[MUSIC PLAYING] All hands on deck. Man your battle stations. The tragedy of the
USS Indianapolis is considered one
of the greatest disasters in the history
of the United States Navy. If you've seen Steven
Spielberg's 1975 mega hit, Jaws, one of the most
riveting moments in the movie is a speech by the
character Quint, recounting the slaughter of the
crew of the USS Indianapolis by a school of sharks. I'll never put on a
life jacket again. If you thought some clever
screenwriter just made it up for the film, well,
allow us to fill you in on all the gory details. Today we're going to take a
look at the deadliest shark attack in human history. But before we get started,
be sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel. And let us know what other
survival stories you would like to hear about. OK, who's up for a
swim in the most shark infested waters in history? Time to get your toes wet. [MUSIC PLAYING] On July 26, 1945
the USS Indianapolis completed a mission that
would change world history. When it delivered the components
for the first operational atomic device to the
island of Tinian, the parts would be assembled
into the notorious atomic bomb known as Little Boy. And just a few
days later it would be dropped on the Japanese
city of Hiroshima, wiping out an estimated
80,000 people. After completing the
delivery, the Indianapolis was sent to join the USS
Idaho in the Philippines. There they would assist in
preparations for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. The ship set out alone
for its new destination at a clip of 17 knots. It was smooth sailing at
first, but the USS Indianapolis would soon find its journey
coming to a sudden and violent halt. It was just after
midnight on July 30, 1945 when a Japanese submarine
launched two torpedoes into the side of
the Indianapolis. [MUSIC PLAYING] It was a direct hit that
split the ship into two. The order to abandon ship
came quickly but not quickly enough for some. It took just 12 minutes for
the giant vessel to sink, and many didn't make it out. In fact about 300 men
were still trapped inside when the ship went down. They were never
heard from again. Another 900 or so
went into the water. They didn't know it
yet, but their fate would be arguably
worse than the ones who went down with the ship. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Indianapolis went down
fast and the resulting chaos led to numerous injuries and
a lack of proper equipment for those who got off. Approximately 879 servicemen
survived the initial sinking, but many didn't have the
time to get life preservers. So they had to constantly
fight to stay afloat. The ones who did manage
to get life vests only had it slightly
better as they found themselves unable to
do much but helplessly bob in the water. Many of the sailors
were hurt, having suffered gashes or broken
bones when the torpedo struck. In the water without
even a life raft, they had no way to
treat their injuries. As if all that wasn't bad
enough, almost all of them were covered in fuel
that was leaking out of the wreckage of the ship. It was so overwhelming
men were already beginning to die in each other's
arms floating in the ocean. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Indianapolis sank fast,
but in those 12 minutes the heroic crewmen
sent out SOS signals until they were absolutely
unable to do so any longer. Those SOS's were
received by the Navy. But for reasons that remain
unknown to this very day, they weren't taken seriously. Even when the ship
failed to arrive on time at its destination,
no one got suspicious. No search parties
were sent to look for the ship or its survivors. In fact, no action
was taken at all. By sunrise there was blood
in the water, literally. And sharks came to investigate. Aware of their
presence, the survivors attempted to stay
together in groups as they bobbed in the water. But regardless of
how hard they tried, eventually someone
would break away. And the currents
would carry them off. Once a survivor was
isolated from the group, the sharks would move
in and quickly pounce. Survivors report that everyone
could hear the screams before a body was pulled under. And afterwards
only the life vest would pop back up
to the surface. This continued for days. [MUSIC PLAYING] While the shark attacks remained
a constant danger to the men in the water, there was one
thing that gave some of them a stay of execution. Some of the bodies that were
trapped in the Indianapolis when it sank would occasionally
float up towards the surface. The sharks were just as happy
to feed on these corpses as they were a lot less trouble. Unfortunately, while
the floaters in the ship slowed the decimation of the
survivors, in the long run it wouldn't be
enough to save many. By that point, the sharks
were in a feeding frenzy. And there were only
so many who survived. So despite the
reprieve, the survivors continued to endure more
days of shark attacks. So every time the
sharks were coming in we would kick and scream
and do things that we thought were driving the sharks away. And they did drive them away. [MUSIC PLAYING] On the surface the survivors
of the Indianapolis could see dozens of
fins circling them at any given time. Beneath the water, the
sharks kept up their attacks. However, they didn't
always pounce immediately. In fact, sometimes they took the
time to psych out their prey. Apparently, the sharks
