The great white (of Jaws fame) is the reigning horror of the seas, known for brutal attacks on its prey, be they humans, seals, or any other warm-blooded creature. The tiger shark is another of the maritime marauders, also responsible for the most attacks on humans. Rounding out the list is the bull shark.
The Florida Museum of Natural History categorizes “unprovoked shark attacks” on swimmers and waders; surface recreationalists, entering or exiting water; and divers. According to information from the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, in 2015 surfers and others engaged in board sports were most often involved with shark attacks. “Surfers have been the most-affected user group in recent decades, the probable result of the large amount of time spent by people engaged in a provocative activity (kicking of feet, splashing of hands, and ‘wipeouts’) in an area commonly frequented by sharks, the surf zone,” museum documents say. The museum’s history is as follows: “Established in 1958, [the museum] is administered … under the auspices of the American Elasmobranch Society, the world’s foremost international organization of scientists studying sharks, skates, and rays.” They recommend, if attacked, for the victim to react immediately: “If one is attacked by a shark, we advise a proactive response. Hitting a shark on the nose, ideally with an inanimate object, usually results in the shark temporarily curtailing its attack. One should try to get out of the water at this time.” They say that blows to the shark’s snout may dissuade the attack, and if the shark bites, go for the sensitive gills and eyes. “One should not act passively if under attack as sharks respect size and power.”
The organization administers a database, studied by biological researchers, with more than 5,700 individual investigations from the mid-1500s to today. The ISAF curator is George H. Burgess; you can search for the group on Facebook and Twitter. (Responding to an email from me asking for comments about shark attacks, Mr. Burgess replied, “No offense intended, but I really have no interest in involvement with projects that sensationalize sharks.”)
A MAN EATING SHARK
The Story a Mississippi River Pilot Tells of His Own Seeing.
Here’s a story about a man overboard, printed in the Burlington Free Press (Vermont), from the New Orleans Times-Democrat, on August 29, 1900:
Will a shark bite a living human being? The question has been debated hundreds of times and came up for discussion among a little party at a suburban resort. “In spite of the current legend,” said one of the group, “I don’t believe sharks will attack a living person. I have spent my life near the sea and have heard a hundred stories of swimmers being killed or bitten by the monsters, but all the tales were either at second hand or were so vague they would never have passed for evidence in court.”
“Well, sit,” said another of the party, “I believe sharks do kill men, and I have the best of reasons for my belief. I witnessed such a tragedy with my own eyes.” The speaker was Captain McLaughlin, one of the oldest and best known bar pilots in the Mississippi river service.
“It happened 21 years ago,” said the captain when pressed for details, “but the circumstances are as distinct in my mind as if it had occurred only yesterday. I was out looking for ships with my partner, Captain Tom Wilson, and the usual crew, and about 12 miles off South Pass we sighted a large sailing vessel which proved to be the Zephyr, from Bath, in charge of Captain Switzer. There was a rival pilot boat nearby, and we both made a rush for the ship to get the job of taking her in.
“Our party was nearest, and Captain Wilson and two sailors put off in a small boat to go aboard, but in their hurry they made a miscalculation and were struck by the bow and capsized. It all happened in a flash, but Wilson and one of the sailors were lucky enough to get hold of the overturned boat and hang on. The other sailor was thrown some distance away into the water.
“He was a big, brawny, six foot Swede named Gus Ericsson, and when we saw him come up, one of the crew tossed him a circular life buoy, which he seized almost immediately. The buoy was amply sufficient to sustain him, and he put his arms across it and held himself out of the water fully breast high. We had another small boat and started at once to pick up the three men, making for Ericsson first.
“When we were less than 100 feet away, I saw a gigantic tiger shark rise and start toward him, and at the next instant the poor fellow shot down out of sight, life buoy and all, like a man going through a trap. We were so horrified that we simply sat still and stared, and what seemed to be two or three minutes elapsed. Then the life buoy suddenly appeared. It must have risen from a great depth, because it bounded at least four feet into the air and fell back with a splash. Of Ericsson we never saw a trace. He went into that shark’s jaw as surely as two and two make four.
