USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. She holds a place in history due to the notorious circumstances of her demise, which was the worst single at-sea loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy.
Most of the crew was lost to a combination of exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks as they waited for assistance while floating helplessly for several days. Indianapolis was the second to last US Navy ship sunk by enemy action in World War II (the submarine USS Bullhead was attacked by Japanese aircraft with depth charges and sunk on August 6, 1945).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indianapolis_(CA-35)
U.S.S. Indianapolis
She bled the thick black oil
as she raced to the bottom.
Carrying those trapped
in a merciless tomb.
Hundreds bobbed in the sea,
like floating seeds
covered in the black blood
of a murdered ship.
They whirled inside
the lightning bolts of fear.
The wounded saying their goodbyes.
And at dawn, death came swimming....
The sea closed her ears
to the wails of young men;
and her eyes to the red water
that splashed with fins.
Sailors watched, prayed, and died.
Some finding the door of insanity,
as they drank their fill of salty death
drifting in the Pacific's injustice.
How deep is the sea of suffering?
Survivors have seen her bottom
inside nightmares...
eyes jolted open, on dry land.
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