Great Tragedy and Small Triumphs

Nik had started research and writing on a new project his friend Kyle had presented to him. It was about the tragedy and amazing stories of survival of the men of the USS Indianapolis in WWII. In a nutshell, the Indy was a heavy cruiser in a war that was seeing the tide of battle change from sea to air. Unaware of its actual mission, the Indy was assigned a top-secret voyage to carry crates to Tinian Island. The crates turned out to be parts of Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. After that delivery was made the ship was to report to Leyte in the Philippines. Even though the Navy knew that there were Japanese subs in the waters between Guam and Leyte, they sent the Indy without a Destroyer escort, which was never done. Furthermore, the Navy didn’t tell Captain McVay that another ship had been sunk along this very path a day or two prior.

Through what amounts to be a seemingly endless number of miscommunications and bureaucratic shortcomings, the Indy was torpedoed by a Japanese sub and sank. Some 900 men made it off the ship (of approximately 1200 onboard). Even though distress calls had been made and they were late getting into port, no one made the connection that this enormous ship was suddenly nowhere to be found.

The survivors clung to whatever they could find, life vests, crates, anything to stay afloat. The water was a thick stew of oil and fuel. The men were badly burned and some could not even swim. After the first night, the sharks began attacking. Hundreds of ravenous predators circled the men, first they picked of the injured and dying, then they made their way through to the more healthy.

The sailors floated in that water for five days without help. Starving and dehydrated men drank seawater, they became distraught and suffered hallucinations. To end their torment many committed suicide by just swimming away from their life vests and sinking or deliberately swimming into the schools of sharks.

When a plane finally and accidentally found them nearly a week later only 317 men were still alive.

To make matters worse, in order to cover up this egregious mistake, the Navy made Captain McVay a scapegoat for the tragedy saying that he failed to make a maneuver that even the Japanese Sub Commander said wouldn’t have made a difference. Nevertheless, McVay was court-martialed and after years of being attacked by parents of the deceased, he committed suicide. President Clinton finally posthumously exonerated the Captain of any wrongdoing.

So, there’s a lot going on, for sure. There are several comprehensive books written on the subject and numerous screenplays already in development. The challenge becomes multi-tiered.

How does one tie what are certainly extraordinary circumstance, but nevertheless coincidences, into a rich story with a binding through-line?

How did he make the screenplay/play/whatever unique from the other projects out there? This was admittedly a game of anticipation and guesswork.

And, perhaps most importantly, what is one’s obligation to history? To those who survived and perished? Nik felt guilty merging and tweaking timelines, amalgamated characters.

Perhaps he should write a completely fictional story based loosely on the events of the Indianapolis. Reality was awfully confining after all.

Things to consider.

As part of his research, Nik went to The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. It was difficult not to think of 9/11 as Nik stood on the bleach white memorial hovering over the sunken tomb. The similarities were startling: the sheer astounding number of dead, the arrogant and over-confident America hit with a surprise attack that could have absolutely been avoidable. Life is such a fragile thing, why do we spend so much time fighting and killing one another? Why after eons of trying, have we been so unable to find away to meet everyone’s needs as one planet? Are our religions and governments so necessary that we find it easy to overlook other human beings in pain, in hunger?

Perhaps energy ripples outward from small pebbles. Perhaps Nik needed to take stock of his role in the state of the world.

It would certainly be easy for a person to wave it all off and say, “just do what you want and let the world figure itself out.” But if everyone did that, well, wouldn’t we find ourselves right where we are? A person may not necessarily have to become president or Mother Theresa but maybe the simplest adjustments can make staggering changes. Instead of pursuing a career for selfish gains, try pursuing work that had a positive impact.

So much of Nik’s desires came from a selfish place: ha had wanted to be rich and famous, he wanted to be loved and worshipped. But shouldn’t we love without concern for what we get in return. Give without receipt? It was hard to consider; harder still to imagine how to put it into practice.

With much on his mind and the water at low tide, Nik took a dip in the “big pool.” The ocean was teeming with life. Sure there were the usual suspects, but today there were also large turtles at play, a strange tubular cornet fish, and several very sweet brown dogs. As the turtles would pop their head above water the dogs would go mad with excitement barking to each other and then racing into the crashing waves. Disoriented, they would gasp and search the water for the submerged creature but having lost it they would return to their masters. As if the turtles knew they had the upper hand they would swim a little closer to the beach, pop up, and dunk under, teasing the thrilled pups. Everyone on the beach shared a sweet moment of laughter.

There is so much beauty in the world. Simple, pure moments of tenderness and beauty. Perhaps we just need to stop and recognize them. Perhaps by participating in and sharing this beauty we, in small ways, can help make the world a better place.

Hell, it was worth a try.

Picture #1: A Cornet Fish
Picture #2: USS Arizona Memorial
Picture #3: An Anchor from the Arizona
Picture #4: The Deck of The Submarine USS Bowfin