337: This Week: USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, Rush, Patton

July 30, 1945. Philippine Sea.

Our first movie is USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, and the event from this week in history starts about 35 minutes into it.

The movie has some text on screen telling us it’s zero dark hundred. Midnight.

That explains why the scene in the movie is very dark. We’re on the water and we can see a ship beneath the camera as it’s slicing through the dark waters. The camera cuts to inside and we can see men in American uniforms covered in a red light.

Nicholas Cage’s character, who seems to be the captain of the ship, asks about the visibility.

“Just this side of poor, sir,” is the reply. There’s a fog rolling in.

He decides to stop their zigzagging so they can get through the weather as fast as possible. Full speed ahead.

The camera cuts a Japanese sub while the soundtrack switches to some rather ominous music. The submarine is on the surface of the water, and a few of the sailors are on deck looking through binoculars. One of them spots a ship. Possible enemy contact. The order is given to dive, and in the next shot we can see it slipping beneath the water.

On the ship, some jazz music is playing through the PA. Some of the sailors are arguing about a fight that happened the night before.

Now we can see through the periscope of the Japanese sub as it lines up the target lines on the ship.

The captain says the ship is in sight and orders all tubes ready, which is immediately repeated down the stairs to sailors who rush to action to make it happen.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, the sailors are placing bets and rolling dice. When the dice end up a six and a one, everyone cheers. They seem completely unaware of the enemy who has them in their sights.

Back on the Japanese submarine, range and distance is calculated. Then, we can see torpedoes launch from the front of the submarine. They race through the water toward the ship.

The camera cuts back to the ship where the sailors are still rolling the dice, and then…

Explosion.

Everything shakes. Some of the sailors lose their balance and fall to the ground. We see text on the screen that tells us: “First Torpedo Hits. Zero Dark Fourteen.”

12:14 AM.

The captain orders everyone to general quarters.

Back on the Japanese submarine, another torpedo is launched. Then another.

We don’t really see these traveling through the water, because the camera quickly cuts to the ship as a huge ball of fire explodes. Flames are spreading through the ship and we see some of the men themselves are on fire. Before long, we can see water in the hallway.

In the submarine, the Japanese celebrate the direct hit.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

It is true that Captain Charles McVay was skipper on USS Indianapolis. Captain McVay is played by Nicholas Cage in the movie. As for USS Indianapolis, she had just finished a mission to deliver top-secret cargo to Tinian Island: Some of the components for the Little Boy atomic bomb that was later dropped on Hiroshima.

And while I don’t think we’ll ever know the amount of details like what dice were rolled or whether the sailors on Indianapolis were playing a game right when the first torpedo hit, the basic idea is true…although there is more to the true story.

For example, USS Indianapolis was a cruiser who didn’t have sonar to detect submarines. So, it’s likely the movie would be correct to show that most sailors wouldn’t know about the submarine until it was too late.

That’s why usually a cruiser would have a destroyer escort. That’s something Captain McVay had requested for the mission, but it was denied and instead he was ordered to zig zag to avoid submarines. Some people would later say the order was to zig zag at the captain’s discretion.

Four days after successfully delivering the mechanism for Little Boy and about half of the uranium to Tinian—the other half was flown there—Indianapolis was hit by two torpedoes on their return journey. Explosions ripped through the cruiser that nearly ripped her in half. She sank in less than 12 minutes. In that time, many of the men on board were killed either by the explosions, pulled into her propeller, or drowned.

Of the 1,195 men on board, about 900 were left stranded after Indianapolis sank beneath them. Little did they know, things were about to get even worse.

Imagine what it must’ve been like.

The remaining sailors were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, left clinging to whatever debris they could find from the ship. The heat of the day. The cold of the night. The lack of food or, more importantly, the lack of drinkable water. All those elements would’ve been bad enough. In the movie, we see Captain McVay ask if a distress signal had been sent out. That is true, an SOS had been sent. On top of that, they were expected at their destination the next day, July 31st.

