first read the book. By the time I was 10 or so, it became my go to reading material while fishing. All because one trip where I took it and seemed to get a fish on my line every time the shark ate someone.

[FuturaGuy]

The book “Enola Gay” by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan Witts devoted several pages to the history of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. The ship was Portland-class heavy cruiser built in the early 1930’s, before radar was developed, and early in World War II it was fitted with radar which made it top-heavy. Fifth Fleet Commander Admiral Raymond Spruance believed she would quickly overturn and sink if hit by two torpedoes. The Indianapolis suffered major damage when hit by a kamikaze at Okinawa. Repairs had just been completed at the Mare Island shipyard before she was sent to carry the atomic bomb to Tinian.

An unrelated but similar story involves the U.S.S Phoenix, a Brooklyn-class light cruiser built in the mid-30’s. It was later sold to Argentina, which renamed it the General Belgrano, and it was sunk during the Falkland Islands war in 1982 when it was hit by two torpedoes from H.M.S. Conqueror. The Belgrano sank in about 20 minutes after being hit.