In this July 10, 1945, photo provided by U.S. But Bray was just excited to be going away from home for the first time in his life. McVay III, didn’t know what the cargo was. In fact, even the ship’s commander Charles B. Like many, Bray had his guesses about what the cargo was on the Indianapolis, but the secret was bigger than those of Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids and the recipe for Coca Cola all rolled into one. With it being 75 years I think about it a lot.” Every once in a while the memories spring to the surface again. “I was getting trained for anything and that was my first time away from home. “The Navy was going to be my life no matter what,” the Benician said when asked if he ever thought what his life would have been had he not made the voyage. The man from Northern Michigan was only 14 when World War II began, so he had to wait until 1944 to be enrolled in boot camp and until early 1945 before he was enlisted in the U.S. Starting the voyageįor nearly four years Bray wanted nothing more than to enlist in the U.S. He’s thought about the incident for 75 years. Harold Bray is the youngest, having just turned 93 last month. Of those 316, only eight are still alive. Only 316 sailors would survive three and half days in the sea. The rest of the sailors jumped ship, only to land in the Philippine Sea which was full of not only salt water, but massive amounts of oil and sharks. Approximately 300 of the 1,195 sailors died during the explosion. On July 30, Japanese submarine I-58, captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, fired two torpedoes which struck the Indianapolis on its starboard side, one in the bow and one amidships.
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