Uss indianapolis bombed

Jenner's 8, points set a world record in the event. In the s, most decathletes trained Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.

The law, P. On July 30, , The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget, independent horror film that will become a massive cult hit, is released in U. Shot with shaky, handheld cameras, the documentary-style movie told the story of three student filmmakers who disappeared into the A mid-air collision between a Boeing and a fighter jet in Japan kills people on July 30, The military plane was flying without radar. Although the explosion created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly One of a 3,unit final edition, the baby-blue vehicle was sent to a museum in Wolfsburg, Germany, where Volkswagen is Their lifejackets waterlogged, many became exhausted and drowned.

The life preserver had blisters on my shoulders, blisters on top of blisters. It was so hot we would pray for dark, and when it got dark we would pray for daylight, because it would get so cold, our teeth would chatter.

Struggling to stay alive, desperate for fresh water, terrorised by sharks, some survivors started to become delirious. Many started to hallucinate, imagining secret islands just over the horizon, or that they were in contact with friendly submarines coming to the rescue. Cox recalls a sailor believing that the Indianapolis had not sunk, but was floating within reach just beneath the surface.

All of a sudden his life-preserver is floating, but he's not there. And then he comes up saying how good and cool that water was, and we should get us a drink. He was drinking saltwater, of course. He died shortly afterwards. And as each day and each night passed, more men died. Then, by chance, on the fourth day, a navy plane flying overhead spotted some men in the water. By then, there were fewer than 10 in Cox's group.

Initially they thought they'd been missed by the planes flying over. Then, just before sunset, a large seaplane suddenly appeared, changed direction and flew over the group. Now that was when the tears came and your hair stood up and you knew you were saved, you knew you were found, at least. That was the happiest time of my life. Navy ships raced to the site and began looking for the groups of sailors dotted around the ocean.

All the while, Cox simply waited, scared, in a state of shock, drifting in and out of consciousness. Their location and fate were unknown to the US Navy. He had wanted to be assigned to a newer, more glamorous ship, desiring to be either a naval aviator or a submariner. Fate would prove him wrong on that assumption.

At on July 30, the heavy cruiser was struck by two Japanese torpedoes fired from the submarine I The first torpedo blew the bow off of the ship while the second struck nearly amidships near the powder magazine. The resulting explosion literally split the ship to the keel, knocking out all power and causing her to sink by the bow rapidly.

Aboard the stricken vessel, young Ensign Twible looked around to find no officers taking charge of the chaotic situation. Then when the tilt became too great. I gave the order to abandon ship.

Some reports attributed the lack of action to fears that the messages were a ploy by the Japanese, attempting to ambush rescue ships. Some historians have argued that communication about the Indianapolis was lacking because of the clandestine nature of its prior mission. It is very possible that the secrecy around the atomic bomb doomed the Indianapolis. After the war, Captain McVay was court-martialed and accused of negligence.

He had been given orders to zigzag at his discretion in order to avoid submarines. In an unprecedented move, the commander of the Japanese submarine that attacked the Indianapolis was called to testify. Mochitsura Hashimoto, who had previously participated in the Pearl Harbor attack, testified that he would have been able to target the ship even if it had been zigzagging. But this was not enough to exonerate McVay, who was demoted for his negligence.

His final rank was Rear Admiral. His supposed culpability continued to haunt him. McVay ended up committing suicide in Many suspect that the memories of the sinking played a role. He was not the only survivor to experience psychological impacts. Cox, the seaman quoted above, reported still suffering from symptoms of PTSD, even decades later. A few details made the court-martial unusual and suspect. No other officer in the history of the Navy whose ship had been sunk in war had been tried for negligence.

That charge was quickly dismissed because of the speed of the sinking, and because the first torpedo struck the ship's electrical center and disrupted communication. Finally, McVay had not technically been ordered to zigzag: the order left it up to his discretion, and he had complied with that diktat.

A campaign was waged to clear his name in the late s and early s. The effort was led by a Florida middle-schooler named Hunter Scott, and involved remaining survivors and historians. Hashimoto even wrote to Senator John Warner, a sponsor of the exoneration effort in Congress. He wrote: ''Our peoples have forgiven each other for that terrible war. Perhaps it is time your peoples forgave Captain McVay for the humiliation of his unjust conviction. Hashimoto did not live to see the culmination of these efforts.

The horrific tales of shark attacks spurred new military research into shark repellents, with mixed success over the years. They also inspired writers: in addition to numerous historical works about the doomed cruiser, there have been a fictionalized novel about it and a made-for-TV movie.

Another full-length film, starring Nicolas Cage, premiered in Most famously, a scene from Jaws features the character Quint Robert Shaw recounting his experience surviving the sinking of the Indianapolis.

Patrick J. Browse our collection of oral histories with workers, families, service members, and more about their experiences in the Manhattan Project. Sense of Place.

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