Saturday, July 30, 2005
In Memoriam
60 years ago today, 1196 men went into the ocean after the Navy cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58. Of the 1196 men who sailed on the Indy, 321 were pulled alive from the sea. 4 of those survivors died in military hospitals, leaving a total of 317 men alive. 200 of the men who went into the sea were, over a 4-day period, eaten by sharks, an average of 50 men per day. The Indianapolis was on her return journey after delivering the atomic bomb that would, days later, drop on Hiroshima. The men who dropped that bomb sent a message along with it--they wrote on it that it was for the men of the Indy.
