Japanese submarine slammed
two torpedoes into her side.
Was comin' back from
the island ofTinian Leyte.
Just delivered the bomb,
the Hiroshima bomb.
Eleven hundred men
went into the water.
Vessel went down
in 1 2 minutes.
Didn't see the first shark
for about halfan hour.
Tiger, 1 3-footer.
Know how you know that
when you're in the water ?
You tell by lookin' from
the dorsal to the tail.
What we didn't know was our bomb
mission had been so secret...
no distress signal
had been sent.
They didn't even list us
as overdue for a week.
Vey first light, Chief,
sharks come cruisin'.
We formed ourselves
into tight groups.
Kinda like old squares
in a battle,
like you see on a calendar,
like the Battle of Waterloo.
The idea was,
shark comes to the nearest man,
that man starts poundin',
hollerin', screamin'.
Sometimes the shark
go away,
sometimes he
wouldn't go away.
Sometimes that shark
Iooks right into ya,
right into your eyes.
You know, a thing about a shark,
he's got lifeless eyes.
Black eyes,
like a doll's eyes.
When he comes at ya,
doesn't seem to be livin'
until he bites ya and
those black eyes roll over wide.
And then--
then you hear that terrible
high-pitched screamin'.
The ocean turns red.
ln spite of the pounding
and hollering, they all come in.
They rip you
to pieces.
You know, by the end
of that first dawn,
lost a hundred men.
l don't know how many sharks,
maybe a thousand.
l don't know how many men.
They averaged six an hour.
On Thursday morning,
l bumped into a friend ofmine,
Robinson, from Cleveland,
baseball player,
boatswain's mate.
l thought
he was asleep.
Reached over
to wake him up.
Bobbed up and down
in the water like a top.
Upended.
Well, he'd been bitten
in half below the waist.
Noon the fifth day,
Mr. Hooper,
a Lockheed Ventura
SaW US.
He swung in low
and saw us.
Young pilot,
a lot younger than Mr. Hooper.
He saw us and come in low.
Three hours later,
a big fat PBY comes down
and starts to pick us up.
That was the time
l was most frightened,
waitin' for my turn.
l'll never put on
a lifejacket again.
Eleven hundred men
went into the water.
31 6 men come out.
The sharks took the rest.
June 29, 1 945.
Anyway,
we delivered the bomb.
