LOGAN — Hunter Scott was an 11-year-old in 1996 when he watched the movie "Jaws" with his father and heard a reference to the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
He wondered what happened to cause nearly all the crew to be killed by sharks or dehydration in that history-making event at the end of World War II.
Scott, now 19, delved deeper into the story of the Navy cruiser that delivered atomic bomb parts to the island of Tinian for the B-29 Enola Gay to drop over Hiroshima in August 1945.
After leaving Tinian, the Indianapolis was torpedoed twice on its way to Leyte, Philippines. The worst naval disaster of the war ended with only 317 men (of a crew of nearly 1,200) left alive after five days in the water.
The ship's commander, Capt. Charles B. McVay III, was court-martialed for dereliction of duty.
Scott, who started the ball rolling in the exoneration of McVay, helped write the book, "Left for Dead, A Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis." He spoke this past week to a packed house in the Utah State University ballroom as part of Cache Valley's first World War II History Fair to honor veterans.
The 800 folding chairs set up in the ballroom weren't enough to seat the crowd that came to hear Scott and others, including Salt Lake City resident Woody James, a survivor of the sinking.
Two other Utahns, Brian Blanthorn of Grouse Creek and George Whitting of St. George, also survived the sinking. Blanthorn was at the event, but Whitting couldn't make it, James said.
Kim Nielsen of Hyrum organized the event, saying she wants to honor the men and women of World War II before it is too late. She asked local people to make displays relating to the war — some 60 exhibits were set up outside the ballroom on topics ranging from boats, war-time fashions for women, books and pictures of the era.
James, a native of Alabama who was traveling around the country right after the war, said he ended up drunk and broke in Salt Lake City in 1946 and has been there ever since.
"I married a girl from Orem with six kids, and she helped me straighten up my life," he said.
As a coxswain on the Indianapolis, James' battle station was in Turret No. 1. Just before midnight on July 30, 1945, James finished his watch and went downstairs to get a blanket so he could sleep under the turret's overhang. He hadn't been asleep long when the first torpedo hit, shaking the ship and rolling him around the deck. Then the second one hit and he knew it would be bad, he said.
"The first torpedo took 60 feet off the bow of the ship, and we were just like a scoop making 17 knots," he said.
The ship had no air conditioning, so all doors and hatches were open to allow for air flow to the lower decks. The Indianapolis sank in an estimated 12 minutes.
The ship had floater nets and two whale boats, which didn't get launched, and few men were able to get life preservers. Ironically, 2,500 new kapok life preservers — two for each man aboard — were loaded at San Francisco before the trip.
"About 900 of us went into the water and five days later there were 321 live bodies taken out of the water," James said.
Four men died later, either on the way to the Philippines or shortly after arriving there.
Much has been written of the suffering of the sailors as hundreds of sharks circled them for the five days, many of them coming up to the floating men and picking them off late in the afternoons.
"I have a built-in video in my head that turns itself off and on at its own discretion," James said. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it."
Although members of the McVay family and the Indianapolis survivors tried for 50 years to get the court-martial verdict overturned, it wasn't until Scott's research and the publicity it generated got members of Congress to re-examine the facts of the case.
The Navy needed a scapegoat and McVay was it, James said.
McVay's son, Kimo, told "People" magazine in a 1978 feature on Scott, "I'll tell you what my father is thinking: 'Well done, young man. Well done.' "
E-mail: lweist@desnews.com