I’m writing this on Veterans Day. Last week, in the run up to today there were several outstanding programs on TV. One of them was about sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II.

While I was working as a librarian on the reservation, I purchased a copy of Abandon Ship, a non-fiction recounting of the sinking of the Indianapolis. Because the ship’s ability to travel faster than any of the navy’s other vessels, it was chosen to carry the internal makings of the atomic bombs that were destined to end World War II from California across the Pacific.

Due to the top-secret nature of the cargo on board, several important steps were skipped in scheduling the sailing, including failure to provide information on the ship’s time departure from port and the ETA for arrival at its final destination.

After dropping off its payload, the ship continued sailing westward towards the Philippines, but without anyone on that end of the voyage knowing when it was due to arrive. Because no enemy submarines were known to be in the area, the ship traveled without being accompanied by destroyers. And, having been told that the coast was clear, the ship’s captain chose to set a straight course rather than making the zigzag movements that were thought to help avoid enemy torpedoes.

Unfortunately, there was an enemy submarine present, and the torpedoes fired from that vessel took the USS Indianapolis down in a matter of minutes, trapping many sailors below decks. Nine hundred of the twelve hundred sailors on board survived the initial sinking by leaping into the shark-infested waters of the Pacific where they lingered for the next agonizing five days before anyone noticed the ship was missing or came looking for them.

By the time rescuers arrived, they were able to save only a third of the original nine hundred survivors. Over the intervening days many of the victims had succumbed to their original injuries while others were killed by shark attacks or dehydration.

In the aftermath of the sinking, Captain Charles McVay, who was one of the three hundred survivors and who was also the last person to leave the sinking ship, was court marshaled. One of the charges leveled against him included his not giving the order to abandon ship sooner. The number I remember from reading the book all those years ago was that he issued the abandon ship order seven minutes after the attack. The Indianapolis sank in twelve.

McVay was also charged with not using the approved zigzag maneuver which, supposedly, would have made it possible for the ship to avoid being hit by torpedoes. One of the defense witnesses in the courtroom, however, happened to be the captain of the Japanese submarine that had destroyed the Indianapolis. He said that the Japanese Navy had found ways to subvert the zigzag maneuver and that the ship would have been doomed regardless.

McVay was reprimanded by the Navy, which family members of the 900 dead sailors regarded as a mere slap on the wrist. And although he wrote personal letters of condolence to each of the deceased sailors’ families, many of them spent the next two decades sending him angry letters blaming him for the tragedy and holding him personally responsible for their loved ones’ deaths. Over the years the weight of those deaths took their toll, and in 1968, Charles McVay took his own life.

In the meantime, the three hundred survivors remained solidly in Captain McVay’s camp, trying their best to have him exonerated but without success.

Years passed. Then, in 1996, an eleven year-old boy from Pensacola, Florida—a sixth grader named Hunter Scott—did a history project on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. His research was what revealed the Navy’s negligence in not tracking the ship’s scheduled times of departure and arrival. Hunter then teamed up with the survivors and enlisted the help of his congressman, former Representative Joe Scarborough, in yet another attempt to clear Captain McVay’s name. Amazingly that effort succeeded. In 2000 legislation exonerating him passed Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton.

Last week’s program on PBS alternated between segments about the sinking itself, the eventual rescue of the survivors, and the much later search for the ship’s wreckage which was finally located in the summer of 2017.

The Indianapolis sank in some of the deepest waters of the Pacific—a place where oxygen never penetrates. As a consequence, there’s no rust on the ship’s broken pieces. Eerie underwater camera shots revealed parts of the ship where the lettering was still plainly visible. Because of the bodies still buried there, the US Navy regards the wreckage as sacred ground. So do I.

As I was watching the show, however, I kept wondering what had led an eleven-year-old kid to research the ship’s sinking all those years earlier. Had he maybe happened across the same book that had made such an impression on me back in the late sixties when I bought it for the library on the reservation? As a result, once the show was over, I Googled Hunter Scott. Turns out it wasn’t that particular book that inspired him—it was watching the movie Jaws.

By 2017 when the wreckage was finally located, Hunter Scott was a lieutenant in the US navy, serving on the flight deck of the USS Bonhomme Richard in the Pacific.

As a recovering librarian, I can’t help but feel somewhat disappointed that it was a hit movie rather than a book that led Hunter Scott to do his powerful research project, but I’m glad it did.

It was high time.