Only 23 alive for USS Indianapolis Reunion

The 2016 USS Indianapolis Survivors Reunion Banquet will be 6 p.m. Saturday, July 9 in Indianapolis.

Sam Lopez, Sr., father of Linda Lopez Gandy, Class of 1965, is one of 23 USS Indianapolis survivors still alive.



Sam Lopez, Sr.

The USS Indianapolis was returning from delivering components for the atomic bomb that later struck Hiroshima when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945. The ship sank in 12 minutes. In America’s worst naval tragedy of World War II, 880 died.

A month later, Japan surrendered after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Because no one else knew about it, 900 men floated in the ocean for four days until they were discovered by accident when a Navy PBY search and rescue plane piloted by Hoosier Adrian Marks discovered them floating in the ocean.  

By then, only 317 men still were alive.

The USS Indianapolis was the flagship for Admiral Raymond Spruance while he commanded the Fifth Fleet in the Pacific.

To read about the harrowing documentary, as told by the survivors, click on

http://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/this-amazing-documentary-tells-the-tragic-story-of-the-uss-indianapolis-in-the-crews-words