Scary True Stories Told In The Rain | Ep. 489
Scary Stories and Rain
A chilling true story podcast featuring two harrowing accounts: the deadly sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945, where survivors faced sh
Key takeaways
- The USS Indianapolis sank in just 12 minutes after torpedo attack, with over 300 crew members lost due to delayed rescue efforts.
Main topics
- Historical naval disaster
- Survival against nature
Notable quotes
They were saved. But out of the crew of almost 1,200 sailors, just 317 survived.
Conclusion
These stories highlight the fragility of life and the lasting psycholo
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. Do you want to listen ad-free? Just subscribe on Spotify for $2.99 a month. Now turn out the lights, enjoy the stories, and enjoy the rain. Speaker 1 (0:17) The most deadly shark attack in recorded history began on July 30, 1945. The USS Indianapolis, a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, was taking part in a top-secret mission of the utmost importance. It was tasked with carrying enriched uranium to the island of Tinian in the South Pacific, along with other parts required for the assembly of the world's first deployable atomic bomb. As history shows, the crew of the Indianapolis were successful in their mission, completing the delivery in record speeds that are unbroken even by modern naval vessels. However, as they sailed back towards late for training before the invasion of Okinawa, tragedy struck. Just after midnight on July 30th, the Indianapolis was spotted by a Japanese submarine. Without any escorts to defend her, The Indianapolis was a prime target, and the Japanese closed in for the kill. The Indianapolis did not have sonar to detect submarines. They were completely unaware of the danger in which they found themselves. At exactly 015 AM, two Type 95 torpedoes smashed into the right-hand side of the vessel, instantly killing dozens of American sailors and causing obscene amounts of damage to the ship's structure. It took just 12 minutes of panic and terror for the ship to sink completely, taking down over 300 of the crew along with her. The surviving crew members Lacking life jackets and lifeboats were set adrift among the waves in almost complete darkness. Many thought the worst was over, but their nightmare had only just begun. Naturally, the sailors floating among the debris were expecting to be rescued in a matter of hours, days at most. But the horrible fact was that no one was coming to their rescue. Despite sending several emergency signals before the ship went down, the Navy had somehow lost track of the Indianapolis. Nothing was made of the fact that the ship failed to arrive at late. and many of the emergency messages that were received by nearby ships and naval bases were completely ignored. Declassified records later showed that one such commander in the Philippines was drunk and had told his staff not to disturb him. Another wrongly assumed the SOS calls were some kind of Japanese trap. The roughly 900 men who had actually survived the torpedo attack were now exposed to a new, perhaps even deadlier danger. It was dawn. when the survivors saw the first sharks in the waters around them. The pure carnage and chaos of the sinking had attracted hundreds of the oceanic white-tip and tiger sharks from miles around. Some were apparently as large as 15 feet. It must have been absolutely terrifying for the survivors, seeing huge dorsal fins emerging from the water as the predators began to surround them, circling. Picking out the weakest links. Those too weak to struggle. At first, the sharks focused on the dead bodies floating in the water. Many men had died from exposure, salt poisoning, or thirst, and it was these corpses that provided the easiest meals for the circling sharks. But soon, the lifeless bodies among the survivors had been completely devoured by the hungry predators. It wasn't long before they turned their attention toward the living. The survivors later reported that they were losing at least three or four men to the sharks every single day. At some point, they counted 20 to 30 sharks in the water, their dorsal fins breaking the waves to form an almost impenetrable barrier around the surviving sailors. The sharks would often swim towards the survivors, bumping into them to test for signs of life. The sailors never knew exactly when the attacks would come. and this took a serious toll on their sanity. Men would kick and pound the water, screaming bloody murder in an attempt to deter the sharks from attacking. But this only served to attract more and more of the fishy fiends, as it mimicked the thrashing of a wounded sea creature that served as a natural dinner bell for the hungry beasts. Every so often, a shark would lose patience and strike without mercy, rushing up from the briny depths to drag down a screaming survivor. Imagine it, hearing the man next to you let out an ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream before disappearing beneath the waves, never to be seen again. Some survivors recalled that the elements were perhaps just as deadly as the circling sharks. During the scorching heat of the daytime, men would pray for darkness, their faces blistering as the harsh Pacific sun beat down upon them. While at night, the water grew so cold that their teeth would shatter as hypothermia set in. Some would kick their legs and thrash their arms in futile attempts to keep warm. But again, this only mimicked the death throes of a wounded sea creature, making