âJapanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief⦠Just delivered the bomb, the Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didnât see the first shark for about half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that when youâre in the water, chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail⦠Well we didnât know that our bomb mission had been so secret no distress signal had been sent. They didnât even list us overdue fir a week. Very first light, chief, sharks came cruising, so we formed ourselves into tight groups⦠you know, kind of like old squares in a battle like you see in a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo, and the idea was, shark comes to the nearest man and then you start pounding and hollering and screaming. Sometimes the shark goes, sometimes he wouldnât go away⦠I donât know how many sharks. Maybe a thousand, I donât know how many men, they averaged six an hourâ¦
Noon the fifth day, Mr Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low⦠and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down, starts to pick us upâ¦
So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June 29th 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.â
Noon the fifth day, Mr Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low⦠and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down, starts to pick us upâ¦
So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June 29th 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.â