Survivors of the USS Indianapolis disaster share stories of survival

July 30, 1945 marked one of the worst naval disasters in history, after a Japanese torpedo sank the USS Indianapolis.

The ship had just completed a secret mission, delivering components of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

When the attack happened 1,200 men were onboard and hundreds plunged into the sea.

The men were stranded in the middle of the ocean without food or water.

Many resorted to drinking salt water, which launched some into delirium.

The sailors clung to rafts and life jackets as sharks attacked shipmates.

“Twice I was sleeping and felt sharks around my legs,” said Dick Thelen, who was just 18 when he joined the Navy. When he enlisted, his father made him promise to come home. That promise, he says, brought him home.

“When I was in the water I saw my dad’s face and I felt his grip, he brought me home," Thelen said.

Harold Bray, also a teen at the time of the sinking, describes his last memory at sea.

“I tried to pull him in, and I tried to tie him to the raft. I guess I didn’t get a good knot on him, and I never saw him -- he disappeared," Bray said.

Edgar Harrell, now 94, watched as his fellow shipmates lost their will to live.

“It’s much easier to die, believe me, than it is to live. You’ve got to fight to live. All you have to do to expire is let your head drop in the water and I saw that many, many times," said Harrell.

Harrell said what kept him afloat -- physically and mentally -- was a promise from a brown-eyed girl back home.

“That brunette was waiting and may I say, we were married in 1947, and I called her last night and she’s still waiting. She’s 93, we’ve been married 71 years," said Harrell.

After five nights and four days in the water, the 316 men who were still alive were rescued.

Today, those three once teenage boys, now in their 90s live to tell their tale of survival.

The three visited Naval Station Mayport to see a special showing of a PBS special on the USS Indianapolis disaster.

The wreckage was found in 2017, and the future USS Indianapolis will be commissioned at Naval Station Mayport in late 2019. ​

Cox Media Group