Mission of the Shark

The film is based on the play, ‘Failure to Zig Zag,’ regarding the true story of the Americans aboard the USS Indianapolis before they were struck by Japanese torpedoes in July of 1945. After being hit, the men struggled to survive for five days without food or drinking water in the shark-infested ocean, over 800 men died. Captain Charles McVay III ultimately was blamed and Court Marshaled for the tragedy., A chronicle of the battle for survival waged by sailors of the USS Indianapolis, a cruiser sunk by the Japanese on its return from a secret mission in 1945. Capt McVay: Stacy Keach. Wilkes: David Caruso. Scott: Richard Thomas. Kinderman: Don Harvey. D’Angelo: Robert Ciccini. Goldstein: Neil Giuntoli. Capt. Lipscombe: Steve Landesberg. Hashimoto: Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa., When a top secret naval mission leads to the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at the end of WWII, it began one of the most scandalous court-martials in the history of the military. For five days the surviving crew members were left in the shark-infested waters, with only half of them surviving to be rescued. Their well-respected Captain accepted the responsibility to keep the scandal to a minimum but his court-martial only served to show that justice is not always found in military proceedings but rather mere expediency.