USS Indianapolis: Disaster at Sea | Rescued | 4

Against The Odds

Wondery

Cassie De Pecol, History, Society & Culture, Dolby, Mike Corey, Dolby Atmos, Atmos

4.7 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

By sheer chance, an American bomber pilot on a routine test flight has spotted the survivors of U.S.S. Indianapolis, who have been floating in the middle of the Philippine Sea for over three days. But rescuing them will be easier said than done. The survivors are hundreds of miles from the nearest land, and the ocean waters are getting rough. To get the men out of the water as quickly as possible, some of the rescuers will have to put their own lives on the line.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to against the odds at free on Amazon music. Download the app today.
0:13.9	Lieutenant Chuck Gwynn grabs the radio of his Lockheed PV1 Ventura bomber and calls out in order to his crew.
0:21.3	A BORT Bombing Mission, I repeat, a BORT Bombing Mission, Men in the Water. It's 11-18am on the morning of August 2nd, 1945, high above the Philippine Sea.
0:35.2	A few minutes ago, Gwynn looked out the window of his plane and spotted a trail of oil in the ocean below,
0:41.3	which he took as a sign that a Japanese sub was nearby. His crew sprang into action to prepare an attack,
0:48.1	but then Gwynn saw something else in the water that he didn't expect. People.
0:54.8	He circles back around for another pass to make sure he's not seeing things.
1:00.3	He brings the plane down low, just 300 feet above the water, and sure enough, he sees them again.
1:07.7	About 30 men waving their arms and splashing frantically to get his attention.
1:12.2	Some of them are in life rafts, but even more are treading water. All of them appear to be covered in oil.
1:20.8	They must be survivors from a shipwreck.
1:24.1	Gwynn knows that they could very well be Japanese, or they could be from a commercial vessel,
1:29.6	judging from the size of the oil slick, the ship that went down wasn't small.
1:35.3	But could they possibly be American sailors? That seems unlikely. If an American ship had gone
1:41.9	missing, Gwynn would have heard about it. Still, whoever these men are, it's his duty to help them.
1:49.2	Gwynn dips his wings so the survivors know he spotted them, then grabs the radio and calls out
1:54.7	new instructions for the crew. Prepare to drop emergency gear. Gwynn circles again and scans the
2:01.3	water, looking for the best spot to safely drop the plane's life raft, best and a sonoboe,
2:07.8	a floating one-way communication device that the men can use to identify themselves.
2:14.5	Within minutes, the equipment is floating on the ocean. Gwynn looks out the window and sees
2:19.6	some of the men swimming for the raft. So far so good. Next, he needs to communicate a location
2:25.6	of the survivors to all American ships and patrol squadrons in the area. He can't broadcast the
	...

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