One Of The Last Remaining Survivors of the USS Indianapolis Honored For Service

“The Japanese slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief.” Words that still send chills through us, even after nearly 45 years since Robert Shaw first spoke them in Jaws.

Michigan native Dick Thelen, 92, was aboard the Indianapolis when it was torpedoed July 30, 1945, by a Japanese submarine - the vessel sank in just 12 minutes. The ship had just delivered a top secret cargo… parts of "Little Boy," the atomic bomb that would later level Hiroshima, Japan.

A photo of World War II veteran Dick Thelen as a young sailor was passed around during a ceremony honoring Thelen on Monday, Dec. 2, 2019, at Grace Lutheran Church in Lansing. Thelen is the last Michigan survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
Nick King/Lansing State Journal

The sinking of the Indianpolis is one of the worst naval disasters on record. Thelen survived five days in shark-infested waters without food or water. But he didn’t give up. Thoughts of his father shaking his hand as he left for war and telling him to come home was all the mental sustenance Dick needed. A priest who died in the water, the Rev. Thomas Conway, a Navy chaplain, gave him and others last rites as they floated in life jackets.

““It was easier to die out there than to stay alive. We really had to work at it.””

— Dick Thelen

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, honored Thelen at an event attended by his friends and family, and Lansing Mayor Andy Schor declared the 2nd December Richard Thelen Day in Lansing. Three Lansing-area lawmakers read tributes, and Slotkin gave him a U.S. flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol.

In 2018, President Donald Trump signed the ”USS Indianapolis Congressional Gold Medal Act” honoring the entire crew of the USS Indianapolis. The medal is yet to be presented to an Indianapolis museum, where it’s expected to be housed and exhibited.

Steve Hammond holds up a photo of the Rev. Thomas Conway who gave Dick Thelen his last rites while they were stuck at sea after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
Nick King/Lansing State Journal

Only 317 out of the 1,196 men who were aboard the Indianapolis when she was hit would live to tell the harrowing tale of five days adrift in the Philippine Sea. About 300 men went down with the ship; nearly 600 others died from shark attacks, injuries, dehydration or salt poisoning from drinking salt water.

Robert Shaw co-wrote and performed the now legendary ‘Indianapolis Speech’ in Jaws 1975

Thelen, who is one of 11 still living survivors, believes that luck and being drenched in diesel fuel may have kept the sharks from attacking him.

Before joining the Navy, Mr Thelen was a truck driver and didn’t like to talk about what happened. He married in 1951 but didn’t tell his wife, Joanne, for seven years about his experience. Dick and Joanne had six children, 5 of them attending Monday’s ceremony. Joanne, passed away in 2002.

IN HARM’S WAY

Doug Stanton has appeared as an USS Indianapolis historian on PBS's 2017 "USS Indianapolis-From The Deep," The Today Show, CNN, Fox, Morning Joe, NBC Nightly News, History, A&E, and in hundreds of radio and print interviews. Stanton's writing about the USS Indianapolis has appeared in Naval History magazine, and In Harm's Way was included in the U.S. Navy's required reading list for naval officers.

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