On the other end, though, through some miscommunication, no report was filed when she didn’t arrive. Of course, the men in the ocean had no idea about that. And without communication, they had no idea when help would be coming.

What did come ended up going down as one of the worst shark attacks in history.

You see, with the men who didn’t survive the initial sinking that meant there were dead bodies in the water. Those bodies attracted sharks from hundreds of miles around. Before long, the sharks shifted from the dead bodies to those who were alive.

In an interview with BBC many years later, one of the surviving seamen named Loel Dean Cox recalled what it was like:

“We were losing three or four each night and day. You were constantly in fear because you’d see ‘em all the time. Every few minutes you’d see their fins. A dozen to two dozen fins in the water. They would come up and bump you. I was bumped a few times. You never know when they are going to attack you.”

Men were dying of dehydration or exposure to the elements. Even more men were being killed by the sharks, leading to constant fear every minute of every hour of every day. That’s what it was like for the next four days…or in some cases, even longer, since not all survivors were picked up in a day.

But it was four days later, on August 2nd, that a plane spotted the men. Help was called, and a life raft and a radio transmitter were dropped. Rescue ships finally came, and 316 survivors were pulled from the water.

Oh, and that brings up something else that the movie seems to have gotten wrong. If you look for posters for the movie USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, some of the variations of the movie poster have text on it that says there were 1,196 men who spent five days on the water and there were 317 survivors.

That doesn’t match the number that I just said, and to be honest, I did find some conflicting sources—some of them did mention 1,196 men and 317 survivors and five days like the movie poster said. However, the numbers I mentioned throughout this segment were ones that I found on the official U.S. Navy’s website, and they mention 1,195 men on board with 316 survivors meaning that 879 were killed. As far as the timeline, the Navy says Indianapolis left Guam on July 28th, 1945. They sank on July 30th, and at 10:25 AM on August 2nd the survivors were spotted—and it wasn’t until August 8th that a 100-mile search radius looking for survivors was completed.

Regardless of how you look at the numbers, though, no one can deny it was one of the worst shark attacks and disasters in U.S. Navy history.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, you can see it depicted in the 2016 movie called USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage. The start of July 30th that we started our segment with today begins at about 35 minutes and 52 seconds into the movie.

And we covered that movie here on the podcast a few years ago, so you can find that episode over at https://www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/48

August 1, 1976. Nürburg, Germany

For our next event, we’re starting an hour and six minutes into the 2013 movie called Rush.

There’s some text on screen telling us that we’re at the German Grand Prix.

The sound of engines can be heard as we see a quick succession of shots between different race car drivers. One of them looks to the clouds in the sky just as the camera cuts to a TV anchor giving a report. He explains the conditions are still dangerously wet, but a decision—just then, the movie cuts to another TV anchor. It’s in the same location, but this anchor is speaking in French as he lets viewers in his country know the race will continue despite the wet conditions.

We can see crews making their final preparations for the race as the drivers are in their Formula 1 cars. From overhead, we can see a row of cars lined up and ready to go. Throngs of people are lined up and in the stands for the live event. Based on the TV anchors we saw just a moment ago, I’m sure countless more are watching at home.

The hum of the engines grow louder as the flag is raised…and they’re off!

The cars race down the wet track, kicking up little sprays of water from their large tires. Going around the first turn, it’s neck-and-neck for the lead cars. We hear the TV announcers giving a play-by-play, saying it’s Lauda with the lead into the first corner. Hunt is in second place. Now it’s Mass, storming past Hunt and taking the lead as he passes Lauda.

After only one lap, everyone decides to change tires, leaving Mass the chance to grow his advantage. But will the tires hold out on the wet track?

In the pit, we can see just the eyes of Chris Hemsworth’s version of James Hunt beneath the British flag on his helmet. Someone on his crew says Lauda made the same mistake with the tires and behind him we can see a red car pulling into the pit.

