PHILIPPINE SEA, Aug. 17 — With a grinding whir the hydraulics of the A-frame crane kick in, levering the unmanned submersible gently off the deck and out over the hull of the Sea Eagle. It's 4:45 a.m. here, but in the glare of floodlights the remotely operated robot-explorer hangs over the water — an orange-and-black spider dangling at the end of an inch-thick steel thread, poised to plunge into the endless-blue-black jungle of the Pacific Ocean.

This is the moment everyone on board has been waiting for — waiting for since the remotely operated vehicle's power supply fried out five days ago, since the expedition shipped out of Guam on August 9, since expedition leader Curt Newport began planning the search last year, since the Indianapolis was torpedoed and sent to the bottom, 55 years and 18 days ago.

For Steve Saint Amour and the team of oceanographers and technicians operating the the Remora 6000 ROV, the last five days have been a frustrating series of delays and false starts. Once spare parts arrived from the United States, new glitches in the sonar and video systems had to be tracked down and ironed out before the tech crew was confident enough to make the 30-hour return trip to the search site from the islands of Palau.

"Sea water and electronics don't go together," observes Steve in what could be the understatement of the year. The corrosive nature of saltwater and the crushing pressure of the deep make the ROV's working environment a tough one. "But we've got everything ready to dip it in the water. Sonar, telemetry, nav, lights, color camera ..."

A slender, reserved fellow in blue coveralls, Steve's brow has been furrowed constantly ever since his arrival in Guam more than two weeks ago. When things go wrong, he's the man who has to answer, which makes waiting only tougher.

Still, there's no guarantee that the targets we've identified will turn out to be the Indianapolis. "I just want to get down here and see what we've got," says expedition leader Curt Newport. And he's not alone in that desire.

Return to Peleliu
For the four survivors of the Indianapolis onboard — Woody James, Mike Kuryla, Paul Murphy and L.D. Cox — the delay has offered an unexpected opportunity to revisit a place none of them had ever heard of before they sailed into the Pacific War. It's a place where they fought, where Woody and Mike clung to life after their rescue and where other crew mates died, a place none of them ever expected to see again: Peleliu.

In the second week of September of 1944, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, code name "Bayonet," was summoned to the southern tip of the island archipelago of Palau to join one of the most punishing Naval bombardments of the war. The island of Peleliu was a base for 11,000 Japanese and the site of a strategic airfield.

Before the U.S. Navy arrived, Peleliu was a lush, green tropical paradise. After the bombardment, there was literally not a single leaf left. After the Marines arrived, it became a graveyard.

"There's that Bloody-Nose Ridge" says Mike Kuryla, pointing out the low highlands running lengthwise along the 6 mile-long island. "Jeez, remember how we just poured shells in there."

"It just looked like the surface of the moon, nothing but bare trees and rocks," recalls L.D. Cox. "Hard to believe it could all grow back like this."

"I remember watching the Marines going ashore, watching them firing from the hip," recalls Woody James. "They took that place the hard way: inch by inch."

On September 15, 1944, hundreds of Marines and Army troops hit beaches defended on the front lines by 500 Japanese in pillboxes and foxholes and backed up by thousands more troops secreted in caves. Like they had with many of their Pacific outposts, the Japanese had honeycombed the island with tunnels and underground bunkers. As U.S. forces struggled to tighten their grip on the airfield and surrounding terrain, they sealed caves shut with bulldozers, burying hundreds of enemy soldiers alive. But it was a brutal, two-month battle to secure the tiny island.

A year later, when the Indianapolis was hit and sunk, the island had become a base for U.S. aircraft. After survivors from Indy were plucked from the sea, Peleliu offered the nearest hospital. Some of those nearest death were rushed here by the rescue ships Doyle and Register; among them were Mike Kuryla and Woody James.

 Video: Survivor Paul McGinnis discusses his rescue by the Doyle and the time he spent recovering in Peleliu.

Now, 55 years later, an outboard motorboat pulls up to the ruined remains of the dock built by U.S. Navy Seabees. Mike, Woody, Paul Murphy and L.D. Cox pick their way carefully over the crumbling steel bulkhead, then stand quietly and offer a prayer of thanks for their survival, and in remembrance of those who died here, both during the invasion and after Indy was hit.

"Two of our boys were buried here," Paul reminds the others. "Bob Shipman and Fred Harrison, I'm pretty sure. Their families had them brought back home later."

A small tour bus takes the vets around the island — still littered with the refuse of war. You can pick up rusted fragments of landing ships and weapons all along the beach. A crumbling Japanese tank sits just off the weedy airstrip. A squat concrete blockhouse still shows craters from a direct hit. At the edge of a swamp, the four vets pick their way through jungle undergrowth to examine a haunting relic, a wrecked Japanese Zero.

"Last time I saw one of these, it was heading straight for us," says Woody.

"Well, he's not going anywhere now," says Paul.

Hemmed in by banana trees and coconut palms, the wrecked fighter plane looks like a fragile instrument for waging war. Its bullet-pocket aluminum skin is paper thin, but no thinner than it was 55 years ago.

"Lot of boys died out here, our boys, theirs ... Now, will you please tell me, what was it all for?" asks Woody. It's a question survivors of war have asked themselves for centuries.

Some 1,500 Americans and 10,000 Japanese died in the battle for Peleliu. For an airstrip on a chunk of rock, for the glory of the emperor, for economic power, for liberty, justice, peace — no answer can bring back the dead.

The visit ends in a driving downpour. When the storm passes, the vets board the motorboat and begin to wind their way through Palau's picturesque "Rock Islands." A mosaic of turquoise water and coral islands dense with tropical foliage glows in the golden light of late afternoon. At the end of the line, in the harbor of Koror, the Sea Eagle awaits a shipment of spare parts. Steve Saint Amour and the ROV team will be up all night troubleshooting Remora's power supply so they can be ready to sail in the morning.

 Video: Survivor Victor Buckett remembers leaving the hospital in Peleliu and his return to the United States.

The Search Site
Now, back at sea, two and a half days after the veterans' tour of the World War II battleground, the ROV is up and running, all systems go. Steve Saint Amour signals the man on the winch and Remora slips slowly into the water. A string of lead weights hanging below will help speed the ROV's descent; even so, it will take two hours for the vehicle's thrusters to drive her down to the sea floor and the prime target, 10,000 feet below.

The four veterans stand at the floodlit rails of the Sea Eagle watching the orange shell of the ROV fade into the blue-black water, eagerly waiting to catch a glimpse of another long-hidden relic of war. The ghosts of Peleliu they could see with their own eyes; this time they will have to rely on the underwater cameras of the ROV to see if we have found the resting place of the USS Indianapolis and many, many, brave young men.