The Knoxville News-Sentinel from Knoxville, Tennessee • 10

VI Page Ifl Wort Ads 3 3131 THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL 7ne in of 990 on Your it on WNOX Road it in The News-Sentinel Wednesday August 15 1945 Indianapolis Delivered Peace-Winning Atomic Bomb Before Sinking Five Knoxville Men Lost mind seemed hazy he said but he Then heard my hand sizzle The many left" A rescue destroyer-escort pulled alongside the fifth day survivors had to be lifted aboard The noc-tor said they were their last could recall drifting away they wouid scream and scream and holler and pretty soon the screaming would be Follows Fast Run of Cruiser mixed with gurgles By night thr reiday Cruiser Skipper ay fw GUAM Aug 15 Two great ex-' plosions flashed out of her slim how at 12 minutes past midnight! Flames streaked through her shock-darkened passagcw avs searing the piled bodies of her new into shapeless masses Within 15 minutes she plunged head-: first into the sea That was the end of the proud rruiser Indianapolis torpedoed 450 miles off Leyte July 30 with S83 dead and missing after she had finished a record speed run from San Francisco to Guam to! deliver the first atom bomb to the! She apparently fell prey! to a Japanese submarine For the 500 crewmen and the: handful of officers hurled alive into the midnight sea it was the! beginning of a living nightmare! It ended for some more than 115 hours later after some of the crazed seamen had killed each other and others had dived suicidally into the cooling blue depths heading for some "magic island' they saw in their dreams No one beyond the oil-streaked circle of men and debris in the sea knew what ad happened to the unescorted cruiser until a Peleliu search plane led the way to the rescue of the 315 survivors five days later 700 Men Go Down Survivors said nearly 700 men missing: Tor sake make had gone down with the ship cBontact reports get out Hundreds niore plunged into the ga have been torpedoed Our sea without Me preservers or guch and We are death quickly began tO' inking rapjdly and need imme- pick them off 'diate assistance" Ten officers and 30a enlisted Tragedy The Nary announced the loss Leyte July 30 with 883 dead and atomic bomb materials the navigator Cmdr John got one then secured the Quartermaster Third Class Vin-cen Allard 33 of Omak Wash joined the skipper cm his raft and they soon lifted two more men from the "water They encountered another raft and floater net which yielded five more survivors Heard No More Calls that we hear anyone call for the captain said We thought we were the only During their five days on the raft saw plenty of planes' he related wondered how in name they could miss us They know they know to look for survivors" The Navy explained no effort had been made to locate the cruiser until fhe was 54 hours overdue because warships often are diverted secretly by high authority or by their own captains or they may be under radio silence for several day- if pursuing an enemy submarine or surface ship Another survivor drifted up alone on his raft on the third day The skipper took charge of food rationing there was no water but no one drank salt water Each day a sunset the skipper led the group in prayer The swimmers isolated singly or i- dusters had no supplies whatever Constant immersion caused salt water ulcers the glare blinded many of the men temporarily and lifejackets began to lose their buoyancy Lt Cmdr Haynes related All they had was hope I kept thinking will Liz do with three boys on her he continued of my wife made me want to The first great blast when the ship was hit him into the air and he landed xm his desk he said quietly The deck cracked open and smoke seeped through In the passageway he saw sheets of flames" Dully he moved toward the wardroom Dazed by heat he fell to the deck pain woke me up In the wardroom" he continued man was screaming in the dark the portholes open the portholes 1 found one blasted open by the explosion and put my head through A rope slapped my face jerked it several times lt seemed all right Then I crawled through that porthole you know how small they are like you deliver a baby first one hand then another and so Men Horribly Burned On the quarterdeck wounded men lay burned and Chief Pharmacists Mate John A Schmuek 25 Steger Ill-helped him dress their injuries: they got life jackets on four of them Gathering a group of wounded in the water Haynes told them to lock 'arms and legs to keep together and not attempt to swim By morning Haynes counted the bodies of 50 who had died None of the badly wounded survived Survivors were cheerful at bnt: they even tried to sleep in the water each man laying his head on he chest of the man behind The able-bodied tock turns mipportin the wounded four hours at a stretch Fight For Jackets By the second day boys began to talk the doctor said night came we hue died together but I sensed something was not right Suddenly the men uecame hysterical The) fought and clawed at each other Marine Capt Park (not otherwise identified) died of exhaustion Hying to quiet them see life jackets after 48 hours begin losing buoyancy They were fighting for jacket I should say we lost 25 men that By noon the third day some of the men insisted the Indianapolis had been refloated: day long the boys went down down th Many more died that way" The fourth day own Glenn Miller Lost on USS Indianapolis Glenn Miller seaman second class was with the Indianapolis and has been reported in action on July in official word to