Doomed to Fail - Ep 167: Blood on the Water - The USS Indianapolis

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Let's talk about one of the worst Naval disasters in US history. At the end of WWII, the United States needed to get the uranium for the atomic bomb closer to Japan. Enter the USS Indianapolis - a ship that was just repaired from a kamikaze attack in the Battle of Okinawa. Nobody onboard knew what their mission or cargo was, but it was completed without incident.HOWEVER, on the way back to Guam they were spotted by a submarine. 6 torpedos, with 2 hits later it's going to be a harrowing 4 days in the water.There are sharks! There are mental breakdowns! There are insane amounts of human suffering... As Quint said in Jaws "So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest." USS Indianapolis Survivor [Edgar Harrell] Relives Horrifying Experience | Memoirs Of WWII #38 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MiEAkuRV7Ihttps://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/edgar-harrell-obituary?pid=198606682&page=2Last Podcast on the left - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-461-uss-indianapolis/id437299706?i=1000549629796Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man - by Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic - https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/indianapolis-the-true-story-of-the-worst-sea-disaster-in-us-naval-history-and-the-fifty-year-fight-to-exonerate-an-innocent-man_lynn-vincent_sara-vladic/18654203/item/33897014/https://gcaptain.com/10-things-to-remember-if-youre-shipwrecked/ Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. We are back online and ready to record. Hi, Taylor. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm well. I'm well. I'm excited that we are ending the colder part of the season, where temperatures in Texas will hopefully take a break from being in the 20s.

Yeah, I hope so. I'm looking at my weather app. I know I also got like an air app to look at like the quality of the air quality. Because like we're doing fine out here, but man, the air quality in L.A. is really insane. Like I'm very, it's the people who are in those like deep, deep smoke areas. I'm worried about their future, you know? Yeah, it can't be good. No, it can't be good.

And my friend Margot says something this weekend that I, like, did not even think about it. I was like, I didn't think me busy at this last week. I was like, the devastation of the fires in L.A. is so complete that it, like, overwhelms me. I don't really understand how, like, an entire house, like, the refrigerator's gone. Like, the beds are gone. Like, what? And she goes, they're in the air. And I was like, oh, my God, you're totally right.

Like, everything. Like, that's like, these buildings were made of. It's in the air now. know that is a little freaky isn't it but i was like you're totally right and like that's why like after 9-11 like more people have died from cancer after 9-11 than 9-11 itself yeah because like it was in the air a thousand durox machines you know like a thousand break rooms all these things that you just like i don't know like it's hard of you it's a lot it's a lot but i was like yeah that's really scary well i never thought about that yeah me either so that that was why

wild. Anyway, hi. We're doomed. We're doomed to fail. We're never going to talk about 9-11 because I was there and I don't want to, but we're the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters, epic failures twice a week, every week. And I'm Taylor with Fars. Welcome to our podcast. You know, last time I welcomed Taylor to our own podcast, and this week I'm going to welcome you all to our podcast. Oh, that's nice of you. Uh, okay, I do also have a fun one that I'm excited because I know you know a lot about. it so i want to talk to you sweet um okay so i was worried that you were going to do this um when you did your open water episode what are the names again tammy tom and i lean londrigan there you go lonergan that's what yeah the lonergan so i was thinking that like you were going to do this but then you didn't do it last week so i just let it go because i was reading a book But when you were thinking about your story about being lost in those seas and potentially eating by sharks, being eaten by sharks, is there a historical situation that that reminded you of?

USS Indianapolis? Yes. Yes, it's the USS Indianapolis. Good guess, Fars. I knew that you would know. And so I read a book about it called Indianapolis, the true story of the worst sea disaster in U.S. naval history and the 50-year, to exonerate an innocent man. Super long title.

But I read that. I listened to the last podcast one again because they covered it as well. I have some YouTube videos I'll share. And then I also have a article. I'll reference later. But I read a book and it was really good. Super interesting.

And I feel like you know the basics, right? Oh, yeah. So I'm excited. I even know who was wrongly accused. We'll talk about some of the gory deets. Okay, set the scene. it's world war two but it's not day one it's actually near the end so japan surrenders on september 2nd 1945 the bombing of but before that so 1945 was a big year the bombing of

Tokyo is march 9th through 10th 1945 and i think we should talk about that sometime because that was like they killed more people than the atomic bombs like the fire bombing of Tokyo yeah i always wondered that because i was like why do we need an atomic weapon but it was like just the boom. We just wanted the bigger room. I mean, you'll be talking about that forever. Yeah, totally. Hitler had died in April.

It is the summer and, you know, we want the war to end. You know, like, they want it to be over. They're like, we want to avoid a mainland raid on Japan. Japan has no, like, they're not going to surrender. And, like, they talk about this a little bit in the book. And Dan Carlin has such a great, obviously, like, multi-part season about Japan post-World War II and during World War II.

Have you ever listened to that? I probably have. The only thing is, like, his shows are so long. I know. You have to listen to them like 17 times. Yeah, you had to keep listening to them because otherwise, like, it's just like, what was I thinking? You start doing your grocery list, like, three hours in and then you'd miss two hours of content. You're like asleep.