“We rescued the other men all right,” said Captain McLaughlin in conclusion, “and Captain Wilson is still alive to bear out what I say. That, gentlemen, is my reason for believing that sharks will attack human beings. However, if anyone can tell me what became of Ericsson, I am open to conviction.”
—New Orleans Times-Democrat
What would you do? Hold still, hoping the shark swims by, watching you with its cold eyes but unthreatened? Do you play dead to save your life, perhaps? In the water, you can’t run—even if your feet touch the bottom, you know you can’t get away. What would you do during an attack? Passively hope the shark just keeps swimming, never imagining that its senses are tweaked and zeroing in on you as the prime target for a meal or for elimination from the threat pool? Maybe your amygdala is screaming, “red alert,” but your brain’s frontal lobe overrules and calmly and rationally tells you that ignoring the shark will make it go away—like the boogeyman in a nightmare. But you also know you’re powerless in the face of this terrifically awful powerful beast whose only purpose is to kill and eat. You know you’re an alien in its aquatic world and you might be eliminated.
A question to ponder: In the throes of a shark attack, how would you respond?
The National Marine Fisheries Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) addresses the question: What Causes Sharks to Attacks Humans?
This interesting and helpful information is from www.nmfs.noaa.gov: Sharks do not normally hunt humans. When they do attack a human, it is usually a case of mistaken identity. Sharks sometimes mistake humans for their natural prey, such as fish or a marine mammal or sea turtle, and most often will release the person after the first bite. The majority of shark bites are “hit-and-run” attacks by smaller species, such as blacktip and spinner sharks. They mistake thrashing arms or dangling feet as prey, dart in, bite, and let go when they realize it’s not a fish. The “big three” species—bull, tiger, and great white sharks—are big enough to do a lot of damage to a human and must be treated with respect and caution.
Is There an Increase in the Number of Sharks and Attacks? In 2001, there were seventy-six recorded unprovoked shark attacks in the US, versus eighty-six in 2000. According to the International Shark Attack File, the numbers of shark bites from year-to-year seem to be directly associated with increased numbers of humans swimming, diving, and surfing in the ocean. Some shark populations have been on the decline since the mid-1980s, when the commercial fishery for sharks became a booming industry. Current regulations are working to reverse the trend of declining shark populations in the US, although some species are still depleted, and to maintain the shark populations that are healthy.
What is NOAA Fisheries’ Role With Sharks? The National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) manages the commercial and recreational shark fisheries in the Atlantic Ocean, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. In the Pacific Ocean, NOAA Fisheries works with regional fishery management councils and is developing shark management measures. The agency is mandated by Congress under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to conduct stock assessments, monitor the species abundance of sharks, and implement fishery regulations that maximize the benefits of sh
arks as a resource for humans while also ensuring that we do not deplete shark populations. The United States began regulating shark fisheries in 1993. A new Fishery Management Plan that included sharks, swordfish, and tunas went into effect in 1999, and sharks have been regulated under a catch limit and quota system ever since.
Why Should We Protect Sharks? Sharks are simply awesome creatures whose biology has remained virtually unchanged for millions of years. Just as humans strive to protect other living creatures from becoming threatened or endangered, it is our duty as stewards of the Earth to protect all ocean life, including sharks. As top predators in the sea, sharks provide a valuable balance to the marine ecosystem. Humans are one of only a few species that prey on sharks (killer whales and other sharks are others), killing over a hundred million per year. We must support and abide by fishing regulations that were put into place to ensure that sharks will thrive in the ocean for millions of years to come.
How Common Are Shark Attacks? How Do I Minimize the Risk of Being Bitten by a Shark? More people are killed each year by electrocution by Christmas tree lights than by shark attacks. Think about the things you would do to minimize your family’s risk of being harmed by Christmas tree lights. You’d unplug the lights at night and never leave them unattended. You’d keep your tree moist to prevent a fire. Maybe you’d educate your children about the potential of electric shock if they improperly plugged in the lights. Similarly, you can take precautions that minimize your risk of encountering a shark when visiting the beach this summer:
• Always stay in groups, since sharks are more likely to attack an individual. Do not wander too far from shore—this isolates you and decreases your chance of being rescued.