The tires on both cars are being changed at lightning speed. Hunt takes off first. Daniel Brühl’s version of Nikki Lauda yells at his pit crew to hurry up. Every fraction of a second counts in a race like this. A moment later, Lauda is off as well, both drivers trying to catch up to cars already on the track.

Engines rev. Gears shift. Lauda’s car zooms around the track, trying to catch up to Hunt and the rest of the pack. The TV announcer says the race has gone wrong for him so far as his championship rival, James Hunt, is a long way up the road.

Lauda keeps pushing his car, trying to gain every inch he can in the race. He passes one car. Two. Mario Andretti’s Lotus gets passed. Another car is passed and another.

We see more shots of the mechanics inside the car as gears shift, the engine revs, and tires spin at incredible speeds, and then…the sounds of the race start to fade away into a silence.

Then, the sounds come back as we see Lauda’s car go careening around the corner. It smashes into the side railing, spinning out of control before bursting into a ball of flame as it skids across the track.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Rush

The event we see in the movie really did happen this week in history when Nikki Lauda crashed his Ferrari during the F1 German Grand Prix at Nürburgring.

The movie does a good job of showing the race, too, although there is more to the true story.

While the movie was correct to show the track was wet that day due to a rainstorm, that wasn’t the only reason the race wasn’t safe. The Nürburgring had a long history of racing dating back to when it was built in the 1920s. By the timeline of the movie, though, the track didn’t seem to be safe enough for the amount of power that Formula 1 cars had in the 1970s.

Nikki Lauda proposed a boycott of the circuit with the other drivers, but he was outvoted. Just like we see in the movie, the race was on. And just like we see in the movie, most of the drivers returned to the pit by the end of the first lap to switch to tires that’d handle the wet track better.

It was on the second lap of the race that Nikki Lauda’s car was coming around a corner when he lost control. Maybe there was a mechanical failure, maybe he simply lost control coming around the corner—I’ve seen some conflicting reports about that. After all, the corner was a notorious tight right-hand turn just after a long, fast section.

But, after the fact, Nikki Lauda was quoted as saying:

“I was going down the straight at 280 kilometers an hour when something broke. I went straight into the wall and my car turned into a fireball and I was in there for 55 seconds at 800 degrees, until they got me out. I was right on the point of death for days and I think I really did die once.”

For the record, 280 km/h is about 174 mph. So, you can imagine how difficult it is to time a tight turn at that speed.

So, the movie was accurate to show Lauda’s car burst into a ball of flames as it bounced back onto the track. To make matters worse, there were three other drivers who were also coming around the corner. One of them managed to miss Lauda’s flaming car. Two of them smashed right into it.

Thankfully, those drivers weren’t badly hurt, though, and all three drivers got out of their car to help get Nikki Lauda out of his car. Their quick reaction likely saved his life. He was rushed to the hospital where he continued to fight for his life for a few days. He lost his eyelids, half an ear, much of his scalp, he was in a coma for some time, even administered his last rites by a priest…amazingly, just six weeks later, Nikki Lauda made his return to racing. He’d only missed two events, and finished out the remainder of the season.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week as it was depicted in the movie, check out 2013’s Rush. The text on screen for the day of the German Grand Prix starts at an hour, six minutes and 26 seconds.

We covered that movie here on the podcast at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/70

Oh, and as the movie correctly shows, the event really was on TV…so there is real footage of Lauda’s crash. If you want to do your own comparison to how well the filmmakers recreated the actual event, I’ll throw a link to it in the show notes…but fair warning, it’s tough to watch.

August 3, 1943. Southern Italy.

Our third event this week comes about an hour and a half into that classic World War II film, Patton.

The camera is looking at a light filling the center of the frame. After a moment’s pause, it pans down to reveal we’re in a medical tent. There are nurses and doctors attending injured soldiers lying on beds on either side of the tent.

Some have bandages on their heads. Some bandages are bloody, others are not.

