I recently purchased the book "In Harms Way" by Doug Stanton which chronicles the final voyages of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. For those unfamiliar with the USS Indianapolis, this is the destroyer that delivered the Atom bomb to Guam that would be dropped on Hiroshima 56 years ago yesterday.

Through a miriad of snafus the Indy would subsequently be torpedoed by a Japanese sub and quickly sunk. The men that survived the sinking were in the ocean for around three days fighting off starvation, shark attacks and dementia while their disappearance was not picked up by the Navy. Captain McVay was later unfairly courtmartialed for this incident. If you saw the movie Jaws this was what Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) was talking about the night before the confrountation with the shark.

It is a fairly easy read (I read it in two and a half days and I am not a fast reader).It is tragic, sad and inspiring account. From this point when I hear the word surviver I don't think of a person that didn't get voted off an island but rather some 300 brave souls that endured this horror.

BTW Doug Stanton is sheduled to be in Indianapolis area bookstores in the middle of this month for book signings.

[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: grogg ]