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so i have this tiny fraction of a memory in my brain. i think it's the tail end of some program on discovery/history channel i must have napped through some time ago. it's been bugging me for a while.

i've been googling it for some time with no effect.

anyway, it's something about the last casualty of the war. or one of the last casualties. again, i may be wrong and it might well have been the first casualty. I am quite sure this occured in the atlantic.

i seem to recall something about an american ship (navy, not merchant, i believe) which ran into some problems and ended up sinking.

actually, i think now it might have been a tanker of sorts, but again, i'm not sure. i was sure it was navy.

anyway, i don't think it was damaged from enemy fire, but ended up sinking. i can't recall how many were lost, but i know that the story stuck out in my mind because rescue efforts were hampered by oil.

i seem to recall pictures of sailors being rescued from the sea all covered in oil or something.

anyway, i know this is vague. but that's pretty much all the recolelction i have bouncing around in my head. it's a stretch, but crazier things have happened!

anyone have any ideas?

There are atomic bomb survivors in Japan who still suffer from the effects of radiation exposure. Some people were irradiated in utero. There are plenty of death camp survivors. You never get over trauma like that.

USS Indianapolis CA-35 might be what you're thinking of-

Quote:

USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a Portland-class cruiser of the United States Navy. She holds a place in history due to the notorious circumstances of her demise, which was the worst single loss of life at-sea in the history of the U.S. Navy. After delivering critical parts for the first atomic bomb to be used in combat to the United States air base at Tinian Island on July 26, 1945, she was in the Philippine Sea when attacked at 00:14 on July 30, 1945 by a Japanese submarine. Most of the crew was lost to a combination of exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks as they waited for assistance while floating for five days. Indianapolis was one of the last U.S. Navy ships sunk by enemy action in World War II. (The submarine USS Bullhead (SS-332) was attacked by Japanese aircraft with depth charges and sunk on August 6, 1945.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)

Edit:

This incident also comes up in the book and film "Jaws"

BTW- Qunit is played by Robert shaw. Why that's not detailed here I don't know.

Quote:

Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss): You were on the Indianapolis?
Brody (Roy Scheider): What happened?
Quint: Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian Delady, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. `Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark would go for nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces.
Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks ttook the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

http://www.whysanity.net/monos/jaws.html

hmm, good find.

but i really seem to recall something about oil. and i am almost sure the sinking was not a result of enemy fire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rune (Post 2527131)

hmm, good find.

but i really seem to recall something about oil. and i am almost sure the sinking was not a result of enemy fire.

I don't know then. Do you know if the ship blew up?

When a ship goes down there's almost always an oil slick. The footage of sailors being plucked from the seas in WWII almost always shows the sailors covered in oil.

I know in survival school (Navy 1983) we spent a good deal of time in a pool working on how to bob up and down in the water if it's covered in oil and that oil's ablaze. That and how to do things like make a life jacket out of your pants and what types of possible floating debris would be edible. Turns out fire fighting foam has protein in it, but it's not very tasty.

Could you be thinking of one of the many "Liberty" ships, built in large numbers and with great haste, in the U.S., during WWII... ?

Quote:

Early Liberty ships suffered hull and deck cracks, and a few were lost to such structural defects. During World War II, there were nearly 1,500 instances of significant brittle fractures. Twelve ships, including three of the 2,710 Liberties built, broke in half without warning, including the SS John P. Gaines, which sank on 24 November 1943 with the loss of 10 lives. Suspicion fell on the shipyards who had often used inexperienced workers and new welding techniques to produce large numbers of ships in great haste.

Liberty ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynosure (Post 2527155)

Could you be thinking of one of the many "Liberty" ships, built in large numbers and with great haste, in the U.S., during WWII... ?

Liberty ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah that's a good possibility too. They built some of these ship in Portland Or. I remember my dad pointing out the shipyard area whenever we drove by. By the 1970's they wasn't much to see and I didn't get the importance of what he was talking about until years later.

And yes they turned them out quick-

Quote:

In 1943, three new Liberty ships were being completed every day.

Three ships everyday, holy crap!

Hmm, I thought that this was a ship during the First World War where a German sub torpedoed them after the Armistace, but I can't find anything on it now....

while what guyy said is right, i dont imagine that being the history channel's kind of thing. it doesn't wrap up nicely in the alloted time slot. better to focus on a more containable "last casualty"----btw wasn't there a a soldier--i cant remember from where--maybe japan?----in maybe new guinea who didnt know the war was over or something until the early 1970s?

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2527432)

Several of them in fact. The last one I know of was found in April, 1980. Captain Fumio Nakahira. He was found living on Mindoro.

There was another guy said to have been found in the Philippines in 1997, but that turned out to be a hoax.

Japanese Holdouts: Registry

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy (Post 2527432)

Yes there were a bunch of them all over Asia. In Indochina, Philippines, etc. Many knew of the surrender but refused to do so anyways and would continue harassing and killing people in their area. These soldiers were more a "casualty" of their extreme militarist government and emperor worship than anything. It shows just how determined they were and would not stop fighting.

However, real casualties would be the Chinese et al who continue to suffer the effects of the Holocaust and Japanese denial as well as the number of bombs, ordinance and chemical weapons left on Chinese soil that explode and leak from time to time killing and maiming so many while the Japanese refuse to clean up their mess. But at least we were able to end the war thanks to the dropping of the atom bombs. Thank the Lord for the Enola Gay and her noble life-saving mission.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz (Post 2527423)

Hmm, I thought that this was a ship during the First World War where a German sub torpedoed them after the Armistace, but I can't find anything on it now....

Last ships sunk by german subs (U-2336) was a a British and a Norwegian freighter, named Avondale Park and Sneland I.