USS Indianapolis survivor Sam Lopez is 92 years old today.

With the September 29 passing of Adelore “Pean” Palmiter in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sam is among 22 men still alive who faced one of the most harrowing events in America’s World War II history. D-Day at Normany was the #1 of them all in that category, of course.

 

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.

Sharks feasted on the dead and attacked and killed some of the living.

Sam Lopez, Sr., father of Linda Lopez Gandy, Monongah High Alumni Association president, didn't graduate from Monongah High but had the good sense to marry a Monongah girl, Joanne, in 1946 and has lived in Monongah for 63 years, about the length of a football field from where I spent my childhood on Thomas and Church streets.

Sam’s wife, Joanne Vandetta Lopez, daughter of Frank and Olga Grandoni Vandetta, passed away in 2012. Linda’s brother,  Sam Lopez Jr., lives in Fairmont.

USS Indianapolis survivors still alive may see a movie about their traumatic experiences if they can hang on a little longer.  Nicolas Cage is filming “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage.”

Kudos, Sam. You are an extraordinary American hero! Happy birthday! And MANY more, too!