USS Indianapolis survivor Ed Harrell and wife Ola Mae. The couple have been married 55 years.

Harrell's story begins shortly before midnight on July 29, 1945 when, having been relieved from watch duty, he made his way to the steamy deck below. With daytime temperatures reaching one hundred degrees and more, most of the Sailors and Marines camped above deck, making their beds wherever they could.

With his shoes for a pillow, wrapped snugly in his blanket on the hard deck under the barrels of the number one turret, Harrell was just relaxing into comfortable slumber when the ship beneath him shook violently as a massive explosion tore off some 30 feet of the bow behind him. Within seconds a second terrifying explosion near midship threw the ship into turmoil as a third explosion - the powder magazine under the number one turret - lifted the structure from its mooring, setting it slightly over to the starboard side.

With electricity and communications completely disrupted, near zero visibility compounded the terror of young men not long removed from the comforts of home. Making his way as quickly as he could to his emergency station, Harrell could hear the bulkheads below breaking from the pressure as the ship advanced with open bow. Wounded men emerged from below deck, begging for help, their destroyed flesh hanging from their faces and arms. Arriving at his emergency station, Harrell realized with horror his life jacket was in his locker below. He requested permission to cut down the large canvas bags containing hundreds of life jackets, but was refused by Marine Lieutenant Edward Stauffer who staunchly followed procedure, insisting the bags not be opened until word was given to abandon ship. Sadly, Lt. Stauffer was not among the survivors of the crew.

"By now the bow was already under and the ship was listing to starboard so much that one could hardly stand on the deck," Harrell relates. "The ship was sinking. Suddenly a Navy Commander came from below deck, severely burned, and someone yelled out, 'Get the Commander a life jacket!' and a Sailor cut the life vests down. I reached in and grabbed one and put it on but not fastening it in the straddle as yet."

With his heart in his throat, Harrell waited for instructions. "As I waited for word to abandon ship it seemed it would never come," he says, "and you could see the ship was sinking."

In another part of the ship, his Captain had been shaken from his bunk by the explosions. He raced out onto the bridge where he encountered total blackness and white smoke. After discovering communications were totally disrupted, he rushed back into his emergency cabin on the bridge to dress. The damage control officer, Navy Lt. Commander Casey Moore, who later perished, inquired as to whether the Captain desired to pass word to abandon ship.

Captain McVay and the USS Indianapolis had previously weathered "heavy underwater damage" from a Japanese Kamikaze aircraft "quite easily" during the Battle of Okinawa on March 30 the same year, an experience that gave the Captain momentary hope. Within two or three minutes, however, the executive officer, Commander Flynn, who also later perished, advised the Captain, "We are definitely going down and I suggest that we abandon ship."

Captain McVay immediately concurred, and instruction was passed by word of mouth along the ship that, over two football fields long, was a small, floating city.

Precious moments had passed as Corporal Ed Harrell maintained his post while awaiting instruction.

"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 recalls.

As the panic stricken young men dashed to the high port side of the ship and jumped into the water, Harrell remained frozen as he hung onto the rail, watching men jumping into the ocean on top of those who jumped before them.

"I'm sure I was too scared to jump," he says, "I just hung on to that rail and prayed. You see, I needed hope and assurance as I looked out into what I thought could be eternity."

Despite his paralyzing fear, Harrell felt strongly the presence of the Lord, having accepted Him as his personal Savior in August 1943.

After having been sworn into the Marines in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was at home in Kentucky before reporting for duty. On the first day of August, he attended services in a little church when he felt with conviction the Lord was offering him his "last chance" to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. When the congregation was dismissed, Harrell remained seated. Noticing his apparent conflict, the pastor sat beside him asked what was wrong.

"I told him I needed to get things right with the Lord and that I felt as if that day was my last chance," Harrell recalls. "He turned to Acts 16:31 which simply said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.' He reminded me that God - who cannot lie - makes me a promise, that if I will accept Him he will save me. There in the quietness of that moment I accepted what the Lord Jesus did for me on the cross, namely that He died for me as a substitute for my sins. There that moment I became a Christian and a child of God."

