as divided in pieces.

It sank in just 15 minutes, leaving a layer of black oil floating on the

Harrell, who wrote a book about his harrowing tale of survival, has been traveling the
country retelling his story, often with vividly descriptive details.

“I can still see and feel … the trauma of swimming those 4½ days,” he said. “I can still

About 800 of the nearly 1,200 crew members made it off the ship before it sank July 30,
1945. The Navy did not know what had happened, so help did not come. For four days, the
men, some of whom had life jackets,

. obchodních zákonů a k zabránění

: „Ve válečných operacích prováděli členové Pobřežní stráže individuální hrdinské činy tak
udatné jako činy kterékoli jiné ozbrojené služby. Neznám žádný případ, kdy by se zpronevěřili
nejlepším tradicím své služby nebo neprokázali, že jsou hodni svého služebního motta:
Semper Paratus – Vždy připraven.“

Na podzim 1941se zdálo, že je jen otázkou času, kdy se USA plně zapojí do války.
Rooseveltova administrativa pomáhala Britům a Sovětům a americké lodě chránily konvoje v
Atlantiku. Ale námořnictvo zoufale potřebovalo více plavidel a personálu. Proto 1. listopadu
prezident nařídil, aby Pobřežní stráž působila jako součást námořnictva. Měla tak činit až do
1. ledna 1946.

“It brings closure to the story,” Harrell said. “But the experience that we survived, the trauma
that we felt, that still exists.”

Harrell, who wrote a book about his harrowing tale of survival, has been traveling the
country retelling his story, often with vividly descriptive details.

“I can still see and feel … the trauma of swimming those 4½ days,” he said. “I can still
remember today as if it were just yesterday.”

Harrell said he was among about 80 crew members who were near each other after the ship
went under. The rest were scattered elsewhere. He remembers seeing several shark fins
surround them. He has not forgotten what it was like to see a fellow crew member one day,
and to find that same person’s body another day, bobbing in the water, nearly
unrecognizable.

Thirsty, dehydrated and desperate, some in that group drank salt water. Many hallucinated
and drifted off. Sometimes, out of nowhere, Harrell would hear bloodcurdling screams.

“You look, the kapok [life] jacket goes under,” Harrell said.

A bloodied body, or what’s left of it, would surface later.

That happened over and over.

By the third day, when only 17 from Harrell’s group were left, they spotted a small raft. He
and a few others decided to use it to try to swim close enough to the Philippines, where they
hoped someone would see them. Later that afternoon, Harrell spotted a crate. He swam to
it, hoping it had some water and food. He was so dehydrated that his tongue had swollen.
Inside the crate were rotten potatoes. He grabbed some, peeling off the rotten parts with his
hands and teeth. It was the only food he and the others had.

About 11 a.m. on the fourth day, Lt. Wilbur Gwinn was flying his bomber aircraft on routine
patrol when he looked down and spotted something. He dropped closer to investigate and
saw men aimlessly floating in the water. He couldn’t land, so he called for assistance. “Many
men in the water,” he radioed to his base.

Another pilot, Lt. Adrian Marks, was dispatched to help. On the way, he flew over the
destroyer USS Cecil Doyle and alerted the ship’s captain of the rescue mission. The captain
shifted course and headed toward where the crew members were found.

Marks arrived hours ahead of the Cecil Doyle and rescued 56 men. Harrell said he was one of
them. It was dark by the time the Cecil Doyle arrived to pull the rest of the men out of the
water.

“Most everyone was pretty much in my condition. You couldn’t stand up. Even difficult to sit
up. You were exhausted, probably lost 20 to 25 pounds,” Harrell said.

He was flown to a hospital on Guam. He was still there when the “Little Boy” was dropped on
Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. He made it back to the United States that October, but a
perforated appendix kept him hospitalized for several more weeks in San Diego. Doctors gave
Harrell 11.8 million units of penicillin, he said.

“I became a pin cushion. They didn’t think it was going to work. But I survived that,” he said.

By Jan. 6, 1946, he was sent to a Marine base in Chicago, where he was discharged from
duty.

For years, the crew members did not know who was responsible for the sinking of the
Indianapolis and the loss of countless lives. But the blame was placed on the crew’s beloved
captain, Charles Butler McVay III, who was also among the survivors. McVay was court-
martialed after the war and convicted of failing to steer the ship to avoid the torpedoes.
Navy Secretary James Forrestal lifted McVay’s sentence in 1946, citing his bravery, but the
conviction remained in his record. He retired three years later.

“It’s not justifiable to put the blame on Captain McVay,” Harrell said. “They just broke him in
more ways than one.”
Harrell said he saw McVay at the survivors’ first reunion in 1960 in Indianapolis, the city for
which the warship was named. He had written his captain a letter, inviting him to join. The
local paper took a picture of him and McVay shaking hands at the reunion. Harrell still has
that picture and the letter from McVay when he wrote back.

But eight years later, in 1968, McVay shot himself with his service weapon, not living long
enough to see evidence of his innocence become public.

By the early 1990s, previously classified information revealed that U.S. intelligence was
aware that two Japanese submarines, including the one that fired the torpedoes, were in the
path of the Indianapolis. McVay and his crew were sent out into the ocean without being
informed that danger was ahead.

Years later, under pressure from survivors to clear his name, McVay was posthumously
exonerated by Congress and President Bill Clinton.

“Just to have him exonerated meant something, but it didn’t do him any good,” Harrell said.
“It certainly did us good.”

Harrell does not know how he managed to stay alive. For years, he couldn’t talk about it,
until his son convinced him to write a book. It’s called “Out of the Depths.”

Nineteen survivors, including Harrell, are alive today. They still get together every year.