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Weekly 150: Edgar A. Harrell

Remembering the Last Surviving Marine of the USS Indianapolis

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If you asked me 20 years ago about the USS Indianapolis, I would have told you it was the ship in Quint’s monologue from Jaws. Robert Shaw in his whiskey and cigarette-rich voice delivered the semi-factual tale of what took place.
“Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin’ back, from the island of Tinian to Laytee, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. The vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn’t see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer… Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin’. So we formed ourselves into tight groups… the shark comes to the nearest man and that man, 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’...”
A few years later, I learned Quint had a few things wrong with his story, but it was a powerful enough tale to embed the story of the USS Indianapolis in our imaginations.
The Indianapolis received orders to undertake a top-secret mission; proceed to Tinian island carrying the enriched uranium (about half of the world’s supply of uranium-235 at the time) and other parts required for the assembly of the atomic bomb codenamed “Little Boy”, which would be dropped on Hiroshima a few weeks later.
In the early hours of June 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was returning from its drop. A Japanese submarine attacked the U.S. vessel; hitting her with two Type 95 torpedoes. The ship sank in less than 15 minutes. Of the 1197 crew members, only 317 survived. Only nine of the 39 Marines aboard the ship survived. Death came in various forms; the initial attack and sinking, drowning, shock, or shark attacks.
One of the surviving Marines from the fatal voyage was Edgar A. Harrell. After the war, he returned to his home in Kentucky. Upon his retirement, Harrell moved to Paris, Tennessee and later to Clarksville.
In his later years, he shared his story of survival and memories of his fallen comrades. Harrell died May 8, 2021, he was the last surviving Marine of the USS Indianapolis.
“I still remember my first impression when I boarded the Indy, as she was affectionately called: This thing is big—really big! It was like a floating city. For a country boy from Kentucky, it was overwhelming. The sight of the massive guns gave me goosebumps. Never having seen guns larger than a double-barreled shotgun, I remember laughing to myself, thinking, My, my, my. We can win the war just by ourselves with these monsters!” said Harrell in his autobiography, “Out of the Depths’’.
The story of Sergeant Edgar Harrell’s harrowing starts near midnight of June 29, 1945, as he was relieved from his watch and made his way to the ship’s deck. With temperatures above 100 degrees, the crew was permitted to sleep on the deck.
As he bedded down under the barrels of the number one gun turret, a massive explosion interrupted his slumber. A few seconds later, a second explosion rocked the ship followed by a third (the powder magazine under number one turret). Harrell could hear the ship’s bulkheads breaking. Crewmen covered in blood with flesh hanging from their arms and faces emerging from below deck; each begging for help.
Marine Lieutenant Edward Stauffer refused Harrell’s request to cut down the canvas bangs containing hundreds of life jackets. The lieutenant insisted the bags not be opened until the order to abandon ship was given.
“As I waited for word to abandon ship it seemed it would never come, and you could see the ship was sinking,” recalled Harrell in a July 2002 interview.
Captain Charles McVay was advised by executive officer Commander Joseph Flynn and Lieutenant Commander Casey Moore the USS Indianapolis was going down.
“It looked as if we were going down with the ship, then suddenly word came that the Captain had given the word, ‘Abandon Ship!’” Harrell lamented.
“I was too scared to jump,” said Harrell about hanging onto the rail, watching men jumping into the ocean on top of those who jumped before them.
“I just hung on to that rail and prayed. You see, I need hope and assurance as I looked out into what I thought could be an eternity.” Despite the fear, he felt a strong presence of the Lord.
As Harrell entered the water and swam to a group of about 80 other crew members, Captain McVay made his way to the communications deck of the ship which was titled at 60 degrees on her starboard side. Seconds later, the USS Indianapolis had listed 90 degrees and Captain McVay went to the rear of the ship and submerged into the water.
According to the captain’s records, “I...looked around and heard a swish and the ship was gone.” Approximately 900 men made it into the water, the others were taken in the initial attack or were to abandon the ship being sucked down with the vessel.

