DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

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Contributors

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MIKE HUGHES

KIM AKASS

MONIQUE NAZARETH

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TOM BRINKMOELLER

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS: THE FINAL CHAPTER
January 8, 2019  | By David Bianculli

PBS, 10:00 p.m. ET

 

The true story, unknown to almost everyone at the time, was told in riveting fashion by Robert Shaw’s sea captain in 1975’s Jaws: The U.S.S. Indianapolis, days after delivering the components for the top-secret nuclear bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, was torpedoed in the Philippine Sea. It sank quickly, stranding more than 1,000 sailors, hundreds of whom were stranded in the water as sharks slowly feasted on them – with no help coming, or distress signal sent, because their mission had been so crucial to the strategy of ending the war. In 2017, Paul Allen, the founder of Microsoft, founded a mission to locate the sunken wreckage of the Indianapolis, which was suspected of being 18,000 feet below the surface of the Philippine Sea. (That’s 5,213 leagues, which shows you just how deep Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was traveling.) And in tonight’s new PBS special – Spoiler Alert! – the ship is found. Check local listings.

 
 
 
 
 
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