The United States Naval Institute (been a member for over twenty years, and so should you!), has a Kickstarter project to try to save the rare photos from the USS Indianapolis and WWII: Preserving the collection of Alfred Joseph Sedivi, the ship’s photographer.
In the closing days of WWII, torpedoes from a Japanese submarine slammed into the side of U.S.S. Indianapolis, dooming the heavy cruiser. The sailors who did not go down with the ship were left adrift on the open ocean for more than 3 days during which they battled the elements, starvation, and shark attacks. Of the 1,196 crew members who had deployed with the ship, fewer than 320 survived the ordeal. The captain of the ship was forced to bear the burden of the blame for the loss of ship and life, which drove him to commit suicide. He would be posthumously exonerated fifty years later following a campaign helped by the efforts of a boy working on a school project about the incident.
Among those lost when the Indianapolis sank was Alfred Joseph Sedivi, the ship’s photographer. Sedivi documented the lives of the sailors who served, played, prayed and fought on the ship they affectionately called “the Indy Maru.” Sedivi’s cameras also captured the aftermath of the battles on Tinian, Saipan, Guam, Tarawa and Iwo Jima. His photos survived the war because he secretly sent 1650 of them home to his family until the days before his ship’s fatal mission.
Example of damage on some of the photos in the collection.
Now the USNI is attempting to save them but needs your help
Go give em a few dollars, come on guys.