his parents Mr and Mrs Henry Miler Holston Drive Route 6 Seaman Miller who was trained at the1 Great Lakes' Naval had been with' the Indianapolis since April 25 1944 went to sea on the In-j dianapolis on his 24th his mother recalled today He had been home a short time ago while his ship was-undergoing repairs in a California shipyard following an attack by a Japanese kamikaze plane For some time he was connected with the Kennedy Oil Co but at the time of his enlistment in January 1944 he was employed by Sears Roebuck Co He was the husband of Mrs Goldie Potter Miller 2527 Wilson Avenue They have a 4 -year-old daughter Nancy Sue Truman To Meet Press AucwhM P(wm WASHINGTON Aug Presidential Secretary Charles Ross announced today President Truman will hold a news conference at 9 a (CWT) tomorrow of the heavy cruiser Indianapolis to enemy action 450 miles off missing The ship was torpedoed after making a fast run to deliver Hop-! bridge Lt Cmdr Moore Triephnt Cap Charles i McVay tkippar at Ike Indianapolis 9050-ton craisar sank by anamy action it shown kata Cataal-tiai warn hoary No Power for Radio The captain ordered all engines stopped Radiomen tried in fran- grees The captain grabbed a lifeline and pulled himself up the deck The ship rolled over to a full SO degrees and McVay was washed away in a lather of swirling foam looked up and above my head were the two big port screws said is the end of me bound to hit 1 felt another wave heard water swishing and there was nothing there any more and I was still there Why sucked under I know thing I noticed was crete of potatoes I got' astride then came across part of a wooden desk I saw two life rafts within 20 feet with nobody aboard 1 of Knoxville damage control officer said "I think we are going to last long I 'think we ought to abandon ship" but Captain McVay said he responded: take another Then the executive officer Cmdr Joseph Flynn Vallejo Calif reported the cruiser was filling fast and the skipper told him to pass the word: ship" Flynn also is missing would set an outside limit of 15 minutes" McVay related is a quite liberal figure for the time before she disappeared beneath the The cruiser tilted severely first to about 25 degrees then 60 de men lived through the toidure Capt Charles Butler McVay III Washington old much of the story of the tragedy in a tic desperation to click out their calm Undramatic voice A raft! appeal for help It was no use saved him And Lt Cmdr Lewis I There was no power Haynes senior doctor (wife! Another officer tried vainly ihree sons Fairfield Conn) de-j three times to instruct the en-scribed the plight of the room to reverse the ship mers was going down by the head Clad in his pajama lop McVayi McVay pulled on some cloth to the chart house and told ing and returned hastily to the llow To Hold FALSE TEETH More Firmly In Place rn your fain teeth annoy ana emhar-ram by slipping druppinR or wabMinr wlirn von ml UiiRh or talk? Jurt aprinklo lltlle KASTEETH on your plates This alkaline Inon-arldl powder noldx talk teeth more firmly and mm comfortably No Rummy Rooey paaty taato or feellnR Dnea not aour Check odoc (denture breath) (let FASTEKTH today at any drtiR Adv "111 never forget World Var Two I worked in an airplane factory It was going 24 hours a day and we turned those planes out fast And believe me the pay was good! I never had so much to spend before 2 IjSow I come to think of it I can't figure what we did with that money IThe things you really needed were hard to get Some of the things you could get weren't worth the money But we spent it all right! 3 "Oh sure I bought a War Bond once in a while and I had some life insurance and some money in the savings bank But I should have known even then that it wasn't going to be enough 4 "Sometimes the ife and I would talk about starting a little business somewhere maybe quitting work some day or building our own home I remember we even used to argue about the color 1 5 "Well that's about all it ever came to talk I was J1 last month and what have I got to show for it? When I had the chance to save I booted it away WRONG back in 1945! ---And Now That Their Prayers Have Been Answered Each one of us here at the Fountain City Hardware Company wishes to thank God on this glorious VJ Day With bowed heads and a prayer in our hearts let us pause and meditate for those who will not RETURN from this war for the speedy RETURN of our boys and girls wherever they may be and an added prayer to keep our blessed land a land where we might live as a free people and for a lasting peace Cliff UlkilsL and fmfdojpistA Fountain City Hardware Co life 9 1 9 i i 3 MT IT IS 8TIU 1S4S-TOO CAN STUX II HISHT If we spend our money carelessly now we may look back some day with regret If we use it wisely now conserve our nest eggs we can help to avoid inflationary price increases and at the same time build up backlogs of savings for the Lind of future we all desire Millions of Americans are saving to protect their families to educate their children to start a business of their own to own their own home lo retire or for a rainy day They are following the advice of our Government that we put all we can into War Bonds life insurance and a savings account Are you one of them America! life insurance companies are sponsoring this program of information as a public service to the 70000000 owners of life insurance and to every American citizen Insurance Companies and their agents to cooperate with our government in preserving the financial health of the nation 4.