“What everyone gets wrong about the deadliest shark attack in history”

From National Geographic – Author: Melissa Hobson

The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis is widely known as a shark story – but the truth is much more horrifying

"The shark comes to the nearest man and that man he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away. Sometimes he wouldn’t go away."

Robert Shaw’s iconic monologue as shark hunter Quint in Jaws captured the horror of the day 80 years ago when sharks descended on the crew of the U.S.S. Indianapolois after the vessel was sunk by Japanese torpedoes during World War II. Thanks to the fame of the movie, that speech propelled the worst shark attack in history into public lore.

But his speech had some critical errors. Many retellings focus on the sharks mercilessly picking off the survivors, but the terror of that day in July 1945 was “much more than just a shark story,” says Lynn Vincent, author of Indianapolis. 

It’s a story of hundreds of men—some just 17 years old—who set off a great adventure and changed the face of history before experiencing unimaginable horrors, adds her co-author Sara Vladic. The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis is considered one of the worst tragedies in U.S. Naval history.

What really happened? This is the true story of the disaster of the Indianapolis. 

The U.S.S. Indianapolois sets sail on a top-secret mission

The Indianapolis—affectionately known as the Indy—was already well-known by the time she met her gruesome demise. She had 10 battle stars and was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ship of state.

In March 1945, a few months earlier, the Indianapolis had been hit by a Japanese suicide pilot, or kamikaze, in Okinawa and was sent back to California for repairs.

“The Japanese plane not only hit her, but sent a bomb through her, literally through her,” says Paridon. “It exploded underneath her keel.”

By the time she was mended, the U.S. Navy needed a ship to transport components of the atomic bomb destined for Hiroshima to Tinian, a U.S.-controlled island south of Japan. 

“That's why she's available… because she had taken that hit,” says Paridon. “It's a twist of fate, really it is.”

The Indy was loaded up with the priceless cargo and set out on her crucial journey on July 16. The mission was “uber, uber, uber secret,” says Paridon. “The sailors on board that ship had no earthly [idea] what they were carrying".

Capt. Charles Butler McVay had an inkling. He was told “every day you save on your transit is one less day we're gonna have to fight this war,” says Paridon.

After racing to Tinian under radio silence, the Indy delivered the bomb on July 26 July and the top-secret mission was over. But her hardships were about to begin.

The U.S.S. Indianapolis was leaving Guam in the early hours of July 30 when a Japanese submarine spotted the ship glinting in the moonlight.

Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto ordered his crew to fire and two torpedoes struck the ship. “These are big kabooms, to put it very, very bluntly,” says Paridon.

That was the first catastrophe. Many men were “there one minute, literally gone the next,” he says. Others were hit by shrapnel and burned by hot metal as they tried to escape. 

The Indy sank in just 12 minutes.

Those who found themselves in the water—concussed, burned, wounded, and covered in oil from the wreckage—were about to face a nightmare lasting five nights and four days.

What really happened when sharks arrived

Likely attracted by the commotion and bodies in the water, sharks—likely oceanic whiteips and tiger sharks—started to arrive soon after the ship sank.

Stories tell of over 150 men being killed by sharks in a feeding frenzy. But even though we don’t know exact figures, the event is acknowledged as the worst shark attack in history. For context, the total number of unprovoked shark bites globally in all of 2024 was just 47.

It’s believed the sharks largely fed on corpses and the dying. “Did they eat some of the corpses? Absolutely. Did they bite some of the survivors? For sure,” says Set Paridon, a historian and deputy director of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum. “But it wasn't to the degree that the myth makes it out to be.” 

Some barely saw shark activity. In an oral history conducted by the Naval History and Heritage Command, senior medical officer Capt. Lewis Haynes “saw only one shark” and didn’t see anyone get bitten.

McVay recalls merely “getting a little annoyed” with the shark following his group because it was scaring away the fish that could have provided food. Spending days in the water with circling sharks was just one of countless horrors the men experienced.

“The human story is really what is missed amid all the focus on the sharks,” says Vladic, who spent a decade interviewing 107 of the surviving crew and their families. “The survivors themselves don't appreciate the focus on the sharks, because there were a lot more men died of many more things.” 

Horrors even worse than sharks

The men had no food or fresh water and were exposed to the burning sun. Some died of their wounds from the explosion while others succumbed to exposure, exhaustion, thirst, violence, and even suicide.

Desperately thirsty, some drank seawater, which caused salt poisoning and mass hallucinations.

“It was amazing how everyone would see the same thing,” said Haynes, who recounted in an oral history how a group of men all thought they saw a nearby island where they could get some sleep. “Even I fought hallucinations off and on, but something always brought me back.”

SOURCE: NAT GEO

AUTHOR: MELISSA HOBSON

 ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE