USS Indianapolis in popular culture

References to the USS Indianapolis sinking and aftermath have been adapted to film, stage, television and popular culture. The most famous fictional reference to the occurs in the movie Jaws in a monologue by actor Robert Shaw.
List of cultural references to the USS Indianapolis
*In 1978, the events surrounding McVay's court-martial were dramatized in The Failure to Zigzag by playwright John B. Ferzacca.
*Actor Stacy Keach portrayed McVay in the 1991 made-for-television movie Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis based on the play, which depicted the ordeal of the men of Indianapolis during her last fateful voyage.
*Thomas Fleming's 1987 book Time and Tide is a World War II novel heavily based on the story of Indianapolis. Called Jefferson City in the book, it follows such real-life events as the action in the Aleutian Islands, carrying the atomic bomb, and the tragic loss of the ship near the end of the war. The central plot point of the book, however, is based on the actions of at the Battle of Savo Island. It also features real people such as Admirals Spruance, King, and Turner mixed in with the fictional main characters.
*Jack Chalker described the sinking of Indianapolis in his 1979 novel The Devil's Voyage.
*The sinking of Indianapolis and ordeal of the survivors and subsequent rescue at sea is chronicled in the book In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton, originally published in 2001. Survivor Edgar Harrell recounted his experience in the 2005 work Out of the Depths, co-authored with his son, David Harrell. Earlier accounts of the Indianapolis tragedy are Raymond Lech's All the Drowned Sailors, published in 1982, and Richard F. Newcomb's Abandon Ship! The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster, originally published in 1958 and re-published with a new introduction and afterword in 2001.
*The sinking, the events leading up to it, the court-martial of McVay and the stories of several of the survivors is documented in the book Left for Dead that was written by Pete Nelson and was published in 2002. The book contains excerpts of interviews by then 11-year-old Hunter Scott for his nationally award-winning science project. A major motion picture entitled Indianapolis is scheduled for release in 2009.
*On 29 July 2007, the Discovery Channel aired Ocean of Fear, a re-enactment documentary of the sinking of Indianapolis as the first special of its 20th anniversary Shark Week, hosted by Richard Dreyfuss. Surviving members of the crew attended a special screening in New York City on 18 July 2007. According to the accounts of the surviving crew, most of the men died of either exhaustion, exposure to the elements, or drinking the ocean water, not from shark attacks. However, this incident is still one of the worst cases of sharks feeding on humans.
*In August 2007, PBS aired an episode of History Detectives that researched memorabilia saved by a crew member who was lost when the ship sank. The show's website contains a ten-minute interview with survivor L.D. Cox.
*The wreck of the Indianapolis plays a prominent role in one segment of the book Meg: Hell's Aquarium by author Steve Alten which was released on May 19, 2009. In the book, the wreck is discovered beneath the crust of the Philippine Sea in an ancient subterranean waterway known as the Panthalassa Sea. It is said that the ship was so heavy due to its cargo and payload that it actually punctured the crust of the sea floor, likely traveling up to 45 knots as it descended. Alten based this on a theory proposed in the mid 1990's by oceanic experts who believe the ship may have actually been heavy enough, and traveling fast enough, to puncture through the Philippine sea bed, as it is a highly volcanic region and subject to massive earthquakes, suggesting an unstable sea crust.

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