Billionaire tech mogul Paul G. Allen announced Friday that a research vessel belonging to his organization has located wreckage from the USS Indianapolis in the Philippine Sea.<\/p>\n
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The sinking of the Indianapolis by a Japanese submarine in 1945 remains the single biggest loss of life in US Naval history, and the discovery of the wreckage promises to shed new light on the war-time disaster.<\/p>\n
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‘To be able to honor the brave men of the USS and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a significant role during World War II is truly humbling,’ Allen said in a statement published to his website.<\/p>\n
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‘As Americans, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the crew for their courage, persistence and sacrifice in the face of horrendous circumstances.’<\/p>\n
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‘While our search for the rest of the wreckage will continue, I hope everyone connected to this historic ship will feel some measure of closure at this discovery so long in coming,’ the statement added.<\/p>\n
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On July 30, 1945, as the Second World War was coming to a close, the USS Indianapolis was destroyed by a Japanese submarine, sinking the ship in 12 minutes after it was struck with a torpedo.<\/p>\n
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The ship had just completed a secret mission delivering components of two nuclear weapons that would soon be used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.<\/p>\n
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Of the 1,197 men aboard the Indianapolis, roughly 300 went down with the ship.<\/p>\n
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The remaining 900 men went into the shark-infested water, with few life boats and almost no food or water.<\/p>\n
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For four days, those who didn\u2019t have lifejackets clung to those who did, as whitetip and Tiger sharks circled the wreckage and picked off survivors.<\/p>\n
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\u2018There soon were hundreds of fins around us,\u2019 recalled survivor Harold Eck, an 18-year-old seaman at the time.<\/p>\n
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\u2018The first attack I saw was on a sailor who had drifted away from the group. I heard yelling and screaming and saw him thrashing . . . then I just saw red, foamy water.\u2019<\/p>\n
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Another survivor said: \u2018They were upon us every three or four hours.\u2019 Bugler First Class Donald Mack would never forget those screams and the realization: \u2018There was one less man to be rescued.\u2019<\/p>\n
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The feeding frenzy which ensued remains the worst shark attack on humans in recorded history.<\/p>\n
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Only 317 men, a quarter of the ship’s original complement, survived the horror ordeal.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until after the war that the crew of the Indy learned the true story of the secret mission that had put them in the crosshairs of Japanese torpedos.<\/p>\n
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At the time, all they knew was that they were transporting a large wooden crate from a naval yard in San Francisco to the island of Tinian, the busiest US air-base in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
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The men had joked that it probably contained nothing more than a consignment of luxury toilet paper for the Navy top brass.<\/p>\n
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In reality it contained about half of the world’s supply of enriched uranium at the time, and atomic bomb components.<\/p>\n
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The mission was successful, and the materials were used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<\/p>\n
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The Indianapolis was steaming onward to the Philippines when two torpedoes from the Japanese sub I-58 struck it.<\/p>\n
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‘Even in the worst defeats and disasters there is valor and sacrifice that deserve to never be forgotten,’ said Sam Cox, Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command.<\/p>\n
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‘They can serve as inspiration to current and future Sailors enduring situations of mortal peril. There are also lessons learned, and in the case of the Indianapolis, lessons re-learned, that need to be preserved and passed on, so the same mistakes can be prevented, and lives saved.’<\/p>\n
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Capt. William Toti (Ret), spokesperson for the survivors of the USS Indianapolis, said upon learning of the discovery that every soldier, to a man, ‘have longed for the day when their ship would be found, solving their final mystery.’<\/p>\n
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‘They all know this is now a war memorial, and are grateful for the respect and dignity that Paul Allen and his team have paid to one of the most tangible manifestations of the pain and s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Billionaire tech mogul Paul G. Allen announced Friday that a research vessel belonging to his organization has located wreckage from the USS Indianapolis in the Philippine Sea. The sinking of the Indianapolis by a Japanese submarine in 1945 remains the single biggest loss of life in US Naval history, and the discovery of the wreckage promises to shed new light on the war-time disaster. ‘To be able to honor the brave men of the USS and their families through the discovery of a ship that played such a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9511,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9509\/revisions\/9511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}