All hands on deck.

Man your battle stations.

The tragedy of the USS Indianapolis

is considered one of the greatest

disasters in the history of the United States Navy.

If you've seen Steven Spielberg's 1975 mega hit,

Jaws, one of the most riveting moments in the movie

is a speech by the character Quint,

recounting the slaughter of the crew of the USS Indianapolis

by a school of sharks.

I'll never put on a life jacket again.

If you thought some clever screenwriter just made it up

for the film, well, allow us to fill you

in on all the gory details.

Today we're going to take a look at the deadliest shark

attack in human history.

But before we get started, be sure to subscribe

to the Weird History channel.

And let us know what other survival stories you would

like to hear about.

OK, who's up for a swim in the most shark

infested waters in history?

Time to get your toes wet.

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On July 26, 1945 the USS Indianapolis

completed a mission that would change world history.

When it delivered the components for the first operational

atomic device to the island of Tinian,

the parts would be assembled into the notorious atomic bomb

known as Little Boy.

And just a few days later it would

be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima,

wiping out an estimated 80,000 people.

After completing the delivery, the Indianapolis

was sent to join the USS Idaho in the Philippines.

There they would assist in preparations for an invasion

of the Japanese mainland.

The ship set out alone for its new destination

at a clip of 17 knots.

It was smooth sailing at first, but the USS Indianapolis

would soon find its journey coming to a sudden and violent

halt. It was just after midnight on July 30, 1945

when a Japanese submarine launched two torpedoes

into the side of the Indianapolis.

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It was a direct hit that split the ship into two.

The order to abandon ship came quickly but not quickly

enough for some.

It took just 12 minutes for the giant vessel to sink,

and many didn't make it out.

In fact about 300 men were still trapped

inside when the ship went down.

They were never heard from again.

Another 900 or so went into the water.

They didn't know it yet, but their fate

would be arguably worse than the ones who

went down with the ship.

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The Indianapolis went down fast and the resulting chaos

led to numerous injuries and a lack of proper equipment

for those who got off.

Approximately 879 servicemen survived the initial sinking,

but many didn't have the time to get life preservers.

So they had to constantly fight to stay afloat.

The ones who did manage to get life vests

only had it slightly better as they

found themselves unable to do much but helplessly bob

in the water.

Many of the sailors were hurt, having

suffered gashes or broken bones when the torpedo struck.

In the water without even a life raft,

they had no way to treat their injuries.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, almost all of them

were covered in fuel that was leaking out

of the wreckage of the ship.

It was so overwhelming men were already

beginning to die in each other's arms floating in the ocean.

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The Indianapolis sank fast, but in those 12 minutes

the heroic crewmen sent out SOS signals

until they were absolutely unable to do so any longer.

Those SOS's were received by the Navy.

But for reasons that remain unknown to this very day,

they weren't taken seriously.

Even when the ship failed to arrive

on time at its destination, no one got suspicious.

No search parties were sent to look

for the ship or its survivors.

In fact, no action was taken at all.

By sunrise there was blood in the water, literally.

And sharks came to investigate.

Aware of their presence, the survivors

attempted to stay together in groups

as they bobbed in the water.

But regardless of how hard they tried,

eventually someone would break away.

And the currents would carry them off.

Once a survivor was isolated from the group,

the sharks would move in and quickly pounce.

Survivors report that everyone could hear the screams

before a body was pulled under.

And afterwards only the life vest

would pop back up to the surface.

This continued for days.

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While the shark attacks remained a constant danger to the men

in the water, there was one thing that gave some of them

a stay of execution.

Some of the bodies that were trapped in the Indianapolis

when it sank would occasionally float up towards the surface.

The sharks were just as happy to feed on these corpses

as they were a lot less trouble.

Unfortunately, while the floaters in the ship

slowed the decimation of the survivors, in the long run

it wouldn't be enough to save many.

By that point, the sharks were in a feeding frenzy.

And there were only so many who survived.

So despite the reprieve, the survivors

continued to endure more days of shark attacks.

So every time the sharks were coming

in we would kick and scream and do things that we thought

were driving the sharks away.

And they did drive them away.

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On the surface the survivors of the Indianapolis

could see dozens of fins circling them

at any given time.

Beneath the water, the sharks kept up their attacks.

