- Joined
- Feb 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,720
- Points
- 248
There were fins all around, the killer sharks just circling, waiting,
assessing their prey in their usual silent, sinister way.
For the men strung out in the oil-streaked water, clinging to the sides of
flimsy rafts or floating in sodden life-jackets, the sight was terrifying and the
underwater brush of leathery skin against a submerged leg, or the nudge of a
snout, was gut-wrenching.
These men were already survivors, the remaining 900 sailors of the U.S.S.
Indianapolis. Just three-quarters of the crew had managed to get off the
heavy cruiser when she was blown apart by torpedoes from a Japanese
submarine and sank in 12 minutes.
But now, wounded, bloodied and adrift in the deepest, remotest part of the
Pacific Ocean, they faced this new menace.
"There were hundreds of them," recalled survivor Woody James. "You'd hear
somebody scream, and you'd know the sharks had got him."
Daily Mail read more
assessing their prey in their usual silent, sinister way.
For the men strung out in the oil-streaked water, clinging to the sides of
flimsy rafts or floating in sodden life-jackets, the sight was terrifying and the
underwater brush of leathery skin against a submerged leg, or the nudge of a
snout, was gut-wrenching.
These men were already survivors, the remaining 900 sailors of the U.S.S.
Indianapolis. Just three-quarters of the crew had managed to get off the
heavy cruiser when she was blown apart by torpedoes from a Japanese
submarine and sank in 12 minutes.
But now, wounded, bloodied and adrift in the deepest, remotest part of the
Pacific Ocean, they faced this new menace.
"There were hundreds of them," recalled survivor Woody James. "You'd hear
somebody scream, and you'd know the sharks had got him."
Daily Mail read more
