{"id":302075,"date":"2010-07-09T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last\/"},"modified":"2010-07-09T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T15:00:00","slug":"ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducks on the Pond:  Rescued at Last"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, with a crew of 900, was sunk by a Japanese torpedo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2010-07-09.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:","filesize":"24.33M","filesize_raw":"25516635","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2822],"tags":[5155],"podcast_series":[7393],"cwp_profile":[8959],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-302075","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growing-in-your-faith","tag-inspiration","podcast_series-out-of-the-depths","cwp_profile-ed-harrell","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/302075\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/302075\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"LUkJB0BFPv\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last\/\">Ducks on the Pond:  Rescued at Last<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/ducks-on-the-pond-rescued-at-last\/embed\/#?secret=LUkJB0BFPv\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Ducks on the Pond:  Rescued at Last&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"LUkJB0BFPv\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg",508,508,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"kfairris@familylife.com","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/kfairrisfamilylife-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, with a crew of 900, was sunk by a Japanese torpedo.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2010-07-09.pdf","transcript_content":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Sixty five years ago this month, marine Ed Harrell and a number of other survivors of the attack on the USS Indianapolis were pulled from the Pacific.\u00a0 They had stayed alive for four-and-a-half days.\u00a0 Four-and-a-half days that, as you might imagine, Ed Harrell has never been able to forget.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 I have not had nightmares.\u00a0 I've had many times that I've awakened and have a vivid scene of the happenings, and yet I think my counteraction to that is \"Thank you, Lord, for sparing my life and for bringing me through all of this.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>This is <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> for Friday July 9th.\u00a0 Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We'll hear today how God spared Ed Harrell's life, and we'll hear a remarkable story about a rescue in the middle of the Pacific.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>You