It was almost two years later that Harrell looked out into the endless stretch of ocean in the pitch-black night and asked the Lord for His mercy and grace as he prepared to abandon ship.

"I had every assurance that He heard my prayers and I heard Him speak to me through His Word, John 14:27: 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' And I thought about Jeremiah in the prison down in the cistern, and he prayed and the Lord answered, 'Fear not.'

As Harrell swam away, joining a group of about 80 other Sailors and Marines, Captain McVay struggled to reach the communications deck on the ship that was by now tilted at a 60 degree angle on her starboard (right) side.

An official transcript of his recollections reads, "There were some youngsters there that were jumping over the side and I got to the lifeline on the communications deck and yelled at these boys to not jump over the side unless they had life jackets, or to go back by the stack which was just behind me and cut down the life raft, or the floater net rather, and throw that over the side before they jumped."

Seconds later, the ship listed to 90 degrees and the Captain began walking toward the rear of the ship along its side. He had reached the area of the number three turret when he was sucked into the water as the bow descended rapidly. Swimming away from the ship's screws (propellers), McVay felt "hot oil and water brush over" the back of his neck.

From their vantage point some distance away, Harrell and the other men in his group "watched as the Indy rolled over on her starboard side, the bow already under, with the fantail sticking high out of the water, as she slipped rather silently to her doom."

Closer by, Captain McVay recalled, "I... looked around and heard a swish and the ship was gone." Approximately 900 men had made it into the water, while others were taken in the initial onslaught or were sucked down with the ship.

McVay weathered the next five days as one in a group of ten lucky enough to come across life rafts and emergency rations of spam, malted milk tablets and biscuits (crackers).

Less lucky were the scores of men with life jackets - or none. Those who were badly injured or burned, Harrell says, didn't make it through the night.

Rather than peace from the cold and fearsome dark of night, the morning sun brought terror, for all around the group the dorsal fins of sharks moved ominously through the water.

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, however, the advancing heat from the sun's searing rays led some to drink the poisonous salt water, while others drank unintentionally upon becoming strangled, their heads barely held above water. Nausea and diarrhea were the least of the evils affecting those men, who were overtaken by hallucinations that caused them to "see strange things - islands, ships, planes, and even the Indianapolis down below."

Harrell relates, "One Sailor swam up to me and said he had just come from an island over there and that all my Marine buddies were over there having a picnic and they wanted me to come over."

The seaman had swam less than 50 feet away when what was now a familiar blood-curdling scream pierced the salty air and Harrell watched as the Sailor was pulled completely beneath the water's surface by opportunistic sharks; then, like a bobbing cork, the kapok life vest brought his remains to the surface.

Other incredible atrocities were committed by seamen overtaken by delirium. Recalls Harrell, "One Sailor stabbed his shipmate, thinking he had a canteen of water in his life jacket. Another thought his buddy was a Jap and yelled out, 'Jap! Jap!', and others joined in the drowning of their shipmate."

McVay's recollections add to the stories of mass hallucinations. Said he, "One of the stories is that three or four people would swim away at dark and the next morning they would come back and say, 'Why, the Indianapolis didn't go down after all. She is over there and we were on her all night. We got fresh milk, we got tomato juice, we got water.' When they would tell these stories, immediately there would be a break from the group and these people would try to swim away I the direction in which they thought the Indianapolis was.

"Another hallucination they had was some of them said they had been on an island all night where they had coconut milk and were able to refresh themselves and after those stories were told people would then begin to break away from the group.

"It was in that way that so many people apparently died of exhaustion. Either that or they drank salt water and went completely out of their head. One that comes in my mind particularly was Captain (Edward L.) Parke of the Marines. He was a very strong, athletic man, a young man; he just killed himself with exhaustion through trying to keep those people who were swimming away, trying to keep them with the group. He died of exhaustion, from that alone."

