The Story Keepers Shawl is a one skein/one mini skein shawl designed to honor the me who died on the USS Indianapolis during WW2 on July 30 1945 All proceeds from the pattern will go to the USS Indianapolis Legacy Organization

USS Indianapolis CA-35 has a storied history. Built in 1931, she was the Ship of State for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, taking him on several voyages including a South American “Good Neighbor” tour. During WWII, she was the Fifth Fleet Flagship, under that command of Admiral Spruance. She earned 10 battle stars before being attacked by a kamikaze on March 31, 1945, causing massive damage and taking the life of 9 of her sailors. The ship limped its way home to Mare Island just outside of San Francisco, spending nearly 3 months under prepared.
In early July of 1945, Indy was chosen for a top-secret mission, even the captain had no idea what the secret cargo was that they were carrying. On July 16, 1945, they set sail for Tinian Island. They then began their return journey to Leyte for training exercises.
On the night of July 29, 1945, a Japanese submarine, I-58, commanded by Mochitsura Hashimoto, spied the Indy during a break in the cloud cover. Launching 6 torpedoes in 30 seconds, he watched as he waited for impact. The first torpedo hit just after midnight of July 30, 1945, blowing the bow away from the body of the ship, the 2nd hit coming shortly after that. After much confusion about what exactly was happening, the command to abandon ship came by word of mouth since all electricity and the PA system were out. Within 12 minutes, the ship had gone below the surface, taking approximately 300 of her men down with her and leaving just over 800 in the water.
Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, including the sinking being so quick that no one is sure if an SOS radio message got out, it would be several days before the men and the loss of the ship were discovered. Over the course of those days, many more men would succumb to their wounds, to drinking the salt water, and to sharks. By the time they were finally discovered by Lieutenant, junior grad, Chuck Gwinn, a pilot out on routine patrol, over 500 more men had perished, leaving 316 survivors from the 1195 souls on board.
The telegram telling the families of those missing (their fate yet to be determined) was delivered on the same day that the Japanese surrendered. No one yet knew that USS Indianapolis had been instrumental in bringing the war to an end by delivering the uranium and other bomb components to the Enola Gay on Tinian.
In another strange turn of events, and many would say in order to cover up the many mistakes the Navy made in handling the missing ship (which included not even realizing they were missing), her captain, Charles McVay, was brought up on court-martial charges and the commander of the Japanese submarine was brought the United States to testify against him! He was acquitted on one charge and convicted on another. Eventually, in 1968, Captain McVay would take his own life.
In 1975, the movie Jaws came out, which included an intense scene with the character of Quint telling the story of surviving the tragedy. This brought widespread interest to the story of the Indy, which had been somewhat suppressed by the Navy and many of the survivors themselves. The movie helped many of the survivors begin to open up and tell their stories, first to their own families and then to local groups and schools. The sharks are not something most of the survivors liked to talk about, but they are a part of the story. Research continues with regards to what attracted the sharks and the challenges they represented to the men left in the water.
In 2017, USS Indianapolis was finally discovered in her final resting place deep in the Philippine Sea by Paul Allen’s (co-founder of Microsoft) research vessel, Petrol. With the prior exoneration of Captain McVay in 2000 by the Unites States Congress and the finding of the ship, the many families of both survivors and lost at sea are finding peace and healing.