Page 40 - Amarrilo Senior Link Magazine Spring 2019- Online Magazine
P. 40
down one deck to help push a enveloped me, and I was no in the water below him. Then
lifeboat off. The ship listed hard longer afraid. I knew I was going he noticed small black bumps
starboard. We were going up the home, either to heaven or back to on the surface, which he soon
ladder to the next deck when it Abernathy, and it didn’t matter realized were men. He radioed
rolled hard again. which. his base on Palau Island and
another plane piloted by Lt.
“By then we realized there was “I pushed off and started Adrian Marks headed for the
no option but to abandon ship, swimming.” He spent the next location with survival gear.
so the three of us climbed over five days and nights clinging Marks radioed the skipper of
the gunwale and walked down to a net with 80 other men the Cecil J Doyle who proceeded
the side of the ship. I never watching hundreds of sharks immediately to the scene. Marks
saw either one of them again. swarm beneath them. The men landed his seaplane in the
By the time I hit the water and sustained themselves in the hot choppy water and was able to
started swimming, I was scared sun by day and cold wind at rescue 56 men. The Cecil J Doyle
and shaking, but I remembered night with storytelling, thoughts and several more ships arrived
my mother saying Jesus would of home and corporately reciting and helped with the rescue. Of
be with me, so I prayed a the Lord’s prayer. They watched the 1197 men aboard the USS
little prayer, ‘Lord, help me.’ as many of their crewmates Indianapolis, only 317 were saved.
Immediately, a feeling of peace succumbed to injuries, were It was the greatest loss of life at
killed by sea, from a single ship, in the
sharks or history of the US Navy.
desperately
drank the Cleatus Lebow was finally
saltwater picked up by the USS Bassett and
which meant taken to a hospital. After being
certain death. transported back to the US, he
was honorably discharged on
The Navy Nov. 11, 1945.
didn’t even
receive word On August 2, 1995 a national
of the attack memorial was dedicated in
until four days Indianapolis to honor this great
later. ship and its crew. The book
Only 317 Survived! documents
Early on the the stories of each of them, and
morning of in December 2018, the crew
August 2, of the USS Indianapolis was
while on awarded America’s most recent
routine patrol Congressional Medal of Honor.
in a twin-
engine plane, Cleatus Lebow is one of only 13
Lt. Wilbur survivors left – the only one in
Gwinn noticed Texas. He is a national treasure,
a long black not just for surviving a horrific
streak of oil tragedy, but for being willing to
40 Amarillo Senior Link
