POTTSBORO WAR HERO RESCUED FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH

People from Pottsboro seem to be involved in places and events of import all over the world.  One such person was
Robert Lee Griffith, son of Pottsboro pioneers, William Griffith and Dadie Cook, who came from Bosque County Texas. 
In 1945 in World War II, Robert was serving as a Seaman First Class on the USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser in the Pacific theater.
With Robert on board, the Indianapolis steamed out of San Francisco Bay on July 16, wrapped in a heavy cloak of secrecy. In her hold, she carried the atomic bomb that three weeks later would be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. She hurried, unescorted, to the island of Tinian where she unloaded her lethal cargo on July 26. Her mission accomplished, the Indianapolis then began a journey into Hell that would end with the worst naval disaster in U.S. history.
She sailed to the island of Guam and was ordered to the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines to prepare for the invasion of Japan. Traveling without escort, her voyage would take her through an ocean infested with Japanese submarines and sharks.
At a few minutes past midnight on July 30, 1945, two Japanese torpedoes tore into her side, igniting an explosion that broke the ship in two. It took only twelve minutes for the ship to slip beneath the sea. When the survivors gathered in the water, one man remembered this:  "I led the men in prayer, asking our Lord to support us during this time of peril. I quoted the old Navy hymn, 'Oh hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in peril on the sea.'    Of her crew of 1,196, an estimated 900 survived the explosion - but the worst was yet to come.
No alarm was raised when the ship failed to arrive at its destination. No rescue forces were dispatched to find the missing ship - its sinking went unnoticed. For four days a dwindling number of survivors fought a losing battle of life and death.  There was no water or food.  Men died from drinking salt water, which caused dehydration.  They died from injuries received during the sinking.  Some went mad from lack of water, hallucinating and fighting each other, causing deaths.  Some lost hope and just sunk beneath the waves.  Some did not have life jackets and could not last four days.  Even if
men had jackets, they were only made to last 48 hours. After 110 hours in the water, the material became water-logged
and the men began to sink into the water while they slept and drowned.  Then, there were the sharks.  The sharks began attacking when the sun rose and continued their assault throughout the ordeal.
On August 2, after four days, a man on a plane happened to have a stiff neck and turned his head to stretch it, seeing the floating survivors, and broadcast their position. Near-by ships rushed to the scene and began to pluck the sailors out of the water. A tally made at the completion of the rescue revealed that only 317 of the original estimated 900 who escaped the sinking ship survived their ordeal.
Pottsboro native, Robert Lee Griffith, Seaman First Class was rescued and taken to the Navy Hospital on Guam to recover according to war correspondent Wick Fowler.  After four days in the water, Robert was rescued from the “Jaws” of death, four days after that, on August 6, 1945, the bomb he had helped deliver was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan – The beginning of the end of the War.