This is an IHeart podcast.

And we continue with our Memorial Day special here on Our American Stories.

Up next, the story of America's worst naval disaster.

It took a movie about a shark terrorizing a small New England town in the summer of 1975 for millions of

Americans to discover the story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. It was the night scene

in jaws in the cabin of the orca, as the intrepid shark hunters used some much-needed downtime

to drink some booze and swap some fish stories.

It's a scene anyone not living under a rock for the past half century has seen,

and it's worth sharing before telling the rest of the story of that baitful day back in late

July of 1945.

In the cabin sharing those fish stories was the town cop played by Roy Scheider, the New Age shark hunter played by Richard Dreyfus, and the old school sea captain named Quint

played by Robert Shaw.

The scene begins with some laughs, but when Quint tells the guys he'd been a crew member of the USS Indianapolis, everything turned somber.

He proceeded to tell the boys one of the most brutal fish stories of all times.

Here's Robert Shaw.

1,100 men went into the water.

The vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about half an hour.

Tiger, 13 foot of.

Very first leg, chief, sharks come cruising.

So we formed ourselves into tight groups.

And the idea was,

...