But he said he's quoting someone else, but he says the Japanese are like everyone else, only more so. Yes, I remember that. so the people in Japan are like our emperor is from God like no one would surrender all those things and Dan Carlin's is about like that one dude who lived in the jungle for like 30 years because he couldn't even thought that Japan was still fighting

but the United States is like this is we have to figure out a way to end this war so they decide to as you just said use an atomic weapon so the Manhattan project is secret it's been happening but the parts of an atomic bomb are very like

hard to get obviously good you know, you shouldn't be able to make one, like in your house. So, they need uranium. So, like, half the uranium that, like, the world had ever known they had to use on these bombs. And they needed to get it from the United States to Japan for Little Boy, the bomb that fell, was dropped on Hiroshima. And they needed a boat to do this. And that boat was the USS Indianapolis.

That's why they were out there in the first place. Let's bring that stuff. So a little bit about the USS Indianapolis itself. It looks like, I mean, it looks exactly like one of the ships in battleship, you know? Yeah. It's like a little low when it has its like things, please, all of our Navy people, please don't be bad at me. But it is a Portland class heavy cruiser. It was commissioned in 1932.

It's like a low and fast ship. It's definitely armed a ton. It can shoot missiles. It can shoot guns. it can do all sorts of things. It was a flagship ship for several fleets. So a lot of fleets used it. It was obviously was being 1932, where in 1945, it's still going.

It definitely, the time between 1932 and 1945 is obviously huge. And a lot of stuff happened. And a lot of stuff that happened during World War II itself was learning how to build better ships, obviously, you know, like you're going to get really good at that as it's happening. So the ships that were maybe similar in, like, size and function in 1945 were built a little bit sturdier than the Indianapolis, but they were still using it, you know? Yeah. So it shot down a ton of planes during the war.

It would go back and forth from, like, California to Guam to Hawaii to, like, other islands. like helping out in those in those different like Pacific Fleet Naval battles. It was there and I don't know the details of these two either and I feel like there's obviously like an infinite number of things we could cover but they were there for Iwo Jima and

the Battle of Okinawa and I don't know exactly what those details are but it was in both of those battles as well. You can probably support off yeah totally yeah I feel like I know what Indianapolis was doing but I'm not sure those battles were exactly about.

You know, like, Iwo Jima has, like, the flag. I think the flag and Iwo Jima came off of Indianapolis, actually. Maybe. So Iwo Jima was they had to secure Iwo Jima before they could deliver the nuclear bomb over Hiroshima because it was the only part of making that approach that was possible for them to get shot down. So they had to take the island. Makes sense. Well, thank you.

There you go. during the Battle of Okinawa Indianapolis was struck by a kamikaze so I want to talk about what a kamikaze pilot is and then another thing that I learned about that I hadn't been, that I hadn't realized there's a thing. So obviously

a kamikaze pilot is a pilot who has no intention of going back. You know, they are going to lose their life in their mission. That's what they want, they know they're going to do that. They will write letters to their family and be like, I'm going off to do this for Japan. Blah, blah, blah.

it's super intense obviously because like you know with a group people who are definitely going to die not just like maybe not probably like definitely um the paper that they had to sign to sign up to be a kamikaze pilot it was like how much do you want to do this and it was like are you eager or are you very eager there's like only two options yeah you couldn't be like no i'm not i'm not interested um and so also this is dumb but i didn't i i i assumed that the plane was the bomb but they have bombs you know I would have assumed the plane was a bomb too I did not know yeah yeah that's what I thought so I thought they would just like you know point at the ship and he would go in there but really what at least this one this example of the guy who a kamikaze pilot who who struck the Indianapolis they would they went like as close as they could which is like you're not coming back from that you know like you're gonna be like all torn up you you can't fly away and then they dropped their bomb on the deck and then that plane like flip into the ocean, and that's where the pilot died. All right, Tela, let's play some hypotheticals here, okay? Yeah. Okay. America has been taken over by the Russians, and they are, the only holdout is like Southern California, and they have 20 planes, and they need 20 female-only pilots.

And if you don't do it, it is a sure thing that the Russians are going to take Joshua Tree. Do you do it? Do I do it? I kind of feel like no, because I'd rather, because like, what am I going to do? We're going to do it again, same thing tomorrow. So here's the thing.

I want to do it because I don't have kids. So I don't care. so but you care about your you know I would that would be my same reason for not doing it

wait because I do have kids I would say I'm not doing it because I have kids have someone without kids do it all farce it's like me while I'm being tortured in the cell

I know you wouldn't make it very long in Texas it would be over for you yeah no I don't know I don't I feel like no like I don't feel like I'm the person who's going to be

like the guy in Independence Day who flies in the plane into the middle of the thing hoping that will work. You don't think you're Randy Quaid? No, Dennis. Is it Dennis or Randy?

Is Randy? Okay, yeah, yeah. Poor Randy Quaid. Yeah, so anyway, that's what a Kamikaze pilot is. There's also a Kai-10 pilot. Have you heard of these? Yes.

So do you want to tell me what it is? I'm going to tell you. It's the same thing except the submarine. Yeah, it's a torpedo. The same thing except it's actually scarier. It's way scarier. So it's a piloted torpedo, essentially, and I looked at pictures of it, and it looks like a really long black bomb torpedo thing.

