99 sailors from Michigan, including eight from Grand Rapids, were part of the crew when the USS Indianapolis was sunk in 1945 during World War II.
19 of those Michigan men survived the torpedo attack. Now only one, Richard Thelen, is still alive.
Monday, May 15, the 90-year-old Lansing man was at Kenowa Hills High School in Grand Rapids to tell his story.
Thelen thinks it helps everyone, especially younger generations, understand the reality of war.
“To let the young ones know or anybody know what people went through to save this country,” he explains. “This war could have gone the other way.”
The Indianapolis had delivered key components of the atomic bomb that would soon end the war to a South Pacific air base. A few days later, torpedoes from a Japanese submarine sank the ship.
There were over 1,100 men on board. 800 survived the attack, but before they were rescued five days later, starvation, dehydration and sharks had killed all but 317.
“I tell kids you are going to have trouble with your school work, your parents, a girlfriend, a job,” says Thelen. “But don’t give up. Keep working at it. Never give up.”
Of the eight sailors from Grand Rapids on the Indianapolis, only two made it home. The last local survivor died seven years ago. The Kenowa Hills event Monday night included the screening of the documentary “U.S.S. Indianapolis, The Legacy.”
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