George C. Scott’s version of General George S. Patton is walking in front of some of the doctors, going around to the beds to greet the injured soldiers. He walks over to one of the beds. There are no apparent bandages, although we can only see the soldier’s head and shoulders sticking out from the blankets on the bed.

Patton sits down next to the man, who he calls Gomez, and chats. He asks where he’s hit. In the chest, is the reply. Patton says, well, if it’s interesting to you, the last German I saw didn’t have a chest. Or a head. Gomez smiles. Patton smiles back, wishing him a quick recovery.

Then, he gets up and walks over to another injured soldier. This man’s face is covered with bandages and he seems to be on an oxygen tube. With everything hooked up to him, we can’t tell if he’s awake, asleep, or even aware of what’s going on around him.

But, we can tell the soldiers in the other beds are all watching what Patton is doing.

He kneels by the injured man’s bed and an officer nearby hands him a small box. Patton takes off his gloves, sets down his cane, and pulls a Purple Heart medal out of the box, pinning it to the soldier’s pillow. Then, leaning close, he whispers something in the man’s ear. We can’t hear what he says, and the soldier doesn’t seem to indicate he heard any of it.

Patton doesn’t say anything aloud, but he’s clearly in deep thought for a moment on one knee with his hand on his forehead. Then, he gathers his gloves and cane and gets up.

He’s just about to put on his helmet when he spots a soldier sitting at the end of his bed on the other side of the tent. This soldier is still wearing his helmet, and he doesn’t have any apparent bandages.

Patton asks what’s the matter with him.

The soldier says he just can’t take it anymore. Patton gets down on one knee.

“What did you say?” he asks, as he gets closer to the soldier.

Now the soldier starts crying as he says he can’t take the shelling anymore. It’s my nerves, sir.

Patton stares at the man. Your nerves? He gets up, calling the soldier a coward. Then, angrily, he yells at the soldier and slaps him with the gloves in his hand.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Patton

It is true that the real General George S. Patton slapped Private Charles Kuhl and called him a coward. And I’d give the movie’s depiction a C for this event because it gets the gist of what happened across, albeit in a dramatized way.

For some historical context not shown in the movie, Private Kuhl had been in the Army for eight months at that point and had been diagnosed with exhaustion three times. Doctors had noted that he kept getting returned to the hospital.

Just like we see in the movie, Patton happened to be at the hospital to visit patients when he noticed Private Kuhl didn’t seem to be injured. After Kuhl told Patton he was nervous and couldn’t take it—those really were things he said, like we see in the movie—Patton got angry.

He slapped Kuhl across the chin with his gloves, just like we see in the movie. What we don’t see in the movie, though, is that Patton dragged Kuhl to the front of the tent and kicked him on the backside. He demanded Kuhl both not be readmitted to the hospital, and ordered him back to the front.

In Alan Axelrod’s biography of Patton, chapter nine is called The Slap Heard ‘Round the World and digs into more depth, but in that book is a quote of the directive that Patton issued to the men under his command in the Seventh Army that said:

“It has come to my attention that a very small number of soldiers are going to the hospital on the pretext that they are nervously incapable of combat. Such men are cowards and bring discredit on the army and disgrace to their comrades, whom they heartlessly leave to endure the dangers of battle while they, themselves, use the hospital as a means of escape. You will take measures to see that such cases are not sent to the hospital but dealt with in their units. Those who are not willing to fight will be tried by court-martial for cowardice in the face of the enemy.”

So, what happened after this incident?

Well, General Patton had another incident a few days later, on August 10th, where he threatened a man under his command with a pistol for similar reasons. Word reached General Eisenhower, who sent a letter to Patton which said, in part:

“I clearly understand that firm and drastic measures are at times necessary in order to secure the desired objectives. But this does not excuse brutality, abuse of the sick, nor exhibition of uncontrollable temper in front of subordinates.”