The second day, the sky clouded over and, Harrell says, "We opened our mouths heavenward and prayed for water." Their prayers were answered as the refreshing rain fell, providing a small but incredibly welcome amount of water into the parched throats of the survivors.

"This was a reminder that the Lord was with me," says Harrell.

The second day was a challenge to Harrell's buddy, Marine Corps Private Miles Spooner, whose misery was so great he planned to commit suicide by swimming so far down that he would drown before he could come back up. Spooner's suffering was shared by others like him who had gone into the oil-contaminated water headfirst. Covered from head to toe with the caustic black oil, their eyes were tormented by excruciating pain.

Certain by now that no one was searching for them, Harrell nevertheless fastened Spooner's life jacket to his, refusing to release him until the following morning after he "vowed that he would fight for life as long as he had breath."

By the end of the first two days, only half the original survivors remained, with their ranks continuing to dwindle so rapidly that by noon the third day only 17 were left.

Many simply slipped out of their life vests, Harrell related, their will to live outdone by the harsh conditions through which they had thus far survived, compounded by the apparent truth that no one had missed them; that no search party was coming to their rescue. Those who died provided life jackets for those who had none and replaced the old pneumatic (blow up) vests with newer kapok models.

The seventeen had just completed a long prayer vigil when five shipmates approached the group with a makeshift raft constructed from old crates and a couple of 40 mm ammunition cans.

"They were not on the raft but what I saw convinced me to join them," says Harrell, "They had gathered several life jackets off deceased Sailors and had them on the raft drying out. Since mine was nearly gone, I saw this as a spare.

"They said, since we were swimming all the time anyway, why not direct all our energy swimming toward the Philippines."

Both Harrell and Spooner decided to join the group and they paddled resolutely toward the Philippines which, unknown to them, was 250 miles away.

In the afternoon, a crate off to the right of the group caught their eyes, and Harrell felt a "compelling need" to investigate, hoping to find food. His initial euphoria upon discovering the crate contained potatoes was crushed as the first potato he grasped oozed through his fingers as putrid rot. His anxiety gave way to euphoria once more when his clenching fingers met the solid interior of the potato.

The men feasted on the life-giving potatoes and the moisture within them. When, later that evening, they were joined by Navy Lieutenant Charles McKissick and other Sailors who were also swimming toward the Philippines, they were able to share their bounty.

Somehow, the following morning found Harrell alone with McKissick and one other Sailor, minus the raft and the rest of the crew of the evening before. Despite attempts by Harrell and McKissick to rally the Sailor, Harrell says, sadly, "An hour before Wilbur Gwinn spotted us the Sailor had already dropped his head into the water."

The seamen had seen airplanes every day of their trial, always at altitudes that prevented any realistic notion of being spotted. With distress messages as well as Japanese assertions of the sinking ignored and the ship's non-arrival not reported, there was in fact no rescue mission underfoot, and it was happenstance - or indeed divine providence - that brought Navy pilot Lieutenant Wilbur Gwinn above the survivors while flying on routine antisubmarine patrol.

That day, the flight crew was having a problem with a new type of trailing weight for their long-range communication radio system. When the weight separated for the second time after the aircraft had been aloft for some time, the crew was tasked with the retrieval of the whipping antenna through an opening in the bottom of the aircraft. Lt. Gwinn left the controls of the plane to his co-pilot and went toward the back of the plane to help troubleshoot the problem. Kneeling at the tunnel window, Lt. Gwinn leaped suddenly to his feet as he spied below him the oil-slicked water.

His investigation soon led to a sighting of around 30 survivors and he dropped a life raft near the group. His alert immediately led Navy officials to dispatch every possible air and surface unit to the scene in a belated rescue operation.

Harrell was among the first 58 survivors picked up and loaded onto a Navy Catalina patrol seaplane at about 5:05 p.m. There he was reunited with his buddy, Spooner, who had made good his vow of survival.

McVay, who only realized there were survivors other than his group upon seeing the rescue operations taking place some seven to eight miles from his position, was content to wait, knowing his rescue was imminent.

