LOEL DENE "L.D." COX
Seaman First Class - U.S.S. Indianapolis

L.D. Cox's Account of
The Sinking of The Indianapolis

L.D. Cox's narrative of the sinking of the Indianapolis:

"The Indianapolis had been hit by a Kamikaze at Okinawa and it knocked off two propellers. We came back to the United States to be repaired. Right after repairs were made, we were supposed to begin gunnery practice. But instead, they put a big box on board and we headed for Tinian. We made it in nine steaming days and that's still the record for a surface vessel. We didn't know what was in the box."

"They also brought another, smaller metal container on board, and carried it up to the Captain's quarters and welded it to the deck. That wasn't common knowledge with the crew at the time, but we knew about it later after we took off. We think that was the uranium part of the bomb."

According to Cox, "scuttlebutt", or ship's gossip, concerning the contents of the box ran rampant. "My favorite story was that it was a big box of scented toilet paper for General McArthur," Cox laughs. "Of course we had no way of knowing how serious it was."

"After we left the bomb at Tinian we came back to Guam, and took on supplies, " Cox says. We were told to join the battleship U.S.S. Idaho, in the Philippines for gunnery practice. Our ship carried no SONAR equipment, so we depended on escorts, like destroyers. We asked for an escort, but were told that there was none available. The Captain was assured that the route was safe. What he wasn't told was that one of our ships, the U.S.S. Underhill, had been sunk by a submarine about five days earlier, on the same route."

The last few minutes of the Indianapolis

Just after Midnight, July 30th 1945

"My duties on the bridge were either to steer the ship, to be on the telephone with the engine room, or to be lookout. On this night my assignment was to communicate with the engine room. I took the headphones and about five or ten minutes later there was an explosion - we had been hit by a torpedo. I was blown up into the air about five feet and landed on my stomach. As I started to get to my feet, I looked up and there was debris, water, flames and everything up above me. And the bridge was 81 feet from the waterline - so that shows you how powerful an explosion it was. I started on up and we were hit by another torpedo. This one hit the ammunition magazine.

"We didn't know for sure it was a torpedo; we didn't know anything. The explosions knocked the Captain out of his bunk and he came up and took charge. I was told to get him a lifejacket and so I got one and helped him into it. All power was out."

The Fire Control Officer reported that they were sinking. "By this time we were laying down on our right side at such a degree that you could nearly walk down the smoke stack. The Captain said to pass the word to abandon ship. I took him at his word. I had heard how a ship when it sinks can suck you down and under. And I had also heard that a lot of times that a captain will go down with his ship - and I was with Captain McVay, so when he said "Abandon Ship", I left him."

The Ordeal Begins

"I ran to the port side, the uphill side. I had to reach over and grab a hook and then swing out over the main deck and hit the deck and then the water. It was about 40 feet from where I swung out. I had swallowed a bunch of oil and water and I began to vomit. I swam as fast as I could to get away from the ship; I was still worried about the suction. When I looked back I saw the ship had already laid completely over on her side and the stern was coming up and it just went straight down. You could see the propellers still slowly turning and men still jumping off. It only took 12 minutes for the ship to sink and it was 610 feet long."

"I swam out a little further and I ran into this sailor, all by himself, and he was one of my best buddies. He had been flashburned and somebody had put a lifejacket on him and put him overboard. - His name was Clifford Josey and he only survived an hour or two. I've been told there were rafts, but I never saw any. When the moon came out, I found a little group of about 30 men and we stayed together. When daylight came we were cold and shivering. We figured we'd be found pretty quick, that people would be looking for us - so all that day we had pretty high hopes."

As the day wore on, the sun began to take its toll. "It got so hot on us - that the sun was just blistering," Cox says. "Oh, it was so hot. We prayed for darkness. When darkness came we got chilled and began to shake. The water was so cold. Then we prayed for the sun. We had oil all over us. Some people say that the oil helped us, and I guess it did, but when the sun would beat down on you like that, you nearly fried. It was a terrible ordeal." Unfortunately, there were bigger ordeals to come.

The Sharks

Hallucinations and Dementia

After a couple of days with no food or water, the men began to hallucinate. Several men attempted to drink the salt water and died. A potato floated by, Cox says, but I was so afraid it had salt water in it that I decided not to eat it."

After seeing a man undo his life preserver and slip beneath the water "to return to the ship for a drink of water" Cox tied several hard knots in his own life preserver.

"Men also started saying they knew where there was an island," Cox says, and they'd swim off. After a while you really didn't know whether they were off or you were off and there really was an island. but I decided to stay put." According to Cox, none of those men were seen again.

Finally after five nights and four days, a pilot saw them - Cox describes this as the happiest day of his life.

"The hair on my head stood straight up, I was so happy." The men still faced hours in the water and some died before they could be rescued. "Later that night there was this bright light shining - it was like a light from heaven," Cox says. One of the rescue vessels had turned on their flood lights to give us hope."

Cox apparently lost consciousness for awhile. "The next thing I remember was a bright light shining in my face," he says, "and a strong arm pulling me into a little boat and taking me to the USS Bassett. I still had enough strength, with a little help, to climb a rope ladder. I got on the deck, took two steps and fell on my face. Someone picked me up and carried me to a bunk - a canvas covered bunk. They laid me face down, with my hands under me and I fell asleep. I don't know how long it was before I woke up, but when I did I realized that my hands were stuck to the canvas. When I rolled over it nearly pulled my hide off."

Two sailors from the Bassett took me and washed me down and tried to get the oil of me. I had sores all over me, they looked just like burns and the hide was coming off." They took tweezers and took strips of skin off my shoulders from where my life jacket had been. I lost all my body hair and I lost my fingernails and toenails. I had basically been pickled in salt water."

While still in the hospital the men received word of the atomic bomb. "They brought this newsletter," Cox says, "and this is what you men were carrying and it's been dropped by the Enola Gay." The men also learned that of the original 1,196 men on the Indianapolis, only 316 had survived.