INDIANAPOLIS (AP): About a dozen of the remaining 36 survivors of the World War II USS Indianapolis sinking are gathering in Indianapolis for a reunion over the weekend.
One of the survivors is the 89-year-old Edgar Harrell, a former Marine who has written about how he and others survived by floating without food or water in the shark-haunted waters of the Pacific.
Only 317 of the original crew of 1,196 sailors and Marines survived after they dived into the ocean when the ship was hit by two Japanese torpedoes July 30, 1945.
Harrell tells The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/1rJ7SnN ) he had just come off watch and was dozing when the ship was hit and split into three sections.
The sinking was the worst loss of life at sea in U.S. Navy history.