I slept on deck all the time when it was possible, under the overhang in No. 1 turret. My general quarter-station was in the turret. I was the gun captain on barrel. I'd sleep under it and be close by in case anything happened. I put my shoes down for a pillow; just got stretched out good and all hell broke loose.

A torpedo hit. I played Yankee Doodle Dandy between that overhang and the turret and the deck. What in the hell's going on here? I jerked the blanket off and started out from under and the other torpedo hit. Another Yankee Doodle deal. Getting tired of this, I got out from under and started forward to see if I could see what was going on, what happened. And lo and behold, about 60 foot of the bow was gone. That first torpedo had just chopped it off. Well you could imagine the chaos, total complete chaos. You could hear guys screaming and yelling and terrible things going on. I could see some open fire coming out from back aft. It was about five minutes later that we got the word "abandon ship." A bunch of guys had been coming up from below deck and there was 15, 20 of us ganged around.

So we got the word to abandon ship and a dear friend of mine and me were shipmates and real buddies -- Jim Newhall and I went over the side together, holding hands. Well, I got tangled up in a live line when the bow got chopped off. And I guess it floated by and a live line was hanging over it. I got tangled up in that. Got myself free from that, back to the top of the water, thank goodness. Swam like crazy away from the ship. And flipped over on my back, looked back on it and about two-thirds of it was in the water by this time and the screws are still turning, and in silhouette you can see guys jumping off and the only thought I had: I'll be damned, looks just like it does in the movies.

So there I am floating with no life jacket and nobody else around. And lo and behold a potato crate floated by. I grabbed that. And in those days, potatoes were packed in crates instead of sacks and worked good as a life jacket, so I'm hanging on to that and didn't hear any voices any place.

Then, pretty soon, I did hear voices. I yelled, and who answers me but my buddy, Jim Newhall. Boy, what a happy thought that is. So I swam over to where they were and it was quite a group of them, kind of chaos and everybody talking; a lot of guys were wounded, burned, and we were just doing our best to take care of everybody and so somebody said there's a life jacket there. Fine, I need it, this potato crate won't last forever, I think. So we did a lot of talking all through the night, rest of the night, trying to take care of the guys that were burned and hurting. The next morning we discovered there were about 150 people in the group. It was later called the Dr. Haynes group -- the group that he was in -- and that's quite a story.

Sharks
So we thought, well this is not too bad, we'll be picked up before the day is over. They know we are out there. They know we're due in the Philippines at 11:30 today, so if we don't show up they'll be out this afternoon looking for us. We're ok. But nobody came out and the day passed and night came again. Boy, it was cold. I mean cold at night. Oh, you start praying for the sun to come up and it finally did.

Then a couple hours after that, we started praying for it to go down so we can cool off again. Then the sharks showed up again. They were all around and close and we screamed and made all the commotion we could in the water and tried to scare them away and it kind of quieted down. We just knew we was going to be picked up that day and there'll be somebody out there shortly. But that was one of the longest days of my life: It dragged on and on. In the afternoon the sharks got bad again. It was really terrible.

So by night it's cold again, real cold. Some of the guys start drinking saltwater. We had no water, no food. No nothing. And morning came and the guys who had been drinking water were going berserk, having hallucinations, saying, "The ship's not sunk, it's just right there under the surface. I was just down there and had a drink of water. Water fountain is working, and the stand is open. You guys come on, we'll go down and have a drink and something out of the stand."

So three or four or five guys would go with him. You'd never see them again. And pretty soon somebody else would be telling you a big story: "There's an island right over there! I was just over there and there's a lot of beautiful girls on it and there's a hotel, but they won't let me stay in the hotel. So I come back to get you guys and we'll go over and do something about it. Come on." Four, five, six guys swim off with him and you don't see them again.

Unquenched Thirst
The day finally ended and we were noticing more so that we were hungry, thirsty. Real thirsty. I says I would give my front seat in heaven and walk a rotten log all the way through hell just for water, a cold drink of water. And I think I really meant it. I was certainly thirsty.

And lo and behold I got up enough nerve to do it. I don't know but I took a mouth of saltwater, washed my mouth out. It was just like cotton. I spit it out and I probably did that three or four times before the day was over.

I ended up with saltwater ulcers in my throat. After I got picked up, my throat was bigger than my head, really swollen. And we were out there in the sun praying for it to go down again. That day finally passed. All this time, there had been planes going over every day.

They were so high it was just impossible for them to see us. So we were into the fourth day and things are the same. Long in the afternoon or around noon another plane flew over but he wasn't so high. In fact he was quite low. But he just kept going. Oh hell, missed that one. And lo and behold he turned around and came back, and dropped in altitude and looked down and it was a PV1 Ventura out on submarine patrol.

And he had spotted an oil slick and just knew that he had a submarine he could see. So he came back over with the bomb bay doors open and ready to do his thing. But he saw people in the water, people in the water being eaten by sharks. He immediately radioed back to his base that there were people in the water and he needed all the help he could get. And he gave a count, but I don't remember how many he told. But instead of a bunch of planes coming up, they sent one plane out. A PBY came out. Of course he dropped what gear he had and the PV had dropped what gear he had and then another PV showed up and they were circling around. We were scattered over a 20-mile area, they told us.