As daylight broke, peace was not ushered in. The morning light brought a sense of terror for the adrift sailors as they viewed the dorsal fins of quickly approaching sharks.
The men fastened their life jackets to each other to form a tight circle with the injured and those without life jackets inside the circle. Soon, the advancing heat from the sun led some to drink saltwater while others drank unintentionally by being submerged temporarily trying to keep their heads about the water.
Nausea, diarrhea and hallucinations became another foe for the crew. Men were “seeing strange things - islands, ships, planes and even the Indianapolis down below,” said Harrell on his experience in the ocean.
Harrell told of one sailor’s hallucination, “One sailor swam up to me and said he had just come from an island over there and that all the Marine buddies were over there having a picnic and they wanted me to cover over.”
As he swam away, he made it about 50 feet before he was attacked by a shark. The familiar blood-curdling scream pierced the air as Harrell and others watched the sailor pulled beneath the surface. Then his life vest with his remains bobbed up and down like a cork.
Hallucinations caused many to swim away thinking they saw islands or rescue vessels. According to Captain McVay, “It was in that way that so many people died of exhaustion. Either that or they went out of their head.” Captain Edward Park “killed himself from exhaustion” trying to keep people from swimming away.
On the second day, the survivors had some relief as the sky clouded over and rain provided a small amount of water for their parched throats. But, the second day was no easier than the first. Many of the sailors were in misery and were contemplating suicide. One of Harrell’s fellow Marines, Private Miles Spooner was in constant pain after diving off the ship into the caustic black oil. Harrell fastened Spooner’s life jacket to his until the following morning after he “vowed that he would fight for life as long as he had breath.”
After two days, only half of the original survivors remained. Harrell recalled how many just slipped out of their life vests. Their will to live was outdone by the harsh conditions. Adding to the fact that no one was missing them thus there would not be a search anytime soon.
Of the original 80 in Harrell’s group, 17 remained. Five shipmates came in a makeshift raft of old crates and ammo cans.
“They were not on the raft but what I saw convinced me to join them,’’ said Harrell. “They had gathered several life jackets off the deceased and had them on the raft to dry out. Since mine was nearly gone, I saw this as a spare.”
The group decided to swim towards the Philippines, which was around 250 miles. Late in the afternoon, Harrell swam to a crate filled with potatoes. With some nourishment in their bodies, the crew continued their journey joining another small group attempting the swim to the Philippines.
The following morning, Harrell found himself alone with two other sailors, one of which was Lieutenant Charles McKissick.
By the grace of God, Navy pilot Lieutenant Wilbur Gwinn flew above the group of survivors while flying on a routine anti-submarine patrol. Despite distress messages from the USS Indianapolis, the ship not arriving at the port and the Japanese assertion of sinking a ship, there was no plan of a rescue mission.
Lieutenant Gwinn saw the oil slick from the wreckage and upon closer inspection noticed around 30 men. He alerted the Navy officials of his discovery and dropped a life raft. At 5:05 p.m., a Naval PBY Catalina seaplane picked up the first 58 survivors, Harrell was among the initial group. He was soon reunited with his friend Spooner. The final count was 880 men lost with 317 survivors.
“The USS Doyle came that night and got us. I was covered with oil and they gave me a kerosene bath. They got the rotten flesh off me and wrapped me in Vaseline gauze. At a hospital in Guam, Admiral Spruance pinned the Purple Heart on me. That’s where we found out what our cargo was. We lost 880 shipmates. Only 317 of us survived the four days.
“It is much easier to die than live. You’ve got to struggle to live. I had something to live for—my family and a little brunette named Ola Mae who said she’d wait for me.”
During a Naval inquisition, Captain McVay was made the scapegoat and received a court-martial for: Negligence in “Suffering a Vehicle of the United States Navy to be Hazarded” by neglecting to zigzag in order to minimize the danger from a submarine attack. On November 6, 1968, after years of mental health issues, Captain McVay took his own life.
On October 30, 2000, Captain McVay was posthumously exonerated by the United States Congress and President Bill Clinton.
Along with his son, David Harrell, Edgar wrote the book “Out of the Depths,” relating his experience in the USS Indianapolis disaster. In 2018, Harrell and the other remaining survivors of the USS Indianapolis were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal on the 75th anniversary of the ship’s sinking. The same year, he received an honorary promotion to the rank of sergeant. With Harrell’s death, there are only five survivors of the disaster still living.