USS Indianapolis Survivor Dies on 63rd Anniversary of Sinking
George Kurlich, 82, died Wednesday at the Justin T. Rodgers Hospice in Akron, on the 63rd anniversary of his surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during the waning days of World War II.
The heavy cruiser was sunk by a series of torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine. About 800 of the 1,199 crew members were able to abandon the doomed ship into the shark-infested Pacific sea.
The ship had been heading to Leyte Gulf at the Philippine Islands on July 30, 1945, after delivering components of the atom bomb to Tinian Island. It was two weeks before the end of the war.
Kurlich managed to slither off the heavily damaged Indianapolis as it rolled over and sank in 12 minutes.
He told a Plain Dealer reporter in 1995, "I remember thinking, 'Get away from the suction.' I went about 104 miles an hour for the next five minutes."
Eventually, Kurlich ended up on a makeshift raft with other crewmen. They picked up the Indianapolis's skipper, Capt. Charles McVay III, and others.
"We had one pet [shark] for a couple of days," he said to the reporter. "He hung around the raft. We beat him over the head with an oar a few times."
Because their mission was top-secret, and because of administrative and communication blunders, the Indianapolis was never reported overdue. Four days after sinking, the survivors were accidentally found by an American patrol plane.
Only 317 survived. Some died of wounds, exhaustion, exposure, drowning and thirst. Many were eaten or maimed by sharks while bobbing in life jackets or clinging to rafts and floater nets.
Kurlich was reluctant to talk about his experience in later years, his family said.
A son-in-law, Albert Hawker of Medina, said Kurlich was a religious man. "He would say, 'I'm not a hero. The men who died are the heroes.' "
Hawker said Kurlich would say his brother, Ben, had a worse deal than he did. Ben Kurlich was trapped in the USS West Virginia for five days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Kurlich returned to the Cleveland area after the war and received an accounting degree from Ohio Northern University.
He was still a Navy reservist and was called back to duty aboard the USS New Jersey battleship during the Korean War.
Kurlich received several military decorations, including the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, two Silver Stars and two presidential citations, his family said.
He joined the Ford Motor plant in Walton Hills in 1955 as an accountant. He received promotions over the years and was an accountant executive when he retired in 1980.
Kurlich was born in Akron and graduated from Central Howard High School. He was a longtime member of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Wadsworth.
He and his wife of 39 years, Mary Lou, lived in Northfield before moving to Wadsworth several years ago.
The heavy cruiser was sunk by a series of torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine. About 800 of the 1,199 crew members were able to abandon the doomed ship into the shark-infested Pacific sea.
The ship had been heading to Leyte Gulf at the Philippine Islands on July 30, 1945, after delivering components of the atom bomb to Tinian Island. It was two weeks before the end of the war.
He told a Plain Dealer reporter in 1995, "I remember thinking, 'Get away from the suction.' I went about 104 miles an hour for the next five minutes."
Kurlich was reluctant to talk about his experience in later years, his family said.
Kurlich returned to the Cleveland area after the war and received an accounting degree from Ohio Northern University.