And I was like, I couldn't even figure out where you would sit. I was like, I don't understand what this is, but you sit in the middle of it. And all you have is a periscope. And you're looking up the periscope and you're guiding the missile to hit the boat, and that's it. You are the bomb. Second question. If you were going to do it, what would you do on your last day before your mission? I would

I think I'd eat a lot of good food would be like a big one you know I don't feel like you need to talk to everybody I would just like talk to my close people and like try to be calm

you know what would you do? Cream barbecue I'll do cream barbecue because I would just stuff myself silly yeah definitely the food I would do it to the extent where like I'm like now dying

is probably the better outcome than to feel this full for much longer. That's good. Gives you a reason to go on. Yeah, 100%. To that last, like that last step on this mortal plane. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. So anyway, that stuff's wild. The, so when the Indianapolis was attacked on Okinawa, it was hit by a kamikaze pilot. The plane dropped the plane of the bomb at the plane dropped before it rolled to the ocean. It went through the mess hall and then through a couple layers of the ship and then into the ocean.

So it went straight all the way through and it killed nine people. So it didn't like permanently damage it, but it did have to go back to America to get repaired after that. Yep. So it's 1945. The Indianapolis is fixed and they need someone to move that uranium. It takes 10 days to get it from San Francisco to Tinian Island, which is near Guam. and it was a very, very secret. Like, even the captain of the Indianapolis didn't know what was on it.

They had just like a secret box and they had two guys who were like, Air Force men, I think, but they like really weren't. They were Los Alamos scientists. They were just there to bring it over. They did it. They left San Francisco the same day as the Trinity test. So the same day of the very first explosion happened, they were already on their way to do it to bring into Japan.

Yep. That was they had fun trying to guess what was in it, you know? Like, I don't know, maybe it's Rita Hayworth, you know, like funny things, but it was uranium. So after all that, after all that. So they did get to where they wanted to go. The military scientists got off. Some of the crew changed. And then they were headed back to Guam.

So they were doing that. And then they went to Guam, pick some more people up. And then they were head to the Philippines for like the next step. So they didn't know, like the, by the time Indianapolis is sort of out on its own. on its way to the Philippines. They're waiting for their next orders. They don't know about the nuclear bomb. They don't know what's coming.

They don't know that they did the uranium. They're thinking, like, we're probably going to have to go get a bunch of shit, come back and invade Japan. You know? Yeah. They're like, the war's not ending soon.

That's what they're figuring out. So a few facts about this trip. The Indianapolis was not accompanied by guards or like helper ships. It obviously was on the way there. So there were like a bunch of other ships around it, making sure that, like, you know, being extra careful about what was in the water and such, but they did not do that on the way back. They were not going in a zigzag pattern.

So there's like a thing where you would kind of go back and forth in a zigzag as you were going to help, like, divert yourself from a submarine being able to see you, able to find you. They were not doing that. They were going straight, but they were, that wasn't like crazy. Like they were in a spot where they felt very safe. So they were just, it was up to the captain and they were going straight. it wasn't necessary um there was submarine activity in the area though but they didn't know so i mean i can't imagine how hard it was to communicate in 1945 you know like to these ships anyway like you're

getting very little information and like they just like didn't they didn't know they didn't get that information um and it was also really really hot outside like it's the south pacific in july so it's super humid super hot and there's a lot of people sleep sleeping, like the men on the ship are sleeping naked on the deck. Because, like, what else are you going to do? It's a kind of degrees. Yeah. So they're out there trying to catch the breeze.

So it's nighttime. So a lot of dudes are outside. Our captain, we're going to talk about it, is Captain Charles B. McVeigh, the third. So Captain McVeigh is on there. In total, there are 1,195 men on the USS Indianapolis. It's July 29th. It's about 11 p.m. And we'll go under the water to a Japanese submarine.

So Japanese submarine I-58 pops up for a peak. So they have to, like, we've talked about how just insanely big the ocean is and how you can't find a nuclear submarine. You couldn't find one, you know, and how they can just, like, disappear. And it's really wild. So they popped up, put out of their periscope, and they, like, could not believe that they saw a ship. The lieutenant Tanaka, he spots the ship. The USS, Indianapolis is going 14 miles per hour. They don't know what it's the Indy.

They don't know what it is. but they know that it's, like, not theirs, you know? So the commander, Mokishura Hashimoto, gets the news, and it's, like, midnight, and he's like, we're going to do this. Like, we don't know what this is, but we're going to shoot at it. He said that the Kaizen pilots were like, send us. And he was like, no, I think a torpedo would be better, but, like, who knows if that really happened? But isn't that funny?

I mean, like, there's no way. Yeah, I know. I feel like, what? Okay, did they say that? But I'm not sure. But whatever. And he shoots six torpedoes at the indie and two of them hit. And so I want you to think about like, I was listening to the book about this and I was just like this point. I was like, whoa. Like this is like this is before the in the water stuff, but it is midnight. So obviously like some people are awake because you have to always have someone working on these big boats. But most people are asleep. A lot of them, like I said, are asleep outside or they're asleep naked. which is like a thing because they're not going to have any clothes in the upcoming days and there and the ship gets hit and it sinks in 12 minutes so as soon as it gets hit it goes through like multi layers of like you know you learned this watching titanic you know like the water can like goes to the different compartments like enough compartments were were broken that the water kept on the ship and it was going to sink and instantly a ton of people die you know like it

Whatever it hits, those people are dead. A lot of people are stuck in the ship. A lot of people will drown in the ship itself. Like, as soon as it also gets hit, there's fire everywhere. You were asleep. You were just woken up. So, things are on fire, including you. And then the lights go out, you know?

