INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)— Attorney General Todd Rokita spoke at a ceremony on Friday marking 80 years since the USS Indianapolis went down in WWII.
The boat was made famous in WWII as a heavy cruiser commissioned in 1932. The boat carried 1,196 sailors and Marines at the time it sank. Three hundred crew members are said to have gone down with the ship. Eight hundred and ninety men were left to survive in the shark-infested waters. By the time rescuers showed up, it had been four days and five nights, and only 316 individuals could be saved.
The USS Indianapolis delivered atomic bomb materials to Tinian Naval Base in the Pacific on July 26,1945.
“Those materials were immediately loaded onto two U.S. B-29 aircraft that proceeded to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Attorney General Rokita said. “As we all know, those bombings effectively secured the end of the war. The USS Indianapolis played a huge role, then, in achieving victory for America over the forces of fascism and imperial aggression.”
Rokita spoke at the ceremony in Jacksonville, Florida, to commemorate 80 years since it sank after being hit by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. Four ships in total have borne the name of the USS Indianapolis, and the ceremony was held aboard the current one.
“We honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Attorney General Rokita said Friday, “and we honor those who survived.”
