The Laconia incident was a series of events surrounding the sinking of a British passenger ship in the Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942, during World War II, and a subsequent aerial attack on German and Italian submarines involved in rescue attempts. RMS Laconia, carrying 2,732 crew, passengers, soldiers, and prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by U-156, a German U-boat, off the West African coast. Operating partly under the dictates of the old prize rules, the U-boat's commander, Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein, immediately commenced rescue operations. U-156 broadcast her position on open radio channels to all Allied powers nearby, and was joined by the crews of several other U-boats in the vicinity.
USS Indianapolis (CL/CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, named for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. Launched in 1931, it was the flagship for the commander of Scouting Force 1 for eight years, then flagship for Admiral Raymond Spruance from 1943 to 1945 while he commanded the Fifth Fleet in battles across the Central Pacific during World War II.
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter, hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
USS Underhill (DE-682) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy during World War II. Built in 1943, she served in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific until her sinking in a suicide attack by a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo on 24 July 1945.
USS Juneau (CL-52) was a United States Navy Atlanta-class light cruiser torpedoed and sunk at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 13 November 1942. In total, 687 officers and sailors, including the five Sullivan brothers, were killed in action as a result of her sinking. Only 10 survivors were rescued after eight days in the water. To honor the five Sullivan brothers and Juneau, the U.S. Navy has since commissioned two ships named USS The Sullivans and two ships named USS Juneau. On 17 March 2018, Paul Allen's research crew on board RV Petrel located the wreck of Juneau at a depth of about 4,200 m (13,800 ft) off the Solomon Islands.
A shark attack is an attack on a human by a shark. Every year, around 80 unprovoked attacks are reported worldwide. Despite their rarity, many people fear shark attacks after occasional serial attacks, such as the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, and horror fiction and films such as the Jaws series. Out of more than 500 shark species, only three of them are responsible for a double-digit number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, and bull. The oceanic whitetip has probably killed many more castaways, but these are not recorded in the statistics.
William Graham Claytor Jr. was an American attorney, United States Navy officer, and railroad, transportation and defense administrator for the United States government, working under the administrations of three US presidents.
The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one critically injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
Charles Butler McVay III was an American naval officer and the commanding officer of the cruiser USS Indianapolis which was lost in action in 1945, resulting in a significant loss of life. Of all captains in the history of the United States Navy, he is the only one to have been subjected to court-martial for losing a ship sunk by an act of war, despite the fact that he was on a top secret mission maintaining radio silence.
Shark Week is an annual, week long TV programming block at the Discovery Channel, which features shark-based programming. Shark Week originally premiered on July 17, 1988. Featured annually, in July or early August, it was originally devoted to conservation efforts and correcting misconceptions about sharks. Over time, it grew in popularity and became a hit on the Discovery Channel. Since 2010, it has been the longest-running cable television programming event in history. Broadcast in over 72 countries, Shark Week is promoted heavily via social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Episodes are also available for purchase on services like Google Play Movies & TV/YouTube, Amazon Video, and iTunes. Some episodes are free on subscription-based Hulu and Discovery+.
Below is a 2002 submarine supernatural thriller film directed by David Twohy, written by Darren Aronofsky, Lucas Sussman and Twohy, and stars Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Matthew Davis, Holt McCallany, Scott Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Flemyng and Dexter Fletcher. The film tells the story of a United States Navy submarine that experiences a series of supernatural events while on patrol in the Atlantic Ocean in 1943.
Jaws is an American natural horror film series that started with a 1975 film that expanded into three sequels, a theme park ride, and other tie-in merchandise, based on a 1974 novel. The main subject of the saga is a great white shark and its attacks on people in specific areas of the United States and The Bahamas. The Brody family is featured in all of the films as the primary antithesis to the shark. The original film was based on a novel written by Peter Benchley, which itself was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Benchley adapted his novel, along with help from Carl Gottlieb and Howard Sackler, into the 1975 film Jaws, which was directed by Steven Spielberg. Although Gottlieb went on to pen two of the three sequels, neither Benchley nor Spielberg returned to the film series in any capacity.
Rear Admiral Oliver Francis Naquin, United States Navy was born in New Orleans, and was a 1925 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He was one of 33 men rescued by the McCann Rescue Chamber when the submarine USS Squalus sank in 240 feet of water during routine sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean off Portsmouth, New Hampshire on May 23, 1939, and was rescued in a two-day rescue operation.
Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus is a horror disaster film by The Asylum, released on December 21, 2010, in the United States. The film stars Jaleel White, Gary Stretch, Robert Picardo, Dylan Vox, Hannah Cowley and Sarah Lieving.
The Shin'yō Maru incident occurred in the Philippines on September 7, 1944, in the Pacific theater of World War II. In an attack on a Japanese convoy by the United States Navy submarine USS Paddle, 668 Allied prisoners of war were killed fighting their Japanese guards or killed when their ship, Shinyō Maru, was sunk. Only 82 Americans survived and were later rescued.
"The captain goes down with the ship" is a maritime tradition that a sea captain holds the ultimate responsibility for both the ship and everyone embarked on it, and in an emergency they will devote their time to save those on board or die trying. Although often connected to the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912 and its captain, Edward Smith, the tradition precedes Titanic by several years. In most instances, captains forgo their own rapid departure of a ship in distress, and concentrate instead on saving other people. It often results in either the death or belated rescue of the captain as the last person on board.
Deborah Scaling Kiley was an American sailor, author, motivational speaker, and businesswoman. She was the first American woman to complete the Whitbread Round the World Race. In 1982, she famously survived a boating accident off the coast of North Carolina, which became the basis for her book Albatross and subject of multiple other books and films which emphasized traits and skills of survival. She died of unknown causes after moving to Mexico in 2012.
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage is a 2016 American war disaster film directed by Mario Van Peebles and written by Cam Cannon and Richard Rionda Del Castro, based largely on the true story of the loss of the ship of the same name in the closing stages of the Second World War. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore, Thomas Jane, Matt Lanter, Brian Presley, and Cody Walker. Principal photography began on June 19, 2015 in Mobile, Alabama. The film premiered in the Philippines on August 24, 2016. It was released as a digital rental on iTunes and Amazon in the United States on October 14, 2016 and in limited theaters during the Veterans Day weekend.
Lieutenant Commander (USN) Robert Adrian Marks was the U.S. Navy pilot who rescued 56 crewmen of the USS Indianapolis after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes. Marks disobeyed standing orders not to land in open ocean and rescued survivors by lashing them to the wing. His actions rendered the aircraft unflyable. He was awarded the Air Medal by Chester W. Nimitz. After the rescue, the plane was sunk by U.S. forces as it was not able to be recovered.
Capsized: Blood in the Water is an American biographical natural horror-survival film, based on a true story from 1982. Roel Reiné directed the film, from a script written by Stephen David, with the story co-written by David, Tim K. Kelly and Jonathan Soule. The film plot centers around a small boat crew aboard a private yacht who are stranded in shark infested waters, following a storm that overturns their vessel. Debuting as the first scripted Discovery's Shark Week feature film, Capsized: Blood in the Water was released on July 31, 2019 as an exclusive to the network's week-long yearly event.