The seaplane landed in the water and started picking guys up, single guys, one guy here, maybe two guys there. And we thought, "What the heck! You know, how come you don't pick us all up?" Of course, he couldn't pick us all up. But he did a wonderful job; he knew what he was doing. Then the afternoon wore on and another PBY finally showed up and dropped some gear.

"Do You Think It's This Hot in Hell?"
A little three-man rubber life raft hit the water. Jim and I were still together. We left the group and they started fighting in the group and we didn't need any of that so we decided to act the best, we'll just kind of drift off by ourselves and don't need any of this problem. And so we did. And it was hot. It was hot:

"James do you think it's this hot in hell?"

"I don't know Jim, but if it is, I ain't going."

So anyway they dropped a little raft. We just started swimming over to it. I'd been hanging on to Jim all day. He was burned real bad. Been hanging on to him. So we started swimming for this raft and he made it but I didn't. I just gave completely out. And it wasn't that far, but anyway.

Jim's yelling: "Come on, Woody, you can make it!"

"Can't do it Jim. I have shot my wad and I've gone as far as I can go."

But he made it to the little boat and then two other guys that were closer to it was already in it when he got there. Then, in the other direction from me, there were two guys in the water. Then the two guys in the raft with Jim says we'll go over and get those two guys. Jim says, "Now we've got to go get Woody, then we'll go get those two guys."

"No, that's not the way," they say. "We got to go get those two guys first."

The little rubber raft had aluminum oars in them that come in two pieces so Jim put one of them together and threw the other one overboard. He said: "Now guys, I don't want to be hard to get along with, but we'll go get Woody and you guys are going to paddle by hand, and if you don't you're not going to like what's going to happen."

So they came over and picked me up. Then we went back over and picked up the other two guys. And before the night was over, we had nine guys in that little three-man raft. Stayed in it all night. Of course, everything got started from when the radio messages got out that there was a bunch of guys that were being eaten by sharks.

"One Happy Day!"
The PBY -- the first one was on his way out -- flew over a destroyer that was on its way into Palau. And they were talking on their radio and found out they knew each other. Capt. (Adrian) Marks was flying the plane, and a guy by the name of Claytor was on the destroyer: "Marks, you'll probably be getting a call to turn around and come out now, pretty soon." And he didn't wait to get his call. He immediately turned around and headed our way at full speed.

Then he got there and turned his lights on -- a huge search light -- and he pointed it to the sky and it was bouncing off of the clouds and we seen that, and that was the most joyous moment we had. I think it even surpassed when we first spotted. We knew that we were spotted and boy, what a happy day that was! But when that ship was coming, we knew that the Navy had arrived and we were going to be saved. One happy day! So they picked us off of that little raft early in the morning, just after daylight. I was in my birthday suit. What was hanging around my neck, that's what I had on. And I pulled that off and gave it to the guy on deck on the Doyle, which was the destroyer that picked us up.

They assigned a couple of guys to each one of us. We were all covered with oil, which was a blessing. It kept us from being roasted by the sun. They got me cleaned up: found some clothes and found me a bed and I went to sleep laying on my back with my legs drawn up in a fetal position. The backs of my legs were burned about six inches below and above the knee in both directions. I didn't know it. I don't know when they got burned. I don't know how they got burned, but being in the water it didn't bother me and I just didn't know it.

I woke up and couldn't straighten them. So when they moved me, they moved me on a stretcher. They took us into Peleliu, unloaded us there and put us in the hospital barracks. There weren't too many people around. The doctors had all gone to the more forward areas. Anyway, they put us in the barracks. They had bedding and pharmacists who took care of us there until the Tranquillity came in. We spent two nights there until the Tranquillity hospital ship came in and we were transferred to that.

They hauled me up aboard in a basket, hoisted me aboard up on deck. The doctor was standing there, saying: "They go to the ward, and he goes to wherever and he goes to his operating room." That's what he said to me: "He goes to the operating room." So they got me in the operating room and they put me on this table. Almost started to give me a shot. I said, "No way, it can't hurt any worse than it's already hurting. If you're going to do anything, do it."

He said, "Ok, son, we'll do it to you."

And he did. He put one hand on my buttocks and one hand on my ankle and straightened the leg and I went through the roof. Then he did it to the other one and I went through the roof again. When I first told him no (shot) the nurse was standing by my head and she handed me a wet folded towel and said, "You better hang onto this."

I twisted that towel in two. As weak as I was, I don't know how I did. But I did it and that was while I was thinking of the sea.

So they hauled us to Guam, took us over to Guam and into the Naval hospital there. We were there for about a month and got the submarine rest area for a little while and they found us transportation home. We came home an aircraft carrier. Landed in San Diego on the 26th day of September and they put us down in the shoemaker and kept us out in San Diego; gave us all 30-day leaves. Told us we was going to report into any single station in the United States that we wanted to.