And you're like, there's nothing. Like, you're in the interior of a ship. There's no windows, you know. It's absolutely pitch black. It's hot anyway. You can smell oil. You can smell fire. You can hear screaming.

Like, you don't know which way is up. And about 300 people died in the ship in, like, the first 12 minutes. So for the record, it took the Titanic over two hours to sink. So this thing must have been like a super bus. Yeah, super. That's very helpful. Yeah, super buses. They, so people are just, like, trapped.

Like, there's terrible stories of people having, like, hearing banging. And that happened in Pearl Harbor, too. Have you heard those stories where you're like, they heard banging for days and they couldn't get to the guys? because they were like in different parts like it's terrible so but 300 people die in the first 12 minutes

that leaves oh also people are like doing things like jumping out of the boat obviously you know like be boat is on fire they're jumping off of it jumping off the ship

into the sea the sea is also then full of oil like it's full of the oil from the ship it's full of debris it's full of burning things it's full of dying people

some people jump into the propeller whether either by accident or on purpose like in the movie Titanic, maybe in real life Titanic, I don't know. And some of them grab what they can, but there's not, like obviously not enough time. There's no time to get out. So people, some people have life jackets and some people have rafts.

And the rafts are not, like, when I picture a raft, if my ship sinks, I picture like those big orange ones, you know, with like a floor. But these aren't like that. It's just like the outside part and then a net. so you're sitting in the net but you're still when you're sitting you're like waist deep in water

yeah it's really uncomfortable isn't that terrible so they have some raps and eventually tie rafts together tie people together try people together try keep people afloat

there is but most of them are just swimming you know the first few hours is going to be people in the pitch black in the huge rolling waves

like chaos everywhere and you're just like holding your friends while they die like that's the first couple hours like tons of people are just dying in the water they're burst some of them are burned so badly and they've just jumped into oil salt water you know oh my god so so much pain so much pain so they must have thought just like the tom and ilean that people were coming for them you know we're in the navy we're on a huge ship we just did something really important like we just need to hang on and they're going to come and get us the OS guy who was supposed to put out back communication did, but nobody got it. Or if they did, they never said anything. No one ever got it. No one's really clear on that. Some people later say that they did get it and they told their superiors and they didn't do anything. Some guy said that he saw it sinking from

another pilot said he saw it sinking, but he thought it was like a pretend naval battle. And I'm like, why would... It's so weird. That happened with Titanic too, where somebody was like, California was like right next. It was like, eh, they're probably just celebrating. celebrating the thing is like sideways inside upside down like go go check so um so and eventually it's going to be four days these guys are going to be in the water because the navy didn't know that they were missing until they found them floating in the water and we'll go back to like what happened but like the ship didn't reach uh lady l-e-e-te-e late is the city they're supposed to get to on july 31st

no one did anything they just like we're like oh it's not here yet maybe it's a couple days late and then they had to go back and do the other stuff that they were doing and like someone just like took it off the board and no one no one did anything about it um after that they created a thing called the movement report system to prevent such disasters in the future i'm like what the fuck why wasn't that always a thing i understand that you have thousands of ships but you can't keep track of them what are you doing well that's why nobody panicked was because nobody knew no i know well because there wasn't like a real system in place at that time no i know but i wasn't there i was not in charge i think my first thing would be like how many ships do we have and where are they

let's see that we should have had you in charge i know i feel like that's that's my number one question for when i become in charge of the navy how many ships do we have and where the fuck are they great um so anyway no one's coming for them not for no one's coming for them ever they just happen to get found later so these dudes are in the water so we started with 1,195 of them 300 or so die immediately in the boat they're gone now we have 895 in the next four days 579 of them are going to die in the ocean so I have a I watched a video of a survivor. His name is Edgar Harrell.

He passed away a few years ago, but he was the last survivor. And when I say men, I think I've been saying men, I mean boys. They're so young. You know, like the oldest person there is like 40. You know, like everyone, and so many of them are like, I just turned 17 and I'm finally get to be in the war. Like my grandpa was about this age because he was in the Marines, but only for like six months because then the war ended you know

like he joined as soon as he could wait which war vietnam no world war two well your grandpa was in world war two yeah both my grandpa's in world war two huh yeah i guess yeah okay yeah timing was okay sorry um yeah so yeah my one by one grandpa he

joined right then because the boys wanted to go you know or whatever so these boys are like 16 17 18 you know they're their kids um so Edgar, he tells the story. It's on YouTube. I will, I encourage everyone to watch it. So, like, I am, you know that I am someone who's like, when people say that they're talking to a higher power, I'm like, I don't believe you, or like, that's something

else going on, you know what I mean? But when Edgar Harold says that he was talking to God and he heard God talk to him, I fucking believe him. It's like, it's so incredible watching this man and like yell about it and he's yelling and He's saying, like, he's an old man in this YouTube video that I'll show you. But he's like, he goes, I heard them yelling abandon ship. I saw the torpedoes coming towards us. I yelled to God.

