In 1945, the USS Indianapolis completed a top-secret, high-speed trip from California to the Pacific Islands to deliver parts of Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon ever used in combat. It was the most highly classified naval mission of the war–but it was not their most dangerous. Just days later, two Japanese torpedoes struck the ship when she was sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea. The Indianapolis immediately turned into a fiery cauldron and sunk within minutes–300 miles from the nearest land. While 300 men went down with the ship, nearly 900 made it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, the men battled injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 survived. This isn’t a sinking tale. Thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete, far more complicated and compelling story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
Eight Cousins Books, our co-host, will have copies of this book at the talk.
The book will also be available in the store at 189 Main Street in Falmouth.
