Cases related to shark attacks are rare but did you know there was one horrific incident where shark attacks have killed as many as 150 soldiers.
The incident took place on July 30, 1945, and a military ship, the USS Indianapolis, went out on patrol in the Pacific after being tasked with delivering important parts of the first functional atomic bomb to a naval base on the island of Tinian.
But the ship never reached its destination as it was sunk by two torpedoes launched by the Japanese army. The ship capsized in 12 minutes and tragically fewer than 900 of the 1,196 men on board made it into the water alive.
The survivors faced a very deadly challenge as they struggled to reach the beach. At the same time, a group of sharks that had been alarmed by the explosions began to infest the waters.
Although at first the sharks focused on the floating dead, the sharks soon began chasing the survivors, who were exhausted after spending hours in the water waiting for a response to an SOS call from their ship.
The people try to stay together, but some will break away from their group and float away.
On top of that, they can also hear the screams of their friends as the sharks indulge in the eating frenzy that lasted for four days. Aside from shark attacks, the men also struggled to survive without water and some died of thirst before they could be rescued.
They were eventually rescued on the fourth day when a pilot flew over the area and spotted them. The pilot then raised the alarm for a nearby US Navy vessel to come for the rescue.
Unfortunately, only 317 of the 900 who escaped the sinking USS Indianapolis, survived the incident.
Among the survivors was Jim Jarvis.
“I never gave up. I figured, well, somebody will find us. They finally did,” he said in an interview. For information, Jarvis has already passed away at the age of 98 in 2020.
It is believed that oceanic whitetip sharks were responsible for about 150 deaths in the incident. Oceanic whitetip sharks are known to be aggressive shark species and are thought to be responsible for most attacks in shark attack incidents.
Interestingly, the gruesome incident has inspired one of the most memorable scenes from Steven Spielberg’s film Jaws, in which shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) gives a monologue to survive the USS Indianapolis disaster.
Sources: Daily Star, Daily Mail, Smithsonian Magazine