USS Indianapolis CA-35 - "Shark Infested Waters"

Launched in 1931, the USS Indianapolis (CA 35) was a Portland Class heavy cruiser. During World War 2, the ship served with distinction. She was the flagship for Admiral Raymond Spruance from 1943 to 1945 while he commanded the Fifth Fleet. The Indianapolis had a distinguished career, earning ten battle stars during the war. She fought in operations across the Pacific and sustained a kamikaze attack. The cruiser had a main armament of nine 8-inch/55-caliber Mark 9 guns in three turrets with a secondary armament of eight 5-inch/25-caliber guns and two QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns. During a 1945 refit, the ship gained twenty-four 40 mm (1.57 in) Bofors guns, mounted in six quad mounts as well as nineteen 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannons. The Indianapolis was a fast ship having four propellers which were powered by four Parsons GT geared turbines and eight White-Forster boilers producing a total of 107,000 SHP. This gave a design speed of 32.7 knots. The ship is perhaps most remembered for her sinking after having a top-secret mission to deliver components of the Little Boy atomic bomb to the island of Tinian in the Pacific Theater. That weapon would eventually be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. During that run, the Indianapolis set a new speed record sailing from San Francisco to Hawaii in just 74.5 hours at an average speed of 29 knots – a record which still stands today. After delivering the bomb components, the Indy was ordered to Guam and then on to Leyte. It was during the run between Guam and Leyte, shortly after midnight on the morning of July 30, 1945, when the Indianapolis was struck by two torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-58. It is estimated 300 of her 1,200 man crew were killed during the attack. The ship was heavily damaged, going down in just 12 minutes leaving the remaining 900 of her crew adrift in the waters of the Philippine Sea. Due to communication errors, the ship's sinking went unnoticed for several days, leaving the survivors in the water to face starvation, dehydration, and shark attacks. The sharks were voracious. Despite efforts to band together and fend off their attacks, the majority of the crew became victims to the sharks as they floated helplessly in the open ocean. The men were finally spotted by aerial patrols after 3.5 days. By the time all of them could be rescued, the ordeal had lasted 5 days. Just 316 men were pulled from the sea.  This artwork depicts USS Indianapolis just after midnight on July 30, 1945.