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On Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, powerful antennas on the Mare Island shipyard picked up an urgent radio-telegram meant for U.S. Navy ships operating 3,600 miles away near Hawaii – “AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR – THIS IS NO DRILL.” That was the first stateside word about the devastating surprise attack by Japanese warplanes. The strafing and bombing started just before 8 a.m. Hawaii time, or 10:30 a.m. PST on Mare Island under the time zone system used in 1941. The radio message went out immediately from Pearl Harbor, and was relayed to top Navy brass in San Francisco by...

There is a statue of Harold Bray on the corner of Military and First streets in Benicia. The 7-foot-tall statue — created by Matt Glenn — shows smiling Bray as a teenager in his U.S. Navy uniform. “I wanted to show the sparkle in his eye as if he was saying, ‘Everything is going to be OK,'” said Glenn at the statue’s unveiling in 2023. Eighty years later everything is OK for the statue’s subject, who calls himself “The luckiest man in the world.” But on July 30, 1945, Harold Bray was anything but lucky. Bray was one of 317...

I need not tell fellow Freepers the story of the USS Indianapolis, we all know it.Harold Bray has lived in Benicia, California for many years (as did I). Mr. Bray routinely shared his story with high school history classes (both my sons heard his him). I met him once and spoke with him, he is a gentlemen and a hero. His birthday is coming up: June 15th. He will be 98 years old. His family and friends have asked for birthday cards and well wishes from as many people as possible. The address to send the cards is:Harold Bray PO...

Longtime Benician Harold Bray, a humble man, claims he is no hero. Benicians — and well, many Americans — beg to differ. They think he’s as good as gold. Well, maybe closer to bronze. With the passing of Cleatus Lebow in October at the age of 98, Bray is the lone living survivor from the legendary USS Indianapolis. On Friday night in front of the city’s clock tower, Bray was celebrated and honored for his service with the unveiling of a statue made by Matt Glenn. The life-sized bronze statue stands nearly 7 feet tall, affixed to a pedestal. It...

Edgar Harrell, the last surviving Marine of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during World War II, has died. Harrell died Saturday, according to an organization devoted to preserving the ship's legacy. He was 96. The Facebook group said in a post that it was "shocked and saddened" by the news. "Ed was beloved among the group, and traveled the world sharing the story of his ship and shipmates," the group wrote. "He joined the crew as a sea-going marine in 1944, meaning he was one of the best of the best. During his time aboard ship, he helped guard...

As news spread over the weekend about the discovery of USS Indianapolis (CA-35), the World War II cruiser lost in the war’s waning days, emotions of anyone associated with the ship ranged from joy, to relief, to consternation. Closure was brought to the few remaining survivors, and the families of crew members who survived or perished when the ship was torpedoed after completing its secret mission delivering to the Pacific island of Tinian the components of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Their friends and loved ones wouldn’t be recovered, but at least they had a sense of where their...

"We've located the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis in Philippine Sea at 5500m below the sea." That tweet from entrepreneur and billionaire Paul Allen around 12:20 p.m. Saturday confirmed what many have been searching for since the ship was sunk on July 30, 1945. Allen, who is leading a 13-person team on his 250-foot research ship, the R/V Petrel, said the wreckage was found at a depth of more than 18,000 feet.

Researchers Announce Wreckage from USS Indianapolis Located

Wreckage from the USS Indianapolis, which sank 72 years ago after being torpedoed during World War II, was found in the Philippine Sea by the expedition crew of billionaire Paul Allen. The Indianapolis was hit by the Japanese on July 30, 1945 and sank in only 12 minutes, leading to the greatest single loss of life at sea in the Navy's history. Of 1,196 crew aboard the ship, only 317 survived.

Seventy-two years after two torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine sunk cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), the ship’s wreckage was found resting on the seafloor on Saturday – more than 18,000 feet below the Pacific Ocean’s surface.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, shortly after 8:00 a.m. local time, a lone American B-29 was conducting what seemed to be a reconnaissance flight at high altitude over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At about 16 minutes after 8:00, the aircraft released an object over the centre of town. Attached to parachutes, the object floated down slowly enough to give the four-engine Boeing Superfortress time to turn and lumber out of the airspace. The atom bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet above the centre of Hiroshima. The devastation was cataclysmic. Immediate casualties, dead and injured, numbered approximately 115,000....

Another of the remaining survivors of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis has died...

In the closing days of World War II, torpedoes from a Japanese submarine slammed into the side of USS Indianapolis and doomed the heavy cruiser. The sailors who didn’t drown were left adrift on the open ocean for four days during which they battled the elements, starvation and shark attacks. Fewer than 320 from the ship’s original crew of 1,196 survived.

July 30, 1945, two torpedoes struck the USS Indianapolis with almost 1,200 men aboard. The xplosions obliterated the ship’s front, water rushed in. Bulkheads crumpled. It only took 12 minutes for the cruiser to sink.

When USS Indianapolis was hit by Japanese torpedoes in the final weeks of WWII, hundreds of crewmen jumped into the water to escape the burning ship. Surrounded by sharks, they waited for a response to their SOS. But no one had been sent to look for them. In late July 1945, USS Indianapolis had been on a special secret mission, delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the Pacific Island of Tinian where American B-29 bombers were based. Its job done, the warship, with 1,197 men on board, was sailing west towards Leyte in the Philippines when it was...

A survivor and a rescuer in one of the deadliest episodes in U.S. Navy history — the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II — will be reunited Thursday at Lakeland Regional High School. The cruiser, which carried parts for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945, four days after it delivered the parts to Tinian Island. After it was sunk, 900 crew members spent days in shark-infested waters; only 316 survived. One of the survivors, Don Blum of Scarsdale, N.Y., will attend the program Thursday, called...

YOKOSUKA, Japan - When the submarine USS Ohio surfaced at sea and Machinist Mate 1st Class Jason Witty emerged from the hatch to look around, he saw calm, blue water under a peaceful sky — perfect for the solemn task he was about to perform. On the map, the Ohio was afloat in just another indistinguishable expanse of the Pacific Ocean. As Witty stood on deck holding a silver pitcher, the vessel was alone. Just like the ill-fated USS Indianapolis, 63 years earlier.

There were fins all around, the killer sharks just circling, waiting, assessing their prey in their usual silent, sinister way. For the men strung out in the oil-streaked water, clinging to the sides of flimsy rafts or floating in sodden life-jackets, the sight was terrifying and the underwater brush of leathery skin against a submerged leg, or the nudge of a snout, was gut-wrenching. These men were already survivors, the remaining 900 sailors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. Just three-quarters of the crew had managed to get off the heavy cruiser when she was blown apart by torpedoes from a Japanese...

Documentary on the USS Indianapolis, its sinking, and the worst shark attacks in history, on Discovery Channel right now.

1945 : Japanese sink the USS Indianapolis On this day in 1945, Japanese warships sink the American cruiser Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen in the worst loss in the history of the U.S. navy. As a prelude to a proposed invasion of the Japanese mainland, scheduled for November 1, U.S. forces bombed the Japanese home islands from sea and air, as well as blowing Japanese warships out of the water. The end was near for Imperial Japan, but it was determined to go down fighting. Just before midnight of the 29th, the Indianapolis, an American cruiser that was the flagship of...