You yell 'shark' and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July

TigerVols · Jul 10, 2012

Bubbler said:

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb.

Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail fin. 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 overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark will go away.

But sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the 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 living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.

The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda 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 he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up.

You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Click to expand...

Did you read the book recounting this?

http://www.amazon.com/Harms-Way-Indianapolis-Extraordinary-Survivors/dp/0805066322

I've been even more stone-cold scared of sharks ever since.

cyclingwriter · Jul 10, 2012

Batman said:

bigpern23 said:

Didn't see this in a quick search, but the Cape Cod Times got a pretty great shot of a great white cruising behind a man in a kayak last weekend. They were smarter than Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn and closed the beaches.
Click to expand...

Something that really bugs me about the "Jaws" series is Mayor Larry Vaughn.
Not his flippant attitude toward the shark, or his blatant disregard for the safety of his residents.
Rather, how in the holy fuck did he get re-elected!?
"Jaws 2" takes place a few years after the first one, and Vaughn is somehow still mayor. If he was still mayor on July 5, 1975, and not chopped up for chum by a mob of angry Amitians it would've been a miracle.
Forget the 35-foot Great White, or the voodoo-inspired shark in "Jaws 4". THIS is the biggest leap of logic in the entire series.
Click to expand...

in the book, the mayor owes money to the mafia so that is why he fights to keep the beaches open...the mafia needed the profits from rental units or something to that affect.

Steak Snabler · Jul 10, 2012

TigerVols said:

Bubbler said:

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb.

Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail fin. 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 overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark will go away.

But sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the 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 living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.

The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda 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 he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up.

You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Click to expand...

Did you read the book recounting this?

http://www.amazon.com/Harms-Way-Indianapolis-Extraordinary-Survivors/dp/0805066322

I've been even more stone-cold scared of sharks ever since.
Click to expand...

They made a mediocre TV movie about the Indianapolis in the early 90s called "Mission of the Shark," with Stacy Keach as the ship's captain and Richard "John Boy" Thomas as the ship's doctor. They filmed many of the on-ship scenes at the USS Alabama in Mobile, which is just down the road from my hometown.

My mom got to be an extra in the movie. She didn't have any lines, but she's clearly visible as "Woman at Party" during the opening credits.

Batman · Jul 10, 2012

cyclingwriter said:

Batman said:

bigpern23 said:

Didn't see this in a quick search, but the Cape Cod Times got a pretty great shot of a great white cruising behind a man in a kayak last weekend. They were smarter than Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn and closed the beaches.
Click to expand...

Something that really bugs me about the "Jaws" series is Mayor Larry Vaughn.
Not his flippant attitude toward the shark, or his blatant disregard for the safety of his residents.
Rather, how in the holy fuck did he get re-elected!?
"Jaws 2" takes place a few years after the first one, and Vaughn is somehow still mayor. If he was still mayor on July 5, 1975, and not chopped up for chum by a mob of angry Amitians it would've been a miracle.
Forget the 35-foot Great White, or the voodoo-inspired shark in "Jaws 4". THIS is the biggest leap of logic in the entire series.
Click to expand...

in the book, the mayor owes money to the mafia so that is why he fights to keep the beaches open...the mafia needed the profits from rental units or something to that affect.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with him fighting to keep the beaches open. Whether it's the mafia pushing him or just him trying to get through a couple of days without an incident, his motivation on the issue is understandable.
But after he's on TV saying the beaches are safe -- yet was well aware there was a killer shark nearby -- and then a half-dozen residents end up as shark poop in a span of 10 minutes? When the news cameras are there and rolling?
Brody sure as hell wasn't going to cover for Vaughn and say he didn't know about the shark. Neither would Dreyfuss. And the one kid's mother who slaps Brody makes it clear it was public knowledge that a shark was lurking.
What kind of re-election campaign can you run at that point? That's like getting caught with a dead hooker AND a live boy.

bigpern23 · Jul 10, 2012

Batman said:

cyclingwriter said:

Batman said:

bigpern23 said:

Didn't see this in a quick search, but the Cape Cod Times got a pretty great shot of a great white cruising behind a man in a kayak last weekend. They were smarter than Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn and closed the beaches.
Click to expand...