And I said, God, I'm not going to die. I want to live. And God said, you're going to make it. And so I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. And like, it's really incredible watching this story, like watching him say it. But his story is he saw it go under. He saw the people hitting the propellers. He felt the sharks hitting him because there's water full of sharks.

which we'll talk about. And the way that he survived is he ended up swimming with some guys who wanted to swim to the Philippines. And he's like, you know that's impossible, but he was like, let's just start moving. And then, like, he went with them and he found a crate of like rotten potatoes. And he, like, dug through the raw and ate the, ate the raw potato. And he was so, like, overwhelmed and grateful. And that helped him and his friends survive. And, like, one of his friends was, like, wanted to just, like,

and he like tied himself to him and was like you can't do that like whatever and then talked about being saved and anyway it's really incredible and yeah I'll share you should wash it you can eat raw potatoes and I get sick I feel like I don't do it but if you're in the middle of ocean and you're serving then yes toxicity from solonine digestibility I mean it's not good for you you shouldn't do it but yeah I guess in the situation yeah it's not recommended No, things don't like views. Yeah. So, anyway, watch that.

It's great. But so there's so many stories of the men who are in the water, right? So also, there's several different groups led by different guys. And the waves are huge. Like, the swells are huge. And they're in the middle of the ocean. So, like, they're getting pulled further and further apart. And eventually, they're, like, miles apart from each other when they're found.

You know, and, like, miles away from where it sank, even. yeah because like the water even like that happens when you're on the beach you like all of a sudden you're like oh I'm way further away from my umbrella than I thought it was you know like so they're really being pulled apart a lot of the men are like horribly burned still and then what happens while they're there for the next couple days is there's like obviously severe dehydration and exposure so the it's hot during the day it's cold at night so you have like the extreme heat the sun the dehydration also like dehydrate your eyes so a lot of them like their eyes were so dry from the fire and the seawater and the sun that they were like they couldn't close their eyes

yeah this was the worst part yeah so they were just like their faces were just like sunburned and like trapped and terrible and like it's like hurting me to like think of you're just getting like you can't close your eyes and you're having oil salt water spot it's like Yeah, you're just getting brutalized by the sudden. And like the longer you're in salt water, like your skin starts to fall off. You just go underwater and take a breath. And a lot of people did, you know, like if you weren't tied to a raft and you didn't have your vest and the vests, vests were getting waterlogged after a couple days, you know? Some dudes are just swimming a lot of them and just let go, you know, like what you can do.

Especially because then it starts to be those sharks, those white tip sharks that we talked about. and they would start bumping people and then they start because they're around because they smell the dead people obviously you know so the sharks come

and they start eating the dead bodies which is great but dead bodies don't like go away like you can't just like push a guy away and he'll like go you know like they're kind of bobbing around yeah it's funny how like the current will take you

super far away from where you want to be yeah but won't take the things that you don't want near you away from you it like keeps you like bobbed together It's like anytime in a pool and there's like a dead bug and you do the thing where you splash a little bit like get it to go the other way and then you look over in like a minute and it's like right next to you. Have you heard like someone say like how many dead bodies is it okay for you to be in a body of water for you to swim in it?

Because like obviously you're like zero but like the ocean is just full of dead bodies. It's true. You know? It's true. But if you find that. But you got close to them. Yeah, you can apply that logic more so to your like. apartment swimming pool yeah yeah no no of course that's where he gets problematic that's where one is

too many yeah right or like a body part i think would even be too much for me um but anyway so the the sharks start coming right and they start like bumping people's feet they start like chomping at people and once you start bleeding they're people you got to get you got to leave the group because you're bleeding you know so like some guys are together and the one guy gets spit by a shark and they like push him out of the group and like they've let the guy like go and some away and just die because they don't they can't help him and they he's going to attract more sharks you know and eventually people will just start getting like pulled down because they were like the whole body was an open wound anyway you know yeah and so anywhere between like 30 and 150 people were killed directly from from sharks and the shark attacks and just imagine like during the day at night you're it's the whole entire night you're the whole entire night you're you're you're the whole entire night you're you're you're you're you're you're the whole entire night. you have to bob up and down in the water you're in a ton of pain and like sharks are everywhere obviously i watched i bought jaws and i watched of course of it i didn't finish watching it but um but you know what i mean like god how scary uh that is Quinn i mean the story we're telling

is Quinn's story from Jaws obviously yeah um so there's sharks there's dehydration there's exposure there's salt water poisoning from drinking seawater because you get to a point where you're like why is it super unfair that I'm dying of dehydration and I'm covered in water you know so you think your body thinks like oh I'm going to try this so you drink it they're like oh you drink more of it and then you just like die you know because you can't do that um there is a little bit people were kind of like going crazy obviously mentally like acclucinating seeing things they were hurting each other they were like there's a reason I know they mentioned this last podcast of people like violently sexually assaulting each other and trying to eat each other and trying to drink each other's blood and just like going like losing their minds in the sea which like I don't know it seems fair I mean everyone is it is you no one's probably no one's coming you know yeah I guess you got to be in any before passing judgment you got to be in that situation

situation like no what I mean that's what I mean like it's like the the emotional mental strain is like crazy and we'll see after this like several of the survivors die by suicide because I don't know because it's hard you know so many bad things happened but I did also want to see like could you drink blood to survive and I looked it up I found a website called G captain and it had a list of things to do if you're ever stuck on an island and so regarding blood you should not drink urine, seawater, or bird blood specifically, but turtle blood is good, nutritious, and salt-free. That's got to be so gross. No, totally, but I'm just saying you can drink turtle blood. Don't drink people blood, but you can drink turtle blood. Do we know why you can't drink people's blood? I think it's the salt, because they say specifically on this website that turtles,

it says, turtles are an easy catch and make for excellent meals. Their blood is good, nutritious, salt-free drink. Their flesh is tasty and a filling. Their fat has many uses. And the castaway, this is for if you're on Desert Island, we'll find turtle eggs a real treat. Mine to the beak and the claws. I've never had turtle and I don't want to have.

