.jpg)
The USS Indianapolis tragedy is one of the most harrowing events in U.S. naval history, and it is often associated with one of the deadliest shark attacks in history.
The USS Indianapolis was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the U.S. Navy, which played a significant role in the Pacific Theater during World War II. On July 30, 1945, after completing a secret mission to deliver components of the atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, the I-58, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) off the coast of the Philippine Sea.
The ship sank within 12 minutes, and of the 1,196 crew members aboard, around 300 went down with the ship. The remaining 900 or so sailors were left stranded in the open ocean, without sufficient lifeboats or supplies.
For the next four days, these men endured extreme conditions: scorching heat, dehydration, and hunger. To make matters worse, the sailors became the target of relentless shark attacks. The most famous of these attacks occurred in the "shark-infested waters," where survivors reported that the sharks — primarily oceanic whitetip sharks — circled and attacked the stranded men, often dragging them under the water.
Estimates of how many men were killed by sharks vary, but it is believed that at least 150 men lost their lives to shark attacks. The exact number remains uncertain, as many survivors did not live to tell the full story, and others perished from exposure, dehydration, or other injuries.
The survivors were finally rescued on August 2, 1945, after a routine flight crew spotted them by chance. Only 316 of the original 900 survivors were found alive, making this one of the deadliest shark attacks in history, though it is also important to note that the larger tragedy was the loss of life from the torpedo strike and the conditions in the open sea. The event remains a grim chapter in both military and maritime history.