them a target for the circling sharks. As the floating sailors fought to survive, many of them succumbed to the horror of their experiences and began to lose their minds. Some men even began to hallucinate, seeing islands that weren't there, or claiming that they heard rescue planes searching in the skies above. One such surviving sailor recalls the heartbreaking moment that one of his shipmates finally lost his grip on sanity. The man claimed he could see the Indianapolis floating in the water just a few feet below them, and that he could access the mess hall's stores of purified water. He made repeated trips beneath the surface, inviting his comrades to join him in drinking the cool, fresh water he had found. But the man was drinking salt water. He died shortly afterwards from the effects of saline poisoning. Then, on the fourth day of their harrowing survival, a Navy seaplane happened to be passing overhead when they spotted the groups of surviving sailors floating in the waters below. One of the aircraft's crew members leaned out of the central hatch, waving down at the men. That's when the tears came. Tears of pure relief and salvation. they were saved. But out of the crew of almost 1,200 sailors, just 317 survived the ordeal. But for some, the horror, pain, and tragedy of the sinking would never end. Captain Charles McVeigh, commander of the Indianapolis, was one of the last to abandon the sinking ship. In November of 1945, he was court-martialed for failing to order his men to abandon ship in time, resulting in the 300 or so sailors that sank with the ship to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Cleared of this charge, he was instead convicted of hazarding the ship, a naval term which describes the failure of a captain to properly maneuver his vessel to avoid the likelihood of a direct torpedo strike. Yet aspects of the trial were controversial, as even the commander of the Japanese sub that sank the ship said that zigzagging the Indianapolis wouldn't have made a bit of difference and that he'd have always found a way to sink her. The disgraced captain was cleared of all charges, was reinstated to his position, and retired as a rear admiral four years later, in 1949. Yet, while many of the Indianapolis' survivors agreed that Captain McVeigh was not to blame for their ship's sinking, the sentiment was not shared by some of the grieving families of the fallen sailors. Captain McVeigh would often receive Christmas cards from the relatives of his dead crew members. but they did not have a remotely festive tone about them. Merry Christmas. Our family's holiday would be a lot merrier if you hadn't have murdered my son, read one card that McVeigh has received as late as the 1960s. Despite being cleared of blame, Captain McVeigh never forgave himself for his failures as a commander, even if it was during the most brutal and decisive war that mankind has ever known. Eventually, in 1968, McVeigh picked up a small toy sailor that reminded him of his naval service, walked out into his front lawn, and shot himself with the very same weapon that the Navy had issued to him upon entry into the service. He was 70 years old. Over 23 years later, the largest war in human history had senselessly claimed yet another life. Speaker 1 (9:58) I used to be a scuba instructor in Bali, Indonesia. Groups could book me for a casual lesson or for like a week's worth of diving where they could earn a provisional diving license. So this one group books me. They're a mixed group in their early 20s. Couples and friends. Good people. Silver spoons galore. But I'm not one to judge. Our first activity was underwater walking. Now, I had never tried underwater walking since it was relatively new at the time, but I was keen to try it. So we pile into a little boat and take the short trip out towards the mothership. Now this is just a naval term for a larger boat that smaller ones like ours can work from. But we go one step further to justify this, having spray-painted one of those huge grey alien heads onto the hull. It looked awesome, and naturally the kids loved it. Underwater walking itself was similar to the time I did snuba. Scuba plus snorkeling equals snuba. In the Caribbean, in that the oxygen tanks float up on the surface of the water, instead of being on the divers' backs. The other major difference to regular diving is that instead of having a scuba mask to breathe out of, we had these big old sci-fi looking helmets on. I mean, they looked like they were... props from that old Lost in Space show that used to be on TV. Real kitschy. I went first, and the procedure was pretty simple. I hung onto the ladder with the majority of my body in the water. They placed a small foam rubber ring on my head to cushion the helmet, and then they finally put the helmet on. The second that it was on my body, I felt its weight forcing me to the bottom of the ocean. It was kind of scary because I went down pretty fast, which caused the pressure to build up quickly. I made sure to swallow and yawn a bunch to negate the effects of the pressure, and I was fine. Also, I could never really get a deep breath of air because as I breathed in, the helmet began to make a vacuum and I would have to stop to let it fill in with more air. Then, two members of the mixed group of teens followed suit before a scuba diving man came down to be our guide. He handed us all a piece of bread in a plastic bag, which drew all of the fish to us. That was a lot of fun watching otherwise timid fish practically swarming us.