Terrifying & True | USS Indianapolis Sinking: Sharks, Survival and Captain McVay
Published: August 3, 2026
Duration: 39:27
The USS Indianapolis sinking remains one of the most devastating naval disasters of World War II. On July 30, 1945, Japanese submarine I-58 torpedoed the heavy cruiser in the Philippine Sea after it completed a secret mission delivering components for the Little Boy atomic bomb to Tinian.
Indianapolis sank in about twelve minutes. Nearly nine hundred sailors and Marines reached the water alive, but only 316 of the nearly twelve hundred people aboard survived. For more than three days, the survivors drifted across miles of open ocean with little food, almost no fresh water and failing life jackets. They endured burns...
Indianapolis sank in about twelve minutes. Nearly nine hundred sailors and Marines reached the water alive, but only 316 of the nearly twelve hundred people aboard survived. For more than three days, the survivors drifted across miles of open ocean with little food, almost no fresh water and failing life jackets. They endured burns...