would occasionally bump against the
sailors in the water but not necessarily attack them. This tactic was apparently
meant to lull the sailors into a false sense of
security because shortly after the shark would attack. The sharks dragged their
victims down into the depths. With each attack, the
water grew more bloody, which in turn just
led to greater blood lust in the sharks. The sharks were certainly
the most immediate problem. But they were far from being the
only danger the survivors had to contend with. As they were drifting
in saltwater, the men had nothing to drink. And since they were out
there for several days, many died of thirst. Any who attempted to
drink the saltwater soon became delirious
with hallucinations. The life vests
were also becoming increasingly
waterlogged, which made it much harder to stay afloat. Consequently, several of
the men died in the water before the sharks could
even get near them. [MUSIC PLAYING] On the third day,
several of the survivors found some crates
floating in the water and lashed them together. While the crates weren't
sturdy enough to use as a raft, they could be used for
another important purpose, drying out the life preservers. The men would ring the
life vests out by hand, throw them on top
of the crate raft, and then put them back
on when they were dry. This system allowed
more of the survivors to stay afloat for longer. As a bonus, one of the crates
contained some partially rotten potatoes, which the
survivors carefully rationed to sustain themselves
as long as possible. It was 11:00 AM
on the fourth day when the survivors
were accidentally spotted by Lieutenant Wilbur
C. Gwinn, who was flying a bomber on a routine patrol. He immediately radioed for help. The USS Cecil J.
Doyle, a destroyer that was relatively
nearby, was alerted. And on his own
authority, the captain diverted his ship to
rescue the survivors. Lieutenant Adrian
Marks was the pilot of a seaplane assigned to
assist with the rescue efforts by dropping rafts and supplies. After witnessing survivors
being attacked by sharks, Marks used his plane to pick
up the lone sailors most in danger of being eaten. The plane eventually
became so full he had to tie survivors to the
wings with parachute cords. But in the end, Adrian
Marks saved 56 men that day. He landed that big goose. I saw him when he landed. And as he came in and hit that
first whale and that plane shot back up in the air-- I didn't know it, but
it tore up one motor. He ruptured the pontoon. But he set that big goose down. [MUSIC PLAYING] When the captain of the
Doyle arrived on the scene, he threw caution to the wind
and pointed a searchlight into the sky to alert other
rescue vehicles in the area. As it was wartime, this move put
his ship in massive jeopardy. But he could tell time
was of the essence. Even given his resolve, by the
time the rescue operations were over just 317 of the
original 879 survivors made it back to shore
alive, a disheartening figure especially given
that the original crew had consisted of 1,196 men. All of the rest had succumb to
starvation, thirst, injuries, or the sharks. Everyone in the Navy
was shocked and outraged at what had been
allowed to happen to the crew of the Indianapolis. However, because
their mission had been to deliver the
parts of an atomic bomb, no one was exactly at liberty
to tell the world what exactly had happened. The United States
government kept the incident a secret for two full weeks. During that time, the cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both blasted, the
former with a bomb made from the parts delivered
by the USS Indianapolis. The US finally released the
news about the Indianapolis on August 15, 1945, the same day
Japan announced its surrender. This almost
guaranteed it would be buried by the news of victory. [MUSIC PLAYING] Several months
after the disaster, Charles McVay, captain
of the USS Indianapolis, found himself being
court martialed. Apparently, McVay had failed
to run his ship in a zigzag course that would have helped
throw any Japanese submarines off their trail. If you're wondering whether
this is a case of the Navy scapegoating a captain
for some made up offense to take the embarrassment off
of itself, you're not alone. Many have pointed out that
McVay was the only captain who was court martialed for losing
a ship during the entirety of World War II. Even Congress eventually
decided the charge was bogus and cleared his name of
any wrongdoing in 2000. Sadly it was
posthumous as McVeigh had taken his own life in 1968. [MUSIC PLAYING] When multiple people
die from shark attacks, it's usually the result
of a series of strikes by the same animal, limiting
the number of attacks that are possible. For example, in 1916 a shark
known as the Matawan Man-eater, which we did in a previous
video, killed four people and attacked a fifth. However, those five
incidents unfolded over the course of 10 days. Finding anything
that even compares with the nightmarish
carnage experienced by the survivors of
the USS Indianapolis is nigh impossible. The sheer quantity of sharks
and the immense length of time they were given
to feed made the incident deadly on a scale that is
unlikely to be seen ever again. [MUSIC PLAYING] So what do you think, is this
your biggest nightmare survival scenario? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History. [MUSIC PLAYING]
