The USS Indianapolis Tragedy Was July 30, 1945-- Part 3

Four days before the USS Indianapolis was sunk, it had delivered the components for the atom bomb to Tinian.  That bomb was assembled and dropped on Hiroshima less than two weeks later.  By the time the survivors were spotted in the water, the war was over.

The reunions are also a history of reconciliation.  The daughter and granddaughter of Mochitsura Hashimoto, commander of the Japanese submarine that fired the torpedoes, were in attendance.  Atsuke Iida, the granddaughter, lives in Centralia, Illinois.  They were treated very nicely by all gathered for the occasion.

Dick Thelen, who was a truck driver after the war for 44 years said: "We all came home and tried to forget the war.  In seven years I didn't say one word to my wife about the sinking.  She didn't know nothing."

--GreGen