Something that really bugs me about the "Jaws" series is Mayor Larry Vaughn.
Not his flippant attitude toward the shark, or his blatant disregard for the safety of his residents.
Rather, how in the holy fuck did he get re-elected!?
"Jaws 2" takes place a few years after the first one, and Vaughn is somehow still mayor. If he was still mayor on July 5, 1975, and not chopped up for chum by a mob of angry Amitians it would've been a miracle.
Forget the 35-foot Great White, or the voodoo-inspired shark in "Jaws 4". THIS is the biggest leap of logic in the entire series.
Click to expand...

in the book, the mayor owes money to the mafia so that is why he fights to keep the beaches open...the mafia needed the profits from rental units or something to that affect.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with him fighting to keep the beaches open. Whether it's the mafia pushing him or just him trying to get through a couple of days without an incident, his motivation on the issue is understandable.
But after he's on TV saying the beaches are safe -- yet was well aware there was a killer shark nearby -- and then a half-dozen residents end up as shark poop in a span of 10 minutes? When the news cameras are there and rolling?
Brody sure as hell wasn't going to cover for Vaughn and say he didn't know about the shark. Neither would Dreyfuss. And the one kid's mother who slaps Brody makes it clear it was public knowledge that a shark was lurking.
What kind of re-election campaign can you run at that point? That's like getting caught with a dead hooker AND a live boy.
Click to expand...

Hooking a live shark with a dead boy in its belly?

cyclingwriter · Jul 10, 2012

Batman said:

cyclingwriter said:

Batman said:

bigpern23 said:

Didn't see this in a quick search, but the Cape Cod Times got a pretty great shot of a great white cruising behind a man in a kayak last weekend. They were smarter than Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn and closed the beaches.
Click to expand...

Something that really bugs me about the "Jaws" series is Mayor Larry Vaughn.
Not his flippant attitude toward the shark, or his blatant disregard for the safety of his residents.
Rather, how in the holy fuck did he get re-elected!?
"Jaws 2" takes place a few years after the first one, and Vaughn is somehow still mayor. If he was still mayor on July 5, 1975, and not chopped up for chum by a mob of angry Amitians it would've been a miracle.
Forget the 35-foot Great White, or the voodoo-inspired shark in "Jaws 4". THIS is the biggest leap of logic in the entire series.
Click to expand...

in the book, the mayor owes money to the mafia so that is why he fights to keep the beaches open...the mafia needed the profits from rental units or something to that affect.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with him fighting to keep the beaches open. Whether it's the mafia pushing him or just him trying to get through a couple of days without an incident, his motivation on the issue is understandable.
But after he's on TV saying the beaches are safe -- yet was well aware there was a killer shark nearby -- and then a half-dozen residents end up as shark poop in a span of 10 minutes? When the news cameras are there and rolling?
Brody sure as hell wasn't going to cover for Vaughn and say he didn't know about the shark. Neither would Dreyfuss. And the one kid's mother who slaps Brody makes it clear it was public knowledge that a shark was lurking.
What kind of re-election campaign can you run at that point? That's like getting caught with a dead hooker AND a live boy.
Click to expand...

Maybe his opponent had a dead hooker and a live boy....but I do see your point.

Though, he probably blamed immigrants/unions/Republicans...

cyclingwriter · Jul 11, 2012

not quite a great white

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/07/11/expert_cape_cod_shark_may_have_been_harmless/

bigpern23 · Jul 11, 2012

cyclingwriter said:

May not have been quite a great white

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/07/11/expert_cape_cod_shark_may_have_been_harmless/
Click to expand...

Fixed.

There were also at least two confirmed sightings of Great Whites off Chatham in the days before that photo was snapped.

2underpar · Jul 11, 2012

In my humble opinion, a shark is a shark and not to be messed with. I have the same theory regarding snakes.

Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L) · Jul 11, 2012

Coolest shark video you will see today. Taken in South Carolina

.be

Steak Snabler · Jul 11, 2012

Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L) said:

Coolest shark video you will see today. Taken in South Carolina

.be
Click to expand...

Keep reeling, baby! Awesome.

bigpern23 · Jul 11, 2012

2underpar said:

In my humble opinion, a shark is a shark and not to be messed with. I have the same theory regarding snakes.
Click to expand...

In fairness, if it was a basking shark as the expert believes, they are filter feeders, not active predators.

Basking sharks, though, are much larger than white sharks. It's impossible to tell the size of the shark in that picture without it's tail fin visible, but the harbormaster -- who confirmed the sighting by boat -- is quoted as estimating its size to be 12-14 feet. That's about 10 feet smaller than the average adult basking shark.

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You yell 'shark' and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July

TigerVols Well-Known Member

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Batman Well-Known Member

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cyclingwriter Active Member

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You yell 'shark' and we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July

TigerVols Well-Known Member

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cyclingwriter Active Member

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