But Manhattan Project scientists had just completed the world’s first operational atomic bomb, and Lieutenant General Leslie Groves needed to move the uranium core of the weapon to within striking distance of Japan. Most men thought that meant they’d sit out the balance of the war. On March 31, 1945, the eve of the Allied landing at Okinawa, a Japanese kamikaze struck Indy, killing nine sailors and sending the ship to Mare Island, California, for repairs. No one dreamed that Indianapolis would be at sea at all, the war being almost over. Or that its sinking would precipitate the worst sea disaster in the U.S. When he and nearly 1,200 USS Indianapolis crew members sailed from Mare Island, California, on July 16, 1945, no one aboard dreamed that in exactly two weeks they would be cast adrift while their beloved Indianapolis, the 5th Fleet flagship, lay at the bottom of the sea. His breathing shallows and tears stream down his tortured face. His eyes unfocus as he watches the scene play out, the predators still lurking just feet below him after all these years. King’s hand traces slow circles near his legs, describing the sharks’ menacing patrol. “There were a lot of sharks,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. He looks down at his lap, clearly reliving the nightmare as though it happened just moments before. Then King’s story pauses and his demeanor changes. It wasn’t hard to be talked into things out there. So a group of us swam off, following the leader, not wanting to be left behind.” “Promises of pretty girls carrying fresh buttermilk biscuits, or a cold drink just over the horizon. “Men started getting ideas that the ship wasn’t far in the distance,” King says. Now, among those still living, many are losing their minds. Hundreds have already died of wounds or dehydration. It has been days since his ship, USS Indianapolis, was sunk from under him, and he is among hundreds of sailors fighting for their lives in the center of the Philippine Sea. King’s eyes mist over as he tells his story, and with his arms swimming in the sleeves of an old blue bathrobe, his hands draw pictures in the air. He time-travels there when he speaks of it-even as he sits in a wheelchair near the lone window in his San Francisco apartment. Though Tony King is sharp and alert at the age of 94, a part of him is trapped forever in the summer of 1945.
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