No, no, no. This is definitely not a plan, but I'm saying, hopefully this will save someone's life farce. Got it. This information that I'm sharing right now. Thank you. I'm trying to save a life in the future. So also, obviously, like with that,

like, people are having hallucinations and, like, severe psychological trauma, they were you know people were like I think the ship is here the ship is just like 10 feet under the water who's gotta go down and get it and they would like swim around or like guess what's going on over here

like I see a ship I see an island I'm gonna go or I'm just gonna go and they would just like start swimming and many of them drowned that way because they were just like you know losing their minds like losing their grasp on reality some of them

like I said once someone started to bleed whether from a shark or from another kind of wound they were attracting more sharks so a lot of the groups made packs to kill people who were bleeding and like so that they would like stop actively bleeding um and they did that you know and so you would like have to kill your friends and this is like all of this stuff is so traumatic um and a lot of them just gave up like I said like you were saying a lot of them just drowned because of exhaustion and they were like fuck this absolute hell that we're in right now you know meanwhile they're like 18 years old me about 18 years old maybe about 18 years old. And I need the ones to survive. They have to go, like, live a whole life, you know? Like, oh, my God. Um, so it's four days of this of just, like, people. And most of the guys are there are going to die. So five, 579 of them die in the water. 316 come out. So there's not, there's, you know, more dead people than alive people in this floating horror show. Um, and then shit, it's just honestly just luck. So on 1025, at 1025 a.m. on August 2nd, Lieutenant, Wilbur Gwyn was flying a PV1 Ventura and saw them bobbing around. And, like, the bobbing is also insane. They're going up and down so high.

So, like, a lot of them are even seasick on top of this, you know? It couldn't get any worse. Because you're bobbing on top of this. And so he sees him and he's like, what the fuck is that? You know, and, like, the chances are almost zero that anyone would have seen them. And this is, like, another thing that they say in last podcast at the end that is, like, how many times in history did this happen where, like, we never found them, you know? like all the people that died in a ghost ship

they just like you know probably took the boat for whatever reason and starved to death out in the sea and then you know they're in the ocean somewhere 100% you know so like so many times like people were alive for a week you know and then like they died

like we don't know their story so it's crazy that they were even found at all but when Lieutenant Gwynne goes like radio's into command he's like I see people bobbing around and they're like who could that be what are we missing you know like finally are like oh the Indianapolis didn't come to where it was and like realize what it was but they were pulling the guys out of the water and asking

them what ship they were from they didn't know you know which would make me so freaking mad and I'd be like you weren't looking for us yeah well they probably knew protocol well the protocol should have been like they're not where they're supposed to be you know yeah but you just we just determined they they didn't know when somebody wasn't where they were supposed to be I know but like they they showed up could have been they should someone could have said something they didn't they didn't always do that like at some point sometimes people were like hey where's this ship you know right right right it just wasn't a protocol but like someone couldn't have been like by the way this isn't

didn't come in you know anyway so the they call it other planes and there's a plane flown by a pilot named adrian marks and he has the best freaking pilot picture i've ever seen in my life i can't wait to share it with everyone. He has like the big like leather jacket with like the big fur collar and like he just looks great. But he comes in with his patrol plane and he sees them and he's like, I'm going to lose them if I don't have eyes on them, you know, because it's so easy to lose people. And there are people who like saw them come over and they're like, I hope they find us. You know, one pilot said that he saw someone swimming and like he never saw that person again. You know, like so some people died like while they're being rescued. But the pilot marks, he

lands the plane in the water even though he's not supposed to because he's like I got to get them out of the water so he like puts his plane down has it like hit a wave to kind of like I don't know make it not explode and he lands the plane in the water and he's never going to be able

to fly it again but he just like hope for the best landed and now it's floating and he's able to pick up 56 men out of the water and he has so many people on the plane they ends up bungee courting them to the wings while they're floating is that real I heard that

to it's real they don't fly away like that but it is real that he had to put people out on the wings like you did like they did on the hudson river you know they had people on the wings okay but okay the way some versions of this made it sound was that they took off with them on the wings no that plane never took off again no it's actually going to be sunk that day like they're going to sink that plane is one of the last things they do in the recovery because they can't recover it so yeah so but he does they does save a lot of folks that way soon seven other boats come and are able to take everybody back to Guam.

One thing they did, which is really fucked up, is they sent a telegram to all of the families and said, like, before they were able to telegram individual families, they put out a press release that the Indianapolis had sunk and there were 100% casualties. That's not.

