Harold Bray Statue Dedication July 7, 2023 in Benicia, CA

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Episode #791 of Hometown Heroes, airing June 24-29, 2023, features the memories of Harold Bray, the last living survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), who will be honored July 7, 2023 with the unveiling of a statue in Benicia, CA.

Harold Bray’s statue will be dedicated in Benicia, CA on July 7, 2023. Click on the image for more information.

The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) Legacy Organization is holding its annual reunion in the area, showcasing Mare Island, where the historic ship took on secret cargo which turned out to be components of the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. This is the first year in which the reunion will feature just one survivor of the ship’s tragic sinking. Bray, who recently turned 96, is now the only man still living who was aboard the Indianapolis when it was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58 on July 30, 1945. He settled in Benicia after WWII, becoming a career police officer there and impacting countless lives, as you’ll hear on Hometown Heroes from filmmaker and author Sara Vladic. She’ll be among the many celebrating his legacy in Benicia on July 7th at 6 p.m. for the unveiling of the statue of Bray, in addition to a surrounding monument honoring the USS Indianapolis.

“What he embodies really is the young sailor that went aboard Indianapolis,” you’ll hear Vladic say of the final survivor, who was just 18 the day the ship sank. “He talks about how he was too young to die, he had too much to do, and the men who didn’t come home, he felt an obligation to live for them.”

Harold Bray was just 18 when he survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.

The USS Indianapolis Legacy Organization is in the process of compiling details about all 879 men who perished in the worst sea disaster in American history. If you have photos or information about any of the fallen, you can help by participating in Project 888 (It also honors 9 who were killed in a previous kamikaze attack). Harold Bray came very close to adding to that number in the early morning hours of July 30, 1945. He always slept in his assigned quarters, three decks down. But after finishing his watch on July 29, he decided to sleep topside because of the heat, hoping it would be cooler up there than down below. He laid a pillow and a sleeping bag atop the #2 8-inch gun turret, took off his shoes, and fell asleep.

“When the torpedoes hit right on the opposite side of the ship of me, it rolled me off of that,” you’ll hear Bray say of a ten-foot drop that woke him up 15 minutes after midnight. “My whole side was burned on my left side, but other than that, I was okay.”

As Vladic detailed in the bestselling book she wrote with Lynn Vincent, Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man, Bray would have been killed upon impact if he had been sleeping his regular bunk. Two of the six torpedoes I-58 fired at the cruiser collided with the ship, which famously sank in only 12 minutes. Bray had another sailor land on top of him in the water, pushing him down even deeper below the surface. When he fought his way back up to breathe, he watched his cruiser, tilted up on its bow, sinking under as his fellow sailors continued to abandon ship.

“I had oil in my eyes, my ears, everything,” you’ll hear him detail. “I can still taste it to this day.”

Harold Bray after receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2020.

That oil came with a silver lining – it helped protect his skin from the sun. The sting of salt water on the burns that covered his left side, however, proved less than pleasant. Harold and approximately 900 other sailors tried to stay afloat, not knowing when or if a rescue might occur. The teenager held tightly to a raft that was soon supplemented by a crash net. Food and fresh water were extremely limited, and for some, nonexistent. Sharks in the area began to prey on the most severely injured among the survivors, and Harold remembers being bumped by a few of them over the harrowing days that followed. When a PV-1 Ventura piloted by Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn flew over on August 2, a wiggle of the wings told the survivors that they had been spotted, but they would have to wait another 36 hours to experience the moment they’d been dreaming about. By the time the crew of an LCVP from the USS Bassett flashed a light on his face to wake him up, Harold had lost 35 pounds over those four excruciating days. He was ecstatic to be rescued, but the exhausted teenager didn’t have the strength to pull himself across a rope ladder.

“I couldn’t even lift my arms out of the water,” you’ll hear Harold remember. “It was just a miracle anybody even found us.”

Harold Bray during World War II.

While recuperating at a hospital in the Philippines, Harold finally learned that the secret cargo they had carried to Tinian had helped hasten the end of the war. Over the months that followed, he progressed through hospitals in Guam and San Diego before returning to duty in his native Michigan, where he guarded German prisoners of war. Moving to California after his discharge, he would spend nearly a quarter-century with the Benicia Police Department, and has been a pillar of the community ever since. The statue to be unveiled July 7, 2023 will ensure that his legacy, and that of his ship, will never be lost. Another event taking place two days later will introduce many to a chapter of the USS Indianapolis history that has never really met the light of day.

The newly released book Heroes in the Shadows brings into focus the supreme sacrifice of the 28 African-American members of the ship’s final sailing crew, all of whom perished in the cruiser’s catastrophic end. On Sunday, July 9, 2023, from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m., you can meet surviving family members of those Gold Star heroes and the team of authors behind the book, and learn how some of that hidden history has come to light. 1189 Washington Street in Benicia is where that opportunity will take place.

“One of them was Captain McVay’s steward. Many of them had served on the ship since prior to the war years,” you’ll hear Sara Vladic explain on Hometown Heroes. “They all have these incredible stories and backgrounds that no one has ever heard before, and this is the first time they’re going to be sharing about them.”

Kunshiro Kiyozumi reading a letter from Harold Bray on June 10, 2023. (Mainichi/Nobuto Matsukura)

Another development you’ll hear Sara Vladic relate on Hometown Heroes is a reflection of how the saga of the USS Indianapolis continues to unfold over time. The last known survivor of the Japanese submarine I-58, Kunshiro Kiyozumi, recently exchanged letters with Harold Bray, the last survivor of the sinking. You can read more about that exchange in this article from The Mainichi. Perhaps the two men will have the chance to meet in person someday. After investing so much of her life the last two decades to honoring the men of the USS Indianapolis and that ship’s remarkable legacy, Sara Vladic says there is power in this ever-expanding story.

“I think we can all look to that for inspiration, that those men rose up against so many incredible things to fight for what is right,” you’ll hear her say on Hometown Heroes. “A lot of us can find heroes in that and hopefully reflect that in our own days and just be a little bit better.”

—Paul Loeffler