The joy of rescue for McVay, however, was short-lived as the Navy set out to cover its own blunders and responsibility in lost lives by making him the scapegoat in a court-martial that was notorious in its distinction as being the only court-martial in American history of a captain whose ship was sunk in wartime action.

McVay was acquitted of the first charge: Inefficiency in failing to issue and insure the execution of orders for the abandonment of the USS Indianapolis.

He was convicted of the second charge: Negligence in "Suffering a Vehicle of the United States Navy to be Hazarded" by neglecting to zigzag in order to minimize the danger from submarine attack.

The sentence was handed down despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including the witnesses of survivors and - incredibly - the witness of Mochitsura Hashimoto, the commander of the Japanese submarine I-58 that sank the Indianapolis, as well as overlooking the fact that zigzagging had been left to the discretion of Captain McVay under the conditions of reduced visibility, and despite the fact the Navy had neglected to warn him of submarine activity in the region; in fact, that he had been assured at the outset of his journey that an escort, which might have been able to report the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, was unnecessary. The Navy's "Narrative of the Circumstances of the Loss of the USS Indianapolis" in which they seek to explain and rationalize the action of their officers in regard to the disaster, can be read at www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq30-3.htm.

In accepting the sentence of the court, in which McVay lost 100 numbers in his temporary grade of Captain and 100 points in his permanent grade of Commander, thus wrecking his military career, the Judge Advocate General and Chief of Naval Personnel recommended that, "in view of Captain McVay's excellent record and the unanimous recommendation for clemency the court, the sentence should be remitted and he should be restored to duty."

The families of the 900 lost boys were not as "lenient". Wracked by their own pain and devoid of the understanding that McVay was a loving parent in his own right, and perhaps unknowing that their son's Captain had referred to them as youngsters - not Sailors or Marines - and that he suspended important emergency duties to admonish them, much as a parent would, to look out for their own safety, they added to the grief of guilt imposed by the Navy, tormenting him until his will succumbed as it had not in the trial he had shared with their sons.

After years of being unable to escape his unearned guilt - opening Christmas cards that sometimes read, "Merry Christmas! Our family's holiday would be a lot merrier if you hadn't killed my son." - he committed suicide in November 1968, perhaps before another holiday season could lay open his unhealed heart.

Ironically, Commander Hashimoto, who testified in the court martial to McVay's innocence, became a part of the healing of many of the survivors.

On December 7, 1990, as survivors of the USS Indianapolis gathered in Pearl Harbor on the 49th anniversary of that attack, it was Commander Hashimoto, not their own Captain McVay, who they met there.

According to information provided at www.ussindianapolis.org, Commander Hashimoto, speaking through an interpreter, said to Marine survivor Giles McCoy, "I came here to pray with you for your shipmates whose deaths I caused."

In a spirit of forgiveness, McCoy replied, "I forgive you."

Nine years later, Hashimoto joined the survivors in their efforts to clear their Captain's good name. Hashimoto died at the age of 91, on October 25, 2000, after spending the last years of his life as a Shinto priest in Kyoto, Japan. The contents of his letter and much more information about the USS Indianapolis can be read at the aforementioned Website.

The story of Corporal Ed Harrell ends well. He came home and married the girl of his dreams, Ola Mae, who has now been his wife for 55 years. It's a romantic truth that upon his salvation in that little Kentucky church he looked around and saw the only other people left in the sanctuary besides himself and the pastor were two women; one who would become his mother-in-law, and one who would become his wife.

Ed and Ola Mae have two children, David and Cathey, and eight grandchildren: Joseph, Jana and Josh Harrell, and Joseph, Colin, Benjamin, Ross and Celeste Tierney.

Says Harrell, "God in His providence protected me from the sharks, gave me water from Heaven the second day, provided me with a spare life jacket the third day together with furnishing me those wonderful potatoes, and then when hope was almost gone, on the fourth day he sent an Angel to direct our rescue."

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