Big Ship Going Down (Honoring the USS Indianapolis)

On the seventh of December
Nineteen forty-one
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor
I was nineteen years young
When I enlisted
To join that Navy Crew
Of the Indianapolis Flagship
To sail that ocean blue

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

Bombarded in Alaska
Okinawa a suicide plane
That hit our ship portside
While I was getting shaved
At seven in the morning
Directly overhead
When it was all over
Nine sailors dead

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

Thirty marine escorts
Watching around the clock
On a secret mission
With a medal box
To Tinian Island
With parts to ignite
The A- Bomb over Hiroshima
To show the world our might

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

To the island of the Philippines
From the island of Quam
While the crossing the Pacific
From a submarine we got bombed
By Japan two torpedoes
In the bow after dark
The sound of sailors screaming
Beneath smokestacks of sparks

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

Without drinking water
There was little we could do
From Sunday until Monday
Then we began to lose
Sailors to the pressure
One by one brought down
By the sharks that swam beneath us
To be lost and never found

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

A seaplane came to get us
But the water was to rough
Until five on Friday morning
When they shined a light on us
From the USS Talbot
With a net over the side
Out of 1200 sailors
300 hundred survived

Oil out on the water
Fire all around
Listen to the silence
Of that big ship going down

Words & music by Larry Long
Copyright Larry Long 1997 | BMI

*Inspired by Clarence Hupka; survivor for the largest Naval disaster in U.S. history.

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