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OnDaFence 36M/44M
44267 posts
7/30/2015 6:07 pm

Last Read:
8/5/2015 9:56 pm

The Rest of the Story



Hello fellow American's it's time for NEWS! Seventy years ago, the worst naval disaster in US history occurred.



Just past midnight on July 30, 1945, a Japanese submarine torpedoed the USS Indianapolis, a Portland-class heavy cruiser, sinking it in approximately 12 minutes.



The Indianapolis was en route to the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, Of the 1,196 men on board (some accounts cite 1,197), roughly 300 perished with the ship. Approximately 900 were stranded in murky waters.



For the next four days, they would struggle against insurmountable odds, fighting off vicious shark attacks, dehydration, hallucinations, and starvation. When finally rescued on August 2, only 317 men were still alive.



“I never had any doubt we would survive,” said 94-year-old Harlan Twible in an interview from his home in Sarasota, Florida. “I was too busy. I was responsible for 325 men.”

The then 23-year-old ensign was just getting off watch when the first torpedo struck. The ship quickly began sinking.



“No one was taking charge so I hollered to the men to abandoned ship,” said Twible, then a gunnery officer. He yelled at everyone to swim away to avoid getting sucked under. “It was pure chaos; everyone was scared to death. The men grabbed on to anyone they thought might help,” he said, and he told the survivors to tie their life nets together.

“No one ever instructed us what we should do if and when we got sunk,” explained Twible of his training at the Naval Academy. “We were taught our main ambitions were to keep fighting.”



The Indianapolis had just 4 days earlier delivered to Tinian Island its top secret cargo: the uranium and components to the atomic bomb codenamed, “Little Boy.”



Which would be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan thus ending World War Two.



and now............ You know the rest of the story.



Good Day................!

Hungr4Yungr 75M
5766 posts
7/30/2015 8:51 pm

Thank you Brett. That history lesson fills in a lot of missing pieces for me. I really appreciate your efforts on this one, especially when you are still under the weather. You take care of yourself. JD needs you, and so do those of us here in blogville.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/30/2015 8:59 pm

    Quoting Hungr4Yungr:
    Thank you Brett. That history lesson fills in a lot of missing pieces for me. I really appreciate your efforts on this one, especially when you are still under the weather. You take care of yourself. JD needs you, and so do those of us here in blogville.
He just came in from the horses and is going to check my blood sugar. I only hope that my story telling is good enough for the heroic veterans who made it possible.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/30/2015 9:34 pm

    Quoting  :

Yes th is his pic, his name was Paul Harvey. I'd listen to him with my grandparents on the radio at noon while w ate. He always had an interesting story to tell.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 12:11 am

    Quoting  :

Thanks sooo much!... and yes I did forget his good day... but you have to remember I was a little kid the last time I heard him.... I will get that corrected here in a sec.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 6:53 am

    Quoting  :

My dad was a history nut and I was home schooled to the 8th grade.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 8:32 am

    Quoting  :

Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009), I know I was a little kid and my grandparents listened to him every day at lunch. They timed the meal to his broadcasts just to hear what he had to say.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 12:22 pm

    Quoting sunucontentu:
    I also remember how he signed off the air with those words.

    Haven't heard anyone like him again since he left.
I shall attempt to do a better job at recreating his style in here. The man was a legend in news commentary.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 6:30 pm

    Quoting  :

I think we are down to the last survivor of the tragedy now. A couple years ago there were three left.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

7/31/2015 11:13 pm

    Quoting  :

Paul Harvey has some very big shoes to try an fill.


OnDaFence 36M/44M

8/2/2015 2:10 pm

    Quoting sweetone09:
    383 lot of story behnt them old pici bet there is some fun along the way
They were guys stuck all together out on a ship... I would bet so too.