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USS Indianapolis: The Sinking, the Sharks, and the Scandal That Haunted the U.S. Navy
Paperback
Series: Shipwrecks That Shaped History, Book 27
BoatingNaval HistoryWorld War II
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 5 2026
Pages: 228
Weight: 0.62
Height: 0.57 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
USS Indianapolis was one of the most infamous naval disasters of the Second World War.
In July 1945, the heavy cruiser Indianapolis completed a secret mission connected to the atomic bomb components later used at Hiroshima. Soon after, while sailing across the Philippine Sea, she was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-58. The ship sank in minutes. Hundreds of men were thrown into the ocean.
What followed became a nightmare of thirst, oil, wounds, exposure, hallucination and shark attacks. For days, survivors waited for rescue that should have come sooner. No immediate alarm was raised when the cruiser failed to arrive, and the men in the water paid the price.
But the disaster did not end with rescue. The U.S. Navy needed someone to blame. Captain Charles B. McVay III was court-martialed, condemned by many survivors as a scapegoat, and haunted for the rest of his life by a tragedy far larger than one man's decisions.
Clear, direct and unsentimental, USS Indianapolis tells the story of the ship, the secret cargo, the sinking, the men in the water, the failed rescue, the sharks, the court-martial and the long fight to clear McVay's name.
Part of the Shipwrecks That Shaped History series.
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