Putnam: 'Don't give up,' WWII veteran who survived shark-infested waters tells kids

Story has been updated to correct number of men who died in the water.

OKEMOS - The kids wanted to know about his life jacket, the sharks and what it was like when the torpedoes hit the ship.

Another wondered if he ever felt like giving up.

“Oh yeah, lots of times,” Dick Thelen, 91, told students at St. Martha School in Okemos on Monday. The World War II veteran was recounting his five days surviving in shark-infested water. “….It was a lot easier to die than to stay alive.”

He was one of 317 survivors out of nearly 1,200 men aboard the USS Indianapolis, which sank July 30, 1945 after being hit by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. It was the worst disaster in U.S. naval history.

When WWII broke out, Thelen, a Lansing native, was barely older than some of the students at St. Martha, where classes run from pre-k to 8th grade.

It was near the end of the war when Thelen, not quite 18, got his father to sign to allow him to join the Navy.

After boot camp, Thelen returned home to see his family and had a talk with his father.

“He shook my hand. He said, ‘Dick I want you to come home,’” Thelen said.

Thelen never forgot those words.

It was Thelen’s first voyage. The USS Indianapolis was in the Philippine Sea after delivering top-secret parts for the atomic bomb, Little Boy. The bomb would be used days later, Aug. 6, 1945,  to level Hiroshima, Japan.

Thelen, a gunner’s mate, was asleep on deck as it was too hot to sleep below.

He rolled up his shoes and clothes for a pillow. The sky was cloudless. A Japanese submarine spotted the USS Indianapolis in the moonlight. Thelen went to sleep just before midnight. At 12:10 a.m. July 30, the submarine fired six torpedoes. Two hit the ship.

“It sank in 12 minutes,” Thelen said.

He remembers flying up in the air, awakened from his sleep. “Two feet in the air, or 20 feet, I really don’t know,” he said. He later had to have two surgeries for injuries to his leg.

He was given a life jacket. Thelen said he didn’t jump but swam away from the ship as it sank bow first. He vomited in the ocean. He would have no food or water for five days.

About 900 men went into the water; 300 went down with the ship.

The ship sank early on a Monday. The survivors wearing life jackets bobbed among the swells, hoping for rescue. Tuesday took a dark turn.

"That’s when the sharks moved in,” he said.

The sharks picked off survivors. Thelen was eye to eye with a few. Twice, one jabbed his life jacket.

“I was so damned scared I didn’t move a muscle. I froze,” he said.

Thelen said he was covered in diesel fuel from the wreckage.

“He didn’t like the looks of me,” Thelen said. “I was saturated with diesel fuel, and they don’t like diesel, which is fine. I lucked out.”

A Catholic priest in the water swam among groups of men in the water and offered the last sacrament, Thelen said. The priest died in the water on Wednesday, he was later told.

Some died from shark attacks. Others were victims of dehydration. And some drank the salt water, which led to salt poisoning.

Thelen didn’t have a wife or girlfriend to think about. But he had his father’s words in his mind.

“My Dad brought me home. I had to have something to live for, and I had it,” he said.

By Thursday morning, a patrol bomber by chance spotted the survivors of the USS Indianapolis. They were rescued Friday.

A life raft was dropped into the water. Thelen said he was among a group of four swimming toward it. Two were so weak they died in the water, apparently from heart attacks. A shark got the third.

“I was the only one who got to the raft,” he said. Others were already on it but he was too weak to climb aboard. In all, he spend 104 hours in the water.

Related: Survivor reflects on Indianapolis sinking years later

Of the men on the ship, 99 were from Michigan, Thelen said. Of those who survived 19 were from Michigan, including five from Lansing. He’s the last survivor in the state and one of only 14 still alive.

Thelen told the St. Martha students that they had to persevere through hard times, like he did.

“I’m telling you kids, whatever situation you get into, for God’s sake don’t give up,” he said.

Thelen, who had a career as a truck driver, didn’t talk about his experience for years. He married in 1951 but didn’t tell his wife for seven years about his experience. He had six kids.

Dave, his third child, said he was a senior at Sexton High School in 1975 and went to see the movie “Jaws,” which references the USS Indianapolis.

At home, he told his mother about the sharks. She told him to go talk to his father. “I was a senior in high school. That’s when I found out my Dad was on the ship,” he said.

Dick Thelen still lives independently but doesn’t drive, so Dave takes him to speaking engagements. They had several speeches around Veteran’s Day.

"My dad is my hero,” he said.

Students Monday said they were excited to get a firsthand history lesson. 

“I thought it was, literally, one of the best things I’ve ever heard,” gushed Avery Miller 9. “I love how much a hero he is.”

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @judyputnam.