There’s a lot more to the letter, which you can read in detail starting on page 329 Martin Blumenson’s book Patton Papers, but the gist of the letter was that Eisenhower didn’t formally do anything. The letter was a private one to explain why Eisenhower was going to break up Patton’s Seventh Army and Patton himself would no longer be a part of the plan for the invasion of Italy by the Allies.

If you want to watch an on-screen depiction of the event that happened this week in history, check out the 1970 film Patton and the slapping sequence starts at about an hour, 23 minutes and 39 seconds into the movie.

And if you want to dig deeper into the true story behind that movie, including that event, the aftermath and how Patton may not have been directly involved but still helped with deceiving the Germans in times leading up to the D-Day landings, you can hear our episode covering the Patton movie over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/163.

Historical birthdays from the movies

Let’s move onto our next segment now, where we learn about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On July 29th, 1928, test animations of Steamboat Willie were created by Ub Iworks and Walt Disney that included for the first time none other than Mickey Mouse. So, if you remember from last week, it was Bugs Bunny’s birthday, and now we can kind of think of this week as Mickey’s birthday. The completed Steamboat Willie short animation wasn’t released to the public until November of 1928, but I thought it’d be fun to include these two cartoon characters—since July is a big month for cartoon characters!

We covered a bit more of that history back on episode #43 of Based on a True Story when we dug into the movie Walt Before Mickey.

On August 1^st, 1809, William Barret Travis was born in Saluda County, South Carolina. He was a lawyer and soldier who is best known as the commander at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, where he died at the age of 26. He was played by Patrick Wilson in the 2004 movie The Alamo, and we covered the true story with the historical consultant on that movie back on episode #172 of Based on a True Story.

On August 4^th, 1901, Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a jazz musician and singer whose music has been heard in too many movies to name. He’s also been portrayed on screen in quite a few movies, including a 2010 movie simply called Louis which is, ironically, a silent film. He’s played by Anthony Coleman in that movie.

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Time now for our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history.

On July 29^th, 2022, the Ron Howard-directed movie called Thirteen Lives was released. With an all-star cast that includes Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgarton, and Tom Bateman, Thirteen Lives tells the story of the how a soccer team in Thailand was rescued after they got stuck in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system.

Do you remember that story? It happened in 2018, so this is one of those few movies that covers an event from just a few years before the movie is made…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start as we always do, with a quick synopsis.

As I mentioned a moment ago, Thirteen Lives tells the story of the how the 2018 Thai soccer team was rescued from the cave. And in the movie, it seems to happen rather harmlessly at first. The 12 young boys on a local youth soccer team called the Wild Boars and their coach decide to go on a little adventure after a practice session.

At first, it’s fun.

The kids, who look to be maybe around the 10 or 11 age range in the movie, are armed with handheld flashlights as they love splashing in the puddles and exploring the wonders of the cave. But while they’re inside in the darkness of the cave, what they don’t realize is that outside a storm is rolling in.

The movie shows closeup shots of individual water droplets on the stalactites, but the drops quickly multiple as the camera shows other parts of the cave with water rising fast. Meanwhile, the movie cuts to show us that the kids’ parents are starting to get worried because the rain is coming down hard and they’re not home from soccer practice yet.

You can see where this is going…before long, the fun stops as torrential rains flood the cave’s narrow passages. When it does, not only is their exit cut off, but as more rain falls and passages fill up more, the boys and their coach are forced to keep moving deeper and deeper into the cave.

And while we can always caveat any movie made for entertainment purposes with any number of nitpicky-level historical inaccuracies, but once you get past that—if you take a step back and realize the movie is trying to recreate something that was experienced by only 13 people in the world.

With that said, the movie’s version of events is very accurate. At least, that’s from all my research as someone who is very obviously not one of those 13 people to have experienced it.

Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, Harry Harris, and Chris Jewell really were some of the men involved in the rescue. Those are the characters played by Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, and Tom Bateman, respectively.

