USS Indianapolis Survivor’s Accounts

Lewis Haynes,
LCDR, Medical Corps, USS Indianapolis

At first you get in a situation where you abhor it.  You can't stand it. It's terrible. But you can't get away from it. So you stick with it.  And then you get so that you tolerate it. You tolerate it long enough, you embrace it.  It becomes your way of life.

Giles McCoy,
private first-class, USMC, USS Indianapolis

The worst part was giving up my life, accepting that I was going to die -- it wasn't  the sharks, and it wasn't seeing your buddies die. And we were young men, healthy men. All of a sudden, there's no chance, we can't make it. They've forgotten us. We can't last out here forever -- we're gonna die.

Richard Stephens, 
seaman second-class, USS Indianapolis

Buddy, you could hear it -- it was just a rumble, you [could] just hear everything blasting.  Underneath this deck, it was just like fireworks.  You ever hear fireworks when they posh . . . posh . . . and then all of a sudden: pa, pa, pa! Everything was exploding.

That concussion just ripped that ship from one end to the other. Those were armor-piercing shells that were going off in there. Well, how in the would could that ship survive? 

Robert Gause, 
quartermaster first-class, USS Indianapolis

I jumped and I swam. I looked back and the ship stood right on end, and there must have been 300 sailors standin' on the fantail, and it just went under. And they drifted off like a bunch of flies.