However, they didn't always pounce immediately.

In fact, sometimes they took the time to psych out their prey.

Apparently, the sharks would occasionally

bump against the sailors in the water

but not necessarily attack them.

This tactic was apparently meant to lull the sailors

into a false sense of security because shortly

after the shark would attack.

The sharks dragged their victims down into the depths.

With each attack, the water grew more bloody,

which in turn just led to greater blood

lust in the sharks.

The sharks were certainly the most immediate problem.

But they were far from being the only danger the survivors had

to contend with.

As they were drifting in saltwater,

the men had nothing to drink.

And since they were out there for several days,

many died of thirst.

Any who attempted to drink the saltwater

soon became delirious with hallucinations.

The life vests were also becoming

increasingly waterlogged, which made

it much harder to stay afloat.

Consequently, several of the men died in the water

before the sharks could even get near them.

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On the third day, several of the survivors

found some crates floating in the water

and lashed them together.

While the crates weren't sturdy enough to use as a raft,

they could be used for another important purpose,

drying out the life preservers.

The men would ring the life vests out by hand,

throw them on top of the crate raft,

and then put them back on when they were dry.

This system allowed more of the survivors

to stay afloat for longer.

As a bonus, one of the crates contained some partially rotten

potatoes, which the survivors carefully

rationed to sustain themselves as long as possible.

It was 11:00 AM on the fourth day

when the survivors were accidentally

spotted by Lieutenant Wilbur C. Gwinn, who was flying

a bomber on a routine patrol.

He immediately radioed for help.

The USS Cecil J. Doyle, a destroyer

that was relatively nearby, was alerted.

And on his own authority, the captain

diverted his ship to rescue the survivors.

Lieutenant Adrian Marks was the pilot

of a seaplane assigned to assist with the rescue efforts

by dropping rafts and supplies.

After witnessing survivors being attacked by sharks,

Marks used his plane to pick up the lone sailors most

in danger of being eaten.

The plane eventually became so full

he had to tie survivors to the wings with parachute cords.

But in the end, Adrian Marks saved 56 men that day.

He landed that big goose.

I saw him when he landed.

And as he came in and hit that first whale and that plane

shot back up in the air--

I didn't know it, but it tore up one motor.

He ruptured the pontoon.

But he set that big goose down.

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When the captain of the Doyle arrived on the scene,

he threw caution to the wind and pointed a searchlight

into the sky to alert other rescue vehicles in the area.

As it was wartime, this move put his ship in massive jeopardy.

But he could tell time was of the essence.

Even given his resolve, by the time the rescue operations were

over just 317 of the original 879 survivors

made it back to shore alive, a disheartening

figure especially given that the original crew

had consisted of 1,196 men.

All of the rest had succumb to starvation, thirst, injuries,

or the sharks.

Everyone in the Navy was shocked and outraged

at what had been allowed to happen

to the crew of the Indianapolis.

However, because their mission had

been to deliver the parts of an atomic bomb,

no one was exactly at liberty to tell the world what

exactly had happened.

The United States government kept the incident

a secret for two full weeks.

During that time, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

were both blasted, the former with a bomb made

from the parts delivered by the USS Indianapolis.

The US finally released the news about the Indianapolis

on August 15, 1945, the same day Japan announced its surrender.

This almost guaranteed it would be

buried by the news of victory.

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Several months after the disaster,

Charles McVay, captain of the USS Indianapolis,

found himself being court martialed.

Apparently, McVay had failed to run his ship in a zigzag

course that would have helped throw any Japanese submarines

off their trail.

If you're wondering whether this is a case of the Navy

scapegoating a captain for some made up offense

to take the embarrassment off of itself, you're not alone.

Many have pointed out that McVay was the only captain who

was court martialed for losing a ship during the entirety

of World War II.

Even Congress eventually decided the charge was bogus

and cleared his name of any wrongdoing in 2000.

Sadly it was posthumous as McVeigh

had taken his own life in 1968.

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When multiple people die from shark attacks,

it's usually the result of a series of strikes

by the same animal, limiting the number of attacks

that are possible.

For example, in 1916 a shark known as the Matawan Man-eater,

which we did in a previous video, killed four people

and attacked a fifth.

However, those five incidents unfolded

over the course of 10 days.