The shark attacks during World War II, 1945, remain a haunting chapter in history. The USS Indianapolis, a prominent flagship during World War II of USA, is remembered for the harrowing ordeal its crew endured after the ship was struck by a Japanese torpedo and sank. The ship played a vital role in numerous battles against the Japanese and participated in the bombardment of Iwo Jima. It even had a significant role in a top-secret mission involving the delivery of components for the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima. Despite surviving a direct kamikaze hit, the ship’s fate took a tragic turn.
On July 30, 1945, at 00:15, the USS Indianapolis was targeted by two torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-58. With 1,200 men on board, the ship sank within 12 minutes, claiming the lives of 300 crew members. The remaining survivors clung to debris from the ship, battling the elements for the next four days.
They faced scorching heat, dehydration, hunger, and the desperate hope for rescue. Some crew members began to hallucinate, and the extreme conditions led to tragic outcomes, including suicides in the water, as they lost faith in being rescued. Adding to the horrors of the situation, the men had to endure shark attacks. The wreckage, along with the shock waves and blood in the water, attracted sharks to the survivors. A sailor described the constant fear, saying, “You were constantly in fear because you saw them all the time, but you never knew when they were going to attack you”.
Approximately 150 men were estimated to have been consumed by the sharks. This grim toll was partly influenced by the behavior of some crew members in the water. Dehydration-induced hallucinations caused some men to become aggressive, leading to attempts to drown or harm others. In a desperate attempt to prevent such incidents, they were pushed away in hopes that the sharks would intervene, sparing them from human-inflicted violence. Rescue came on the fourth day, but only 316 men survived the ordeal.
The USS Indianapolis disaster remains one of the most tragic incidents in American naval history, serving as a grim reminder of the sacrifices made during wartime.