After I got out of the Navy, I went back to Mobile, starting driving a taxicab. It was the only job I could find. I worked for a little bit and I was real unhappy and I had started drinking quite a bit. Well, I was a walking bag of nerves, let's face it. I couldn't sit still; I couldn't stand still; I couldn't be any place two minutes. I had to go, had to move. Then I left Mobile, and came west. I went to California -- stumbled around. There wasn't nothing there for me. And went over to Nevada and I visited my dad but, like I said, I'm a walking batch of nerves. I couldn't do anything; I couldn't stay put. Came into Salt Lake City and kind of quieted down a little bit.

My finances was running low and figured I better get a job, replenish my finances, so I did that: went to work for one of the major truck lines, driving trucks. I had driven trucks before, when I was in the Navy, and started that again. But I was just messed up. I couldn't hold a job. I worked for that outfit about 3 months and just couldn't keep it together. I took a month off, went to work for one of the other freight lines for about 3 or 4 months and I changed jobs again. Then it started getting a little bit better. I was settling down a little bit.

Then I met a girl in 1948 and we were married in '48. She had lost her husband and had six children. So we were married and that changed my life. It just completely turned me around and I've been devoted to her; no man has ever been closer to his family than I am to these children. After we were married, I bought my own truck -- bought my first truck in the fall of '48 and worked independently, hauling produce.

Over the years, I've built up to seven trucks, still hauling produce all over, and things started going bad. Lots of people in it then and competition got so bad. I just started selling, selling the trucks and getting rid of them. I got down to one and I gave it away, literally. I gave it to a guy just to get it out of my hair. I'm tired of it.

Then I went to work for one of the major freight lines again, and I retired from that in 1988. Over the years, it's been a wonderful life; absolutely wonderful. I'll always quote my dear old grandfather who raised me. He had six kids and those six kids have had 32 kids and those 32 kids have 56 kids. There are 32 grandkids and 56 great-grandkids. And it's like Grand Central Station at Christmas time -- Santa Claus comes and the whole bit.

It's been my life and I couldn't be happier. So over the years, we've had survivor meetings. The credit all goes to Giles McCoy. Giles put it together. He got in touch with a bunch of people -- everybody that he could -- all the survivors that he could, and we had our first survivors' reunion in 1960 in Indianapolis, Ind. Capt. McVay came to that one. He didn't want to come; he had been court-martialed after the sinking. And they convicted him of failing to zigzag and I won't get into how ridiculous and all the mess and the mistakes that were made, but it was unjustifiable. It was unjust; it was uncalled-for. And the first resolution in that meeting was that we would do anything in our power as long as we lived to clear Capt. McVay's name.

And from that day to this day we have been fighting. We've done everything in our power and, as I speak, there's a resolution before the Senate. Congress has passed it and it was an identical resolution, one before the Senate and one before the Congress, that was brought about by a 13-year-old kid named (Hunter) Scott in Pensacola, Florida.

He got interested in it after watching the movie, Jaws, and made it a school project to do everything that he could to dig out any information that he could. Through his information that he dug out, and through Mike Monroney, who is the lobbyist retired in Washington, those two got together and Mike led Scott through Washington and introduced him to a lot of people.

The resolution says the court-martial was unjustifiable, which we have always believed. We're not asking for anything other than the captain's name to be cleared.

I can't remember all the names of the islands we went to, but through the war we were at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan ... Capt. McVay came aboard in the fall of 1944. He was, without a doubt, the best skipper I ever served under, in any capacity. He was compassionate; he was strict. And he loved his crew and he looked out for them. During his court-martial, he had one concern: Why did you people leave my men out there so long without rescuing them?

He was a good captain. When you're island jumping -- you secure an island and you find a harbor and drop anchor -- they have liberty parties at the beach, beer parties and what have you. Capt. McVay was the only skipper that ever had a skeet shoot. He'd get on the fantail and shoot skeet and he'd invite the crew to join him. He was just a wonderful guy.

He was like my grandfather. My grandfather never raised his voice as long as I lived. But he could tell me to do something. He didn't tell me to do it, he'd ask me to do it. But I knew that I better turn my hat around and make him think I'm coming back already and that's what Capt. McVay wanted. If he asked you to do something, he expected you to do it immediately.

And he was highly respected. The Indianapolis earned him battle stars during the war. We got hit at Okinawa, where a kamikaze plane lost 17 men. We got hit at Saipan from a shore battery. No injuries, no casualties. And it was just a good life, aboard ship. It was a good ship; it was a proud ship. The crew was like brothers.

Over the years we started having reunions and we're the closest-knit organization in the world. We have acted as one. We had reunions every five years until 1995. Then we started having them every two years. We had one last year and we'll have one next year.

All the reunions have been in Indianapolis. That town adopted us. And in Indianapolis there's a USS Indianapolis memorial that was donated by the city. The memorial was built with donated labor, donated money. A whole bunch of people donated their time and effort to raising the money. If you ever get to Indianapolis, make it one of your projects to see that. It's worth it.