Shark Week on the Discovery Channel!

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." By far one of the greatest movie lines ever. It appears in Jaws, spoken by Roy Scheider. Later in the movie, Robert Shaw's character, Quint, relates the story of the USS Indianapolis [This is a really good site dedicated to the story of the ill-fated boat and crew]. The story is the first entry in the 20th Anniversary "Shark Week" festivities on the Discovery Channel. The documentary is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, who also appeared in Jaws. One of the best things about the story that Quint relates, is that is was revealed later that Robert Shaw was drunk most of the time, including when he did this scene, and improvised most of the dialogue. The soliloquy appears below.

The story of the Indianapolis was also documented in a book, In Harm's Way, which I read and highly recommend. And here's your mandatory archival content. A few years ago, a twelve-year old boy from Pensacola, Florida, began to look into the incident. He had seen Jaws and wanted to know more about the Indianapolis. As it turned out the captain of the Indianapolis, Charles McVay, was found to be negligent and tried for "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." He never recovered professionally and personally, and took his life in 1970. The 12-year old, Hunter Scott, took up the cause of McVay, and was instrumental in getting the captain's name cleared in 2001.

"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes.

Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away. . . but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark . . . he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living . . . until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then . . . ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.

The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they. . . rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from
Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us. . . he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up.

You know that was the time I was most frightened . . . waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb."