Just finished reading Doug Stanton's book. In Australia we talk of the times of "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" when blokes like my Dad, although with forged papers and no need for razor blades, joined USAT Water Division (Small Ships) sailing anything that would float supplying ground troops in New Guinea & Areas north to the Philipines. 

It was understood that if those blokes disappeared nobody was coming after them. But if Stanton's chronicling of Indianapolis' last voyage is as he writes it, and given the ship's prestige, and given her world-changing mission that preceded that voyage, it must rank up there as the greatest SNAFU in modern naval history.

To those men who survived; If Obama could dedicate his Nobel Peace Prize to anyone, it should be you blokes.

Having been thirty years an arm amputee, and having worked with many people of disability including elite athletes, I can understand where your guts and mateship came from, but not your internal fortitude to survive aganst ALL of the odds against you.

Our Australian ode to all service personnel is like this.

"They shall grow not old as we who are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We WILL remember them."

LEST WE FORGET

This is narrated at 1800hours every night in every Serviceman's club in every town in Australia, followed by one minute's silence.

The fate of the Indianapolis is truly one of the little known (to some) tragedies of the Pacific Theatre. All survivors demand the highest respect, not so much for the small thing of their survival, but for their relentless battle for the recognition of their mates.


As you blokes, like my Dad, sling your hook in readiness for that last sail into the sunset, one bloke here in Australia will never forget your valour.