If you want to see a full-scale deep dive into the movie, let me know, but one of the biggest things to keep in mind about this is just how massive and complex that cave system is.

You know how sometimes you take a beautiful photo out in nature—maybe it’s rolling green hills with a mountain nestled along the horizon. There’s a winding river coming down from the mountain, extending all the way to the riverbank at your feet in the foreground.

Did you start to get that mental picture?

Maybe? But not quite as good as the real thing, right?

Sometimes that’s just how it is: A picture doesn’t do the real thing justice.

And that’s kind of how I felt after watching this movie, I think the movie does an amazing job to show just how difficult the rescue must’ve been in a cave complex that’s so immense…but, even then, I also got this gut feeling that it’s one of those situations where the imagery just doesn’t do it justice.

But still, let me try to paint a little bit of a picture because that’s when you start to see both how the situation could’ve happened to begin with, as well as the daunting task ahead of the rescuers.

The Tham Luang Nang Non cave system, located in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province, is a sprawling network of underground passages stretching approximately 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). This intricate cave system winds through the limestone mountains of the Doi Nang Non range, presenting a complex labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, and narrow passageways.

Don’t forget the boy’s soccer team had 12 kids. The coach was a 25-year-old man named Ekk. Well, that’s his nickname, as you can guess from my butchering my way through pronouncing the cave system name, I’m not great at speaking Thai.

But Ekk was the only adult. There were a couple 16-year-olds, a couple 15-year olds, then 14, 13, and one 11-year-old. But, my point, is that there was one adult to wrangle 12 kids. That’s not easy if we are in those rolling hills on a perfect weather day, let alone in a massive cave during monsoon season.

The cave’s entrance, at an elevation of about 446 meters (1,463 feet) above sea level, leads to both expansive caverns and tight squeezes, some as narrow as 38 by 72 centimeters.

In my mind, when I try to put myself into Ekk’s position, I’m imagining maybe he was just trying to keep up with those kids as they’re playing in the caves to start with. Then, by the time they realize the heavy rains are starting to flood the caves, it’s too late. And that part of it is true, they were forced inside the cave deeper to avoid the flooding passageways that led to the exit.

That’s another important thing to keep in mind about this mental image we’re painting: The system descends to depths of 800 to 1,000 meters (2,625 to 3,280 feet) below the mountain tops and adding to its navigational challenges: There’s one entrance. One exit.

And finding another one was considered a viable plan.

Actually, in the true story, they had a handful of solutions they wanted to try—so we see a lot of that in the movie, too.

One of those ideas was to simply let divers give the boys food and water, but then wait for the waters to recede after monsoon season was over. In that region, that’s typically in the October-ish time frame. The kids got trapped in there on June 23^rd, right near the start of monsoon season. So, waiting for it to end would be a few months. Keeping 12 kids and their coach in a cave for that long? Maybe, but in the meantime, surely there are better options. They’d also likely run out of oxygen by then, so they’d have to build an oxygen line which represents a logistical nightmare of its own.

Some of the other ideas they came up with in the true story included things like digging down from above. They even tried that, digging about 100 or so different holes before they finally gave up on that idea. They couldn’t find a good place to break all the way through. Maybe they can just find another entrance; we talked about that. Or maybe they can just teach the kids inside how to dive.

In the true story, the soccer team was first located after being stuck in the cave for nine days. And it really was the two British divers John Volanthen, Colin Farrell’s character, and Rick Stanton, Viggo Mortensen’s character, who first found the kids. But, finding them doesn’t safely extract them.

That process took another nine days until, on July 10^th, 2018, and after 18 days of being stuck in the cave, all thirteen people were rescued from the cave. Sadly, though, not everyone survived. Two of the rescue divers were killed—one during the operation, and one diver passed away months later due to health complications from the rescue.

If you want to watch it all re-enacted on screen, you’ll find a link in the show notes to find where you can watch the 2022 movie called Thirteen Lives this week!