They should have. That should have taken a beat and checked. Yeah, we're kidding. So obviously a lot of people were like, oh my God. And then people started to get, like, notes that people are okay so then more people had hope and like all these things was like that that was wrong like they should have been like hold on um but they were reunited when they could be reunited um and then and then the the guys just like some of them left the military some of them stayed in the military they did they do they do well they don't anymore because they're all dead they're all dead now but they did a bunch of um of like reunions they'd get together just to like have someone to talk about it with a lot of them you know of that generation in general don't don't talk about their feelings and like PTSD wasn't a thing. You call it shell shock and you don't like get over it, you know,

but you're like, how do you sleep again after this? How do you get in a pool again? Yeah, you probably don't. How do you take a bath again? You probably barely shower. You probably like if, yeah, the thought of any of these things, like probably it's, I mean, yeah, I feel like any movement that felt like being on a boat, I feel like you'd freak out. So like I don't know how you survive this.

But, um, but they are going to go on. Like some of them, like I said, do die by suicide. pretty early but a lot of them grow into old men but then what happened after Indianapolis sank and everyone was saved or the 316 of them

were saved the captain who I hadn't mentioned before he survived I don't feel like I have stories of Captain McVeigh in the water but like he was in the water he was yeah he was part of one of the groups because they they weren't all together right i mean they were like

right that's what i was saying so for like several miles and he was like part of one of those groups like kind of leading them in yeah but he like so he was like a decorated navy guy he'd been doing it for a very long time and the navy decided that it was

his fault that this happened and they took him to trial he was charged with two things failing to zigzag that defensive maneuver talked about and failing to abandon ship and a timely manner he had sunk in 12 minutes exactly there was so little time and like

they so many people were like witnesses and a lot of the men were like what it wouldn't matter like he needed like two seconds to figure out what was going on you know and then like the communication systems were all dead so it's not like even when you're on the boat itself you can hear me when I'm the front of the boat

you're on the back of the boat you know like there's a thousand people here it's not like it was hard to even get that out you know like plenty of people didn't even hear the abandoned ship and jumped like whatever so he was um on trial and in December 1945 so not like the same year did you know how they brought to DC to be in the part of the trial the Japanese submarine captain yeah Hashimoto isn't insane like it's insane to me because war is so stupid it's so stupid it's so stupid it's so stupid you

You know, like, this man is, like, going to kill a thousand of us for no reason. And then a couple months later, we spend thousands of dollars to bring him over here to put one of our people on trial, you know? Also, why would he go? Yeah. Why would you go to an adversarial country, like, that you had a part in killing a lot of their soldiers? And it was, like, Normberg trial time. Like, I don't know.

And, like, he also, like, he, they also, like, did a bunch of, like, really stuff that I think is so bizarre. They were like, well, I mean, obviously, this is. well they were like can he swear on a Bible that he's going to tell the truth and they're like well he doesn't believe in the Bible he's Shinto and they're like well does he have any morals if he's Shinto and he was like yeah I know I know not to lie under oath it was just like oh my God we meet all this stuff you guys are so stupid you know like whatever so Hashimoto was there and he testified that zigzagging would not have mattered he would he had he would have been able to get him anyway another other submarine captains that were U.S. submarine captains said the same thing the zigzagging was not the failure to zigzag was not the reason it happened it was just wrong place wrong time yeah you know um but he was court-martialed and then his sentence ended being remitted and he retired in 1949 as a rear admiral but captain mcvay is going to feel bad about this like obviously forever he wrote letters to every single family of the people that that died on the ship and he did it like as a good gesture but then the problem was they all got his

return address and he got hate mail for the rest of his life um one example is merry christmas our family's holiday would be a lot merrier if you hadn't killed my son yeah you know it's rough and like it's rough and he would meet with the survivors and like he didn't go to some of their like conventions because there were a couple of things were like a lot of these guys obviously didn't talk about it and so there was one guy who was like you know i remember my friend and i wonder how he's doing and so they had to like find this guy because it was the 50s you know and they like drove to his house and found him and they were like listen if you can find me we can find more people and they would have reunions and they went to those but eventually the whole thing was just too much and he died

by suicide in 1968 he shot himself in on the porch of his house and laid there for like an hour still alive before someone found him and then he died in the hospital which is terrible man people just have to go through the worst I know there's some people who like lived to be like a hundred years old and then die pleasantly in their sleep and then this guy went like these two all these things yeah and all it just like

the regular war stuff you know so um in 1996 a sixth a sixth grade student named Hunter Scott

just like a dude who now works for the Navy um because he's grown but he read a book about it and he was like this is crap like this it doesn't sound like it was the um

the captain's problem at all like it wasn't his fault um so he you know met with this congressman like you were encouraged to do in the 90s and it ended up having another hearing and they invited more some marine captains more people to come in and talk about like what had happened and it and his name McVeigh's name was it was fully cleared in October 2000 that took it away from his

record and said he was exonerated for the loss of Indianapolis and Bill Clinton signed the resolution. It also noted that like obviously the Indianapolis wasn't the only ship to sink during World War II zero other captains were to blame well it's the fact that

like he survived if he'd been dead nobody would care well others survived as well no no I know I know what I'm saying like other ship captains if they had died

