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Ever wonder what it would be like to survive a shipwreck,
escape a burning building, or a shark attack?
Now imagine living through all of those things and more,
and you'll have an idea what happened
to the poor crew of the USS Indianapolis, one
of the more spine-chilling shipwrecks in history.
It all started in July of 1945, when the USS Indianapolis,
a heavy cruiser carrying well over a thousand
people on board, was sent on a top-secret mission
during World War II.
The ship sped along at top speed from San Francisco
to the drop-off point near Japan,
changed out some of the crew along the way,
then set sail in secret, completely off the radar
and unaccounted for.
They sailed along without incident for two days,
seemingly on their way home without a hitch.
But all of that changed, and changed fast.
Just after midnight, without warning, the warship
was struck by two torpedoes on her starboard side.
The explosions instantly caused massive damage,
and within just a few minutes, the ship
rolled over completely.
The stern rose into the air and sank.
For those on board, it was quiet one minute and chaos the next.
Fires broke out.
Things exploded.
The ship took on water, and leaking oil
formed a thick layer on top of the ocean.
For the people inside, it was a bit
like escaping a burning building and a shipwreck all in one.
Of the 1,195 crew on board, about 900 or so
ended up in the water once the boat finally sank--
except it wasn't just water.
Burning bits of the ship were floating
alongside oil slicks that could ignite with ease, even
on top of the ocean.
Yikes!
It's about here where the story changes
from run of the mill disaster into full-fledged horror show.
For the hundreds of people left stranded in the dark ocean,
a new danger was approaching: sharks.
Lots and lots of sharks.
Hundreds of sharks were drawn to the site of the wreck
by the noise and the sweet scent of blood in the water.
At first, the sharks just went after the injured,
dragging the defenseless away or pulling them underwater.
And maybe the worst part of all, because the ship was
on a top-secret mission, no one knew where they were.
No one even knew they had sank.
That meant that help wasn't coming for four days.
But apparently, that wasn't enough of a feeding frenzy,
because once the easy pickings were gone, the swarm of sharks
started circling the survivors, too.
The sharks would attack in force each morning,
then spend the rest of the day hunting the weak and wounded.
Once the sun went down, it was back to feeding on the living,
now that the stranded sailors couldn't see them coming.
All in all, the disaster of the USS Indianapolis
is the deadliest collection of shark attacks ever recorded
in human history.
Of the 1,196 people who first set sail on the doomed voyage,
only 316 survived to tell the tale.
Help finally came four long days after the disaster,
on August 2nd, 1945, and they were lucky to be found at all.
They were spotted by a plane that just so happened
to be making a routine patrol over the spot where they sank.
The pilot radioed for assistance right away,
dropped a life raft, and almost instantly, the Navy
raced to the spot to make a rescue.
Finally, the horrible nightmare was over.
The few surviving men were safely onboard rescue ships.
So, moral of the story: steer clear of shark-infested waters
and torpedoes, if you can.
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