• Avoid being in the water early in the morning and during darkness or twilight hours when sharks are most active and searching for food.
• Do not enter the water if bleeding.
• Avoid wearing shiny jewelry because the reflected light resembles the sheen of fish scales.
• Avoid waters being used by sport or commercial fisherman, especially if there are signs of bait fishes or feeding activity. Diving seabirds are good indicators of such action.
• Use extra caution when waters are murky and avoid bright colored clothing—sharks see contrast particularly well. Refrain from excess splashing.
• Exercise caution when occupying the area between sandbars or near steep drop-offs—these are favorite hangouts for sharks.
• Do not enter the water if sharks are known to be present and evacuate the water if sharks are seen while there. And do not approach a shark if you see one.
• Between the months of May to September, restrict your ocean swimming from 9 to 5.
WHAT I–58 CAUSED
—Story by Joseph B. Healy
The sinking of the USS Indianapolis by the
Japanese submarine I-58, July 30-31, 1945
THE USS INDIANAPOLIS
Introduction by Stephen H. Foreman
July 26, 1945—The mission of the USS Indianapolis was to deliver components for the first operational atom bomb to the South Pacific island of Tinian. Mission accomplished. She was then ordered to join the battleship USS Idaho in the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan. There was no escort ship, as was usual procedure. The skipper of the Indianapolis, Captain Charles B. McVay III, requested a destroyer escort—in an apparent blunder of Naval command, this was denied—but was assured the route was safe. It was not.
July 30, 1945—Twenty-year-old Corporal Harrell was a Marine on deck watch at midnight, July 29, 1945. After his watch he went below decks to his berth; however, because it was so hot down there, he returned topside and slept on the deck under the barrels of forward turret #1. The Indianapolis was between Guam and the Leyte Gulf when the cruiser was stopped by two torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine. According to Corporal Harrell, “Metal groaned and twisted, water churned and rose, and men scrambled and screamed.” She sank in twelve minutes. Of the 1,196 servicemen aboard, 900 men went into the water—317 would survive. Only a few rafts made it into the water with them. Life jackets were standard issue kapok. It was pitch black. The men were floating in the middle of the ocean. They could only hope for rescue as soon as possible. Some were severely burned from explosions, some had broken bones and cuts, most were covered with fuel oil discharged in the water as the ship broke into pieces. The next four days were a gruesome and harrowing tale of survival. More men died here than in all the disasters in naval history.
Shark attacks began at sunrise. White tip sharks. Imagine the fear of these men, the abject panic, as they observed the sharks circling them before they attacked, and then when the sharks began picking off men, dragging them under, tearing off their arms and legs, biting them in two. To be hanging onto a life raft or treading water, and to see the man not five feet away bitten, killed, where he was now a patch of blood red water. Another survivor, Willie James, said, “The sharks were around, hundreds of them. Everything would be quiet, and then you’d hear somebody scream, and you knew a shark had got them.”
It was five days before they were rescued, five days exposed to the elements without fresh water, five days filled with continuous, deadly shark attacks, days of hunger and dehydration. Tongues swelled, lips split open. When the ocean water dried out from the sun it left salt caked on their faces and in their eyes. Terrible thirst and dehydration set in, yet to drink salt water was to drink poison. Some of the men became so desperate they couldn’t hold out and drank the salty water, anyway. “It took only about an hour,” Harrell said, “before they began hallucinating”—hallucinations terrifying and final.