like if they survived they also probably wouldn't persecuted no no no they weren't that's what I'm saying oh okay like this wasn't the he was the only captain

to be court-martial for the loss of his ship due to enemy action it happened a lot it wasn't just he wasn't the only one who lived like other people did but he was the only one who was like they just like wanted to like do something with this with this tragedy and I think probably probably this definitely the one that had like the most trauma and the most story behind it you know obviously

because like once they get out of there like oh my god they were attacked by sharks for four days you know other people were like found immediately I think a lot of it was maybe to cover up their own mistakes as well being like we should have known um and then so that that happened other things that had happened since then so he has he's been cleared and there was a ducular submarine called the USS Indianapolis and the captain of that submarine when that submarine was retired in the 90s he invited all of the survivors so that they could also watch that retire like they were like sister ships which was very nice very nice to him to do that and then I wouldn't go on that um really like they were like old men by that time they weren't going on it

they were just like there for the ceremony you know just to be like okay like it's the thing anyway just wanted to like say goodbye to it um the indianapolis has actually been found um and it was found in 2001 by like um a microsoft billionaire who was it paul allen yeah yeah he did the u s indianapolis project and wanted to find it and he found it um so they were able to like you know take detailed pictures of it and and all of that and they know kind of what what had happened to it um more from that as well but but they did find it in the end um which is kind of cool so they found it after all that time wow it's over three miles deep yeah on the side of an underwater mountain why is everything so scary.

Underwater is so freaking scary. What is it? I know. I know. That is so deep. I'm getting nervous. Just like sitting here.

Dark and so scary. I feel like I have something else that I wanted to tell you, but I can't remember what it is. But yeah. So that's it. All of the survivors are gone now, but a lot of them stayed in touch, which is very nice. And oh, another thing is at one of the, one of the reunions,

Hashimoto's. family came after Hashimoto had died like his his wife and his daughter and his grandkids came to reunion as well and they like the people were like you're a part of this story too and like the kids played together which is just like you know another war stupid thing like wow like you can't believe it like your grandparents were trying to actively kill each other now you're playing together why did we do all that you know I probably if I was the family I'd be like I'm I don't to make this trip but but but they didn't and and like everyone like felt better because of it you know which i think is great and like but it just brings up the what was the point of all that you know

i think it was to stop nazi germany i know it was but like i think that's the reason why we did that but like to to die like a couple months before the end of the war you know like it just in all the people well the point there's a boy with the point I don't know I don't know being nice are to each other and it's like it's like dying of old age

like a month before we discover the secret to like forever life yeah like what a bummer the poor poor families and all those poor boys you know they're just all so young and like want to serve the country it's it's the war it's almost over

you know like or at least like we know by that time at least they knew like Germany was done all that stuff and yeah I mean when I look at the picture of the Indianapolis I feel like I'm afraid to be on that boat in the middle of the ocean on it like regardless you know like of the sinking I'd be so scared it seems so small in the middle of ocean you know yeah yeah like I just but yeah like I said there's some things I think me and you are just not no I'm not doing that cut out Obviously, I did not join the Navy, and I don't have any plans to, so cross that off my list.

Unless Russia attacks. Where are they going to put me? I'm not anywhere near any water. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. But, yes, that is it. Very fun, very fun. Very scary.

Very fun, though. So scary. Lots of interesting stories. And a good reminder, as you mentioned, war is. stupid so let's stop doing it good you know what we should tell people that listen to us we should define policy we got some good ideas um yeah so that's that's my story watch jaws again it's great i want to welcome i'm going to finish it we'll finish it tonight it's so good and be careful if you are in in the ocean down there make sure you're the best person on

the cruise as well and on the Navy ship that you're like Captain don't you think you'd miss me the most if the ship sank so that the captain would like notifying to you if the ship is sinking I mean

the only last thing I learned here is if you're ever in this situation try to die as fast as possible as soon as possible as fast as possible and yeah because you know like the last pocket guy said and like I said like God how many people

were like holding on and live for like a week and a half you know in the ocean and then died like oh my god the human spirit and all of the things but yeah cool thank you I have one thing to share

my friend Abby from this weekend is an artist and she's like listens to shows and she was like and she does like a little a thing where she like draws pictures and writes words

and like does like a little visualization of the thing she's listening to so like when she's in a meeting she'll do it and when she listen to a podcast she do it and she did it for our movie really air episode and it's really cool so i'm going to show you and i can't wait to show everybody sweet that's awesome she says like on quotes and stuff so thank you abby for doing that and um

that's all i have i think oh and oh my god i have one more thing kiarra our long-time listener and friend sent me the nicest message today um just to check in and make sure that i was okay and it was very kind and heartfelt and thank you. Sweet. Anything else, Taylor? No. Thank you, everyone. We have some, what do we have? Oh, I wanted to say that I have, I'm starting to think about I Women's History Month stuff that I'm really excited for. So, looking forward to March for that. And then I have something fun that I've been listening to the historical fiction book this week. And I was looking to in the car. It is really

good. So, like, it gives me a good, like, base for my topic next week, so I'm excited. So if you have any cool things you want to hear about or learn about or feedback or anything, please let us know. We're doomed to fell pod at gmail.com and, um, doomed to fail pod and all the socials. Sweet. Thank you, Taylor. Thanks all. Thank you. Have a good day.