William Thurkettle, survivor of USS Indianapolis sinking, dies at 82

By Brian McVicar | The Muskegon Chronicle

February 20, 2010, 12:01AM

WEST MICHIGAN -- Sixty-five years after he survived the worst disaster at sea in U.S. naval history, William Thurkettle was still haunted by the carnage that unfolded before his eyes in the South Pacific Ocean.

Thurkettle, 82, died Feb. 1 of complications stemming from lung cancer. He was just 17 at the time of the USS Indianapolis sinking.

William ThurkettleHe lived in Muskegon until he retired in 1987 and moved to Branch in Mason County.

At 17, he was among 317 World War II sailors who survived the July 30, 1945, Japanese attack on the USS Indianapolis. For four days, until they were rescued, he bobbed in the ocean and watched hundreds of comrades die of exhaustion, hypothermia, dementia, dehydration and shark attacks.

"I can still hear the screams," Thurkettle told The Chronicle in 1960 as he described the attack that killed 879 men in the final days of World War II.

Gloria Johnson, one of Thurkettle's five daughters, said the tragedy weighed on her father for much of his life.

"He held it all inside," Johnson said. "He was never anyone to talk about that."

Thurkettle opened up to The Chronicle in 2001, describing in great detail the events that unfolded aboard the ship -- which was returning to the U.S. from an island near Guam after delivering parts for the atomic bomb that was used on Hiroshima -- and in the water of the South Pacific.

Because the Indianapolis sank so fast after being hit by torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine, it was not able to send a distress signal.

He watched as hundreds of sharks circled stranded sailors, picking them off one by one. Deprived of food, water, sleep, and warmth, the men were hallucinating by the second full day on the water.

"The particular group I was with, we didn't have any life rafts," Thurkettle said. "We had life jackets. When people died or the sharks got them, we'd take the life jacket off and tie them all together. When a guy died, we would say a little prayer, then let him go."

Approximately 63 of the 317 initial survivors are still alive, according to the USS Indianapolis Survivors Organization.

Thurkettle returned to Muskegon after the war, eventually landing a job at Sealed Power and marrying his wife, Ferna, who died in 2001. He worked for 30 years at Sealed Power.

In his spare time he enjoyed building race cars and the outdoors, where he often spent time hunting in the Baldwin area and fishing on Lake Michigan. But he never regained his former love of water that he fostered while growing up near Little Black Lake, where he often spent his days swimming and fishing.

As of 2001, he had only been swimming once in the past 56 years.

A service for Thurkettle is scheduled for 1-3 p.m. today at Oak Grove Funeral Home in Ludington, 3060 West U.S. 10.

He is survived by his five daughters -- Johnson, of Branch, Viki Montalvo of Muskegon, Diana Sherburn, on North Muskegon, Claudia Burkhart of Muskegon, and Theresa White, of Fort Wayne, Ind.