This was a tragedy that did not need to happen. Before the Indianapolis set out naval intelligence broke the Japanese code and learned that two enemy submarines were in the area. Captain McVay was not told that a Japanese submarine had recently sunk a destroyer escort as well as a battleship in the very waters to which the Indianapolis was headed, although the information on the attacks was received by naval intelligence. As the Indianapolis sank, three distress signals were sent out and received at three separate locations but were ignored because they were thought to be a Japanese trick to lure American vessels into the area. Although Captain McVay was a beloved and respected commander, he was court-martialed and blamed for the disaster.
More—much more—follows in our account of one of history’s worst shark attacks.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard
And hushed their raging at Thy word,
Who walkedst on the foaming deep,
And calm amidst its rage didst sleep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
—Words from “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” considered the hymn of the US Navy
Stoic and mindful in the garden of Umenomiyn Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Staring at the staid red torii marking this sacred space as a welcoming gateway, Mochitsura Hashimoto allows his thoughts to float up and circulate in his mind but is not moved to any action. He gently guides these thoughts and regulates himself: Sit calmly and let the thoughts come, let them visit, and let them leave. Welcome their visit and bid them good-bye: They tell us, remind us, enchant us, entertain us, but they also must leave us.
Vivid and powerful thoughts are embedded in his memory, creating inner voices that are his constant companions, whether he likes what they tell him or not. He doesn’t dislike knowing and remembering—he simply does, the thoughts come and he allows them to visit and knows that this was his life and he is thankful for having such a full life. These reflections are part of his meditation.
Mochitsura Hashimoto is eighty-nine years old an
d living comfortably at Umenomiyn, fulfilling the expectation of his father that he would continue the family heritage as a Shinshoku or Shinto priest, as the father had been. His father died before Hashimoto would commit to the Shinto path—many decades before and indeed for Hashimoto what became an unimaginable lifetime later, long after the war and the devastation and destruction, the pain and eventual rebirth. Long after Hashimoto gave the order to sink an enemy ship during World War II. That ship was the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered the components for the atom bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima soon after.
Hashimoto listened to his father and as a boy had considered the Shinto path. His father prayed and meditated, and ultimately relented, directing his young son otherwise, encouraging him to enlist in the military. Previously, the circumstances of Hashimoto’s youth—seeing the financial strictures of his father’s meager state-sponsored stipend for serving as a Shinto priest, and then the war—led Hashimoto’s interests toward other horizons, too. He had witnessed the difficulties his father had raising a family on the meager pay of a priest and decided he would not struggle that way. Of course, he wanted a family and he wanted to be a man of standing who could lead his flock, but he also wanted to rise above his status and be as successful as life would allow. He joined the military as a young man, following his two older brothers into service, and studied at the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Eta Jima. From his simple origins in Kyoto, he found his studies thrilling—judo and athletics and engineering. He was commissioned in 1931, and by 1937, he married. His wife gave him three sons and a daughter, through the war years and beyond. This was a family of great happiness.
In the military, he was drawn to the disciplined team approach of submarine service, united by purpose and in action, but at the same time independent. He was chosen for submarine school, entered on December 1 as a Class B student, thrived, and was assigned as a torpedo officer to the boat I-123. Then, on board I-24, he was at Pearl Harbor for the attack. “As we lay concealed, we could see the … neon signs on Waikiki Beach. There were some dazzling lights, which we took to be searchlights … we could hear a radio churning out jazz music. It was close on 11 p.m. and the enemy was completely unaware of our presence,” he wrote in the book Sunk: The Story of the Japanese Submarine Fleet, 1941-1945. Notorious now as the attack that plunged the US into World War II, Winston Churchill wrote in The Grand Alliance, his grand book of military strategy, asking President Truman by phone if the news were true: “It’s quite true,” Truman replied. “They have attacked us at Pearl Harbour. We are all in the same boat now.” Churchill continues: “We had no idea that any serious losses had been inflicted on the United States Navy. They did not wail or lament that their country was at war. They wasted no words in reproach or sorrow.” However, Churchill does add, “In fact, they might have been delivered from a long pain.” And he continues: “How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care. Once again in our long Island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutilated, safe and victorious. We should not be wiped out.”
Unspeakable Horror Page 2
