USS Indianapolis Survivors Attend Last Big Reunion Back in 2013-- Part 1

From the August 2, 2013, San Jose (Ca) Mercury News."

Even more poignant to me since I was just in Indianapolis and there were those pictures of the ship on the wall of the Speedway American Legion Post 500 wall.

More than a dozen of the aging vets were in Indianapolis, part of a dwindling number.  Of the 317 who survived the July 1945 sinking, only 38 are still alive in their late 80s early 90s.  They survived floating in shark-infested waters for 5 horrendous days.

Harold Bray, 86, of Benicia, California and 14 others decided this would be the last big one.  Future ones would be smaller and less frequent because of their poor health.  "We decided to stay together until the last guy's standing," said the chairman of the USS Indianapolis Survivors Organization.

The Indy was half way between Guam and the Philippines on July 30, 1945, after having delivered a top secret cargo tree days earlier.  That cargo was Uranium 235 and the other components of the atom bomb that the Enola Gay dropped on Hiroshima.

This was a secret mission and the ship was sailing alone.

--A Huge Tragedy.  --GreGen