There was a huge crate in the hangar and two men carried a can -- it was more than a can; it was a metal carrier -- up to the admiral's quarters and welded it to the deck. And the captain told us in his room, he said: "I don't know what we've got but I'm told we're not going on our post-trial runs. We're taking this out in the Pacific. I don't know where yet, but I'll be told. And I've been told that every day we take off the trip is a day off the war."

Well, we knew that was pretty important and I was on Adm. (Raymond) Spruance's staff so I got to see dispatches they didn't see. I remember one very vividly, which went to all commanders in the Pacific area. It said: "The Indianapolis is under the command of the commander in chief." That's Harry S. Truman. It was not to be diverted from her mission for any reason whatsoever.

And then we took off and we were making 30 knots all the way. We got to Pearl Harbor. Normally you got to Pearl Harbor you had a hard time getting in and out and all the rest. But when we came around Diamondhead in toward, going into Pearl Harbor, the whole Pacific fleet was anchored out there bobbing in the waves. And we had a free rein. We went in through, through Pearl Harbor up to the tin 10 docks to fuel and provision.

I had a kid on board; I'd just taken his appendix out. I wanted to send him to the hospital. And I had a guy with a broken leg and I went to the exec and said, "I would like to enter these men to the hospital." He said, "Nobody leaves the ship. We're only here for six hours and we're on our way."

We left and Pearl Harbor -- which was a tremendously busy place at those times -- was still empty. And we sailed through and out the gate and the fleet was still floating out there waiting to go in. And we took off and delivered our cargo to Tinian, which was the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

Memories of Capt. McVay
[McVay] was not commanding officer of the Indianapolis when I went aboard. I joined the Indianapolis before we got hit at Okinawa and the invasion of Iwo Jima and all that stuff. Captain Johnson was captain of the ship. And McVay came aboard, different guy. Johnson was a big friendly oaf. McVay was a very aloof, stern person.

He was an excellent skipper. I told you how he thought of his men when he had a rope yarn Sunday, the day after our long trip up. We didn't zigzag that night because he wanted us all to rest. And besides that (Navy officials) told him that he didn't need an escort because there was nothing in the area. They knew there were two subs in the area, but they didn't tell us. And so he didn't zigzag and we got blown out of the water. Went down in 12 minutes. That's all been recorded.

He never should have been court-martialed. Nobody looked for us and we floated in the water for five days. And my little group of men -- there were 400 of us that walked down the side of the ship and jumped in the water -- we had no life rafts. We had no floater nets. About two-thirds of us had life jackets and the rest didn't. And men had to hold other men up to keep them afloat. And we never did see a life raft or a floater net because when the ship rolled over, they all went off on the other side and there was a big wash of waves in the rafts and a whole large group of men went one way. And my group went the other.

Survival at Sea
We call ourselves "the swimmers" and we call them "the rafters." They had food, they had water, they had rest. They also had things to fight over.

And I had a lot of wounded men. Finally got everybody all together in a big mass and we did inventory and there were 400 of us, give or take. And they kept me in the center of the group because I had a lot of burn guys and guys that had been injured by the explosions and what not. And I had nothing to treat them with. We had no food, we had no water. We had nothing. All I did was become a coroner. I would pronounce them dead.

And we tried to keep them from drinking saltwater. They'd yell at me, "Doc, come over here! Is this guy dead?" And I'd paddle over and I'd look in his eyes and if his pupil was dilated and I put my finger in his pupil and if he didn't blink, I'd declare him dead and then we would laboriously take his life jacket off because we needed every damn life jacket we could get our hands on.

And that was hard work, getting an oil-soaked life-jacket off. And then we'd say the Lord's Prayer and then let him go. I, I got to stop going into detail, okay? Because I'll start crying. I don't go to church any more. Not that I'm not a Christian. I'm a Christian and I believe there is a God. But they always say the Lord's Prayer. I'm crying and I can't do that. And I must have known 100 men on that ship very well. And many of my friends died in my arms. Gave me messages to their wives and all that.

Life After the War
Well I stayed in the Navy when the war ended. The Navy was very kind and rewarded me with a four-year surgical residency at Philadelphia Naval Hospital and Jefferson University. And when I graduated from, when I finished my residency, the Navy ordered me to Europe. And when I finished work over in Germany, they made sent me to be a surgeon at the Portsmouth Naval hospital in Portsmouth, Va. And from there I was ordered to be chief of surgery at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. And I came to Boston and they had a residency program, training program for residents. I had residents and interns to train. I was in heaven. And also there they had a blood research laboratory associated with the Protein Foundation in Boston that was just starting up. And I was in charge of the laboratory. I was chief of surgery. And with Jim Tolus at the Protein Foundation over the next 10 years, the Navy kept me there for 10 years. We developed how to preserve all blood by freezing. And we developed a frozen blood program, and I published all the papers on how the results of the use of frozen blood and how to use it and all the rest of it.

And it was wonderful I had a marvelous time. And I contributed something. I’m more proud of these two things I've just told you than I am about swimming and surviving. But anyway.