McVay III, called Connecticut home for seven years after retiring. Nine Connecticut natives were on the Indianapolis.
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Until what happened was told during a famous scene in the 1975 movie Jaws, most people were unaware that the ship played a vital role in helping to end the war. The USS Indianapolis story became a sad and relatively obscure footnote in history. So it was no wonder that most Americans, weary of reading about death and the horrors of war for over a half-decade, were emotionally spent, preferring to concentrate on victory and getting their lives and country back to normal. Īt the very bottom of the same page was this: Cruiser Sunk, 1196 Casualties Took Atom Bomb to Guam. The New York Times page one headline was, in all caps, JAPAN SURRENDERS, END OF WAR! EMPEROR ACCEPTS ALLIED RULE. With a new documentary and major motion picture bringing the tragic story back into the spotlight, these are the stories of four Connecticut men aboard the ill-fated ship.Ī nation exhausted by World War II first celebrated V-E Day (Victory in Europe) on May 8, 1945.
When the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine days after delivering the atomic bomb at the end of World War II, it was the worst at-sea disaster in Navy history.