In this first episode in a two part special edition, we look back at one of the most horrifying stories of all of World War 2, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. This was the story made famous by a scene in the movie "JAWS" when the fictional Captain Quint relives his time in the water with Chief Brody and Matt Hooper. It is used to explain the character's almost maniacal hunting of sharks. That is totally understandable when you learn the real story from the survivors who lived through this nightmare.
We move you in this episode from finally finding the ship at the bottom of the Philippine Sea to looking at how our selected survivors ended up on the ship, to the night it went down and left them stranded in the water for five nights and four days. They were stranded in the deepest area of the Pacific Ocean infested with the most aggressive of deep water predators, As Captain Quint said, " by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don’t know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour."
It is an extraordinary story , that captures in one tale the price our nation has often had to pay to be free.
Our Podcast wished to recognize the veterans whose oral history and interviews we used to tell this story, all but one are now deceased : Edgar Harrell, Art Leenerman, Don McCall, Earl Wiggins, San Gabriel, Adolfo Celaya, and Harold Bray, (Mr. Bray is the lone survivor that is still living as of this production. )
JAWS Credit :
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Jaws [Original Score] by John Williams released in 1975
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