This video is sponsored by War Thunder. It’s a cloudy July evening, somewhere in the western Pacific Ocean. Lieutenant Commander Hashimoto directs his submarine to level off at periscope depth for a quick look around the top layer of the sea. With nothing in sight, he gives the order to surface, allowing fresh air to fill the submarine and recharge the batteries. The Japanese commander enjoyed the refreshing breeze and took deep breaths of the ocean air. Suddenly, the navigator alerted: “Bearing red nine zero degrees - a potential enemy ship.” Hashimoto swiftly raised his binoculars and spotted a large black object on the horizon. “Flood main ballasts, prepare to dive!” he ordered, returning to the periscope. One of the last naval battles of the Pacific War is about to begin. War Thunder, victory is yours! With over 2000 unique military units to take control of, War Thunder is the most comprehensive vehicle combat game ever made. Jump into the seat of a vast array of highly detailed vehicles painstaking modeled after their real life counterparts meticulously down to their individual components to provide unparalleled levels of immersion. Best of all, it’s free to play on your platform of choice; PC, Xbox X&S and PlayStation 5 or the generation below. With a heavy emphasis on PVP War Thunder lets you pit your skills against other player in immersive vehicle combat boasting incredible 4k graphics. Handy, when consider the vast amount of vehicle customizations including over 300 individual visual tweaks and changes. And with over 100 years of historical units to choose from, your options are near limitless. The sheer level of choice in the game is what really impressed us. Battles are lost and won by the options you have. And having a lot, is never a bad thing! Help support our channel by checking out War Thunder in the link below. It's free to play. Plus you’ll be eligible for premium content and gain bonus silver lions to give you a head start. It’s late morning, July 15th 1945. Captain Charles McVay is summoned to Naval Headquarters in San Francisco for a briefing on his upcoming mission. All stations on his warship, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis were to be on standby duty, prepared to put to sea with no delay. A military cargo plane had just arrived from New Mexico and soon, two crates of top-secret payload guarded by two Army officers and a detachment of Marines were stowed aboard the Indianapolis. Captain McVay knew only that he was to deliver the mysterious cargo to the island of Tinian as quickly as possible. He was told that every hour he could shave off the journey would shorten the war and save many lives. Of course, since the crew was kept in the dark about the nature of the payload, they spent much of their off-duty time speculating about what it could be: a new shiny car for general MacArthur, some goodies for the officers or just cases of fine whiskey. The rumours were cut short in the morning of July 16th when the Indianapolis put to sea, heading to the Mariana Islands. Captain McVay took his orders with the utmost of seriousness and the heavy cruiser, with no escort and maintaining radio silence, cut through the waves at a respectable pace, often exceeding 30 knots. After a brief refuelling stop at Pearl Harbor, the cruiser dashed further westward, eventually reaching the island of Tinian on the 26th of July, much to the relief of Captain McVay. The cargo was still a mystery to the crew, but McVay was adamant that it would help the Allies win the war. The two precious crates were unloaded and accompanying personnel left the ship. Having completed her top-secret mission, she weighed anchor and steamed for a regular training mission off the Philippines. Captain McVay was routinely briefed of the Japanese submarine activity on the ship’s expected path. It was a standard warning, but McVay still requested some escort ships. The response of Navy command was clear - no destroyer force was available. In fact, the Indianapolis was a heavily armed warship and often travelled alone. It was assumed that she could handle herself, especially since Japanese power was rapidly waning in late July 1945. Cruising along the calm sea, the Indianapolis conserved her boilers, keeping an economical speed of 17 knots. The evening watch of 29th July was dragging by. The moon rose, but no one aboard saw it because of the thick cloud cover in the sky. The crew changed shifts around midnight, but relieved sailors barely had a chance to rest. Unbeknownst to anyone on the Indianapolis, the ship was spotted by a lone Japanese submarine patrolling nearby. Lieutenant Commander Hashimoto ordered his vessel to dive and launch a spread of six torpedoes in a 2 seconds interval. Oblivious to the threat, the Indianapolis didn’t attempt to evade the projectiles. One torpedo shook the hull striking near the bow, with another exploding mid-ship causing a wall of orange fire and black smoke to erupt into the air. Electrical system went out, plunging the ship into overwhelming darkness. The only light came from the flames violently flickering on the superstructure. After just three minutes the Indianapolis listed heavily to the starboard, wallowing deeper and deeper into the sea. Most of the crew threw themselves overboard, with or without life jackets, while sailors in the radio rooms frantically tried to send out the distress signal, but the equipment was dead. Twelve minutes after the first torpedo hit, the USS Indianapolis rolled over and went under the waves, with around three hundred sailors trapped below her deck. For the remainder of her crew however, the horror had only just started. Almost nine hundred men found themselves stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Navy Command was oblivious of the fate of the USS Indianapolis, as she still travelled under radio silence and no distress signal ever left the ship. What’s worse, the survivors found themselves far removed from local shipping lanes, so there was little chance that any vessel would come to their aid. They even couldn’t hope for any search attempts launched by the Navy because nobody in the Philippines expected the arrival of the Indianapolis. Hours passed by, and by morning around fifty of the wounded had succumbed to their injuries. Then, attracted by the smell of blood came the sharks. Contemporary media and stories often exaggerate shark attacks, but the situation the crew of the Indianapolis faced was exceptionally dire and far from the carefree leisure of a beach resort. The survivors huddled together, doing their best to scare off the circling predators. The danger however didn’t end with sharks. As hours turned into days, the survivors faced excruciating thirst and hunger. Some resorted to drinking seawater, which only worsened their condition. Suffering from dehydration and hallucinations, many separated from their groups, chasing illusions of land or ghostly lifeboats. Desperate, they either were mauled by sharks, or panicked and drowned, sometimes dragging along those who tried to calm them down. A terrible death either way. By morning of the 2nd of August, less than a half of the survivors were still alive. It had been more than three days since the Indianapolis sank and their life-jackets were drenched with water, barely serving their purpose. Suddenly a lone Lockheed Ventura patrol bomber stumbled upon hundreds of men adrift in the vast ocean. At once, the crew radioed the coordinates and reported the unusual finding. In response, the US Navy dispatched a Catalina flying boat with essential supplies. One of the American destroyers, the first to reach the barely alive survivors, started the rescue mission. In the end, out of almost twelve hundred of the original crew, only 316 men survived. The USS Indianapolis was one of the last American major warships to be sunk in the Pacific War. This incident generated significant controversy, primarily among the US Navy command and the families of the victims. Yet just three days after the delayed rescue operation, the world seemed to forget about the harrowing ordeal faced by the survivors. The focus of global attention shifted to Hiroshima, where a world-changing historic event overshadowed the tragedy of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis. Once again, a very big thank you to today’s sponsor, War Thunder! Don’t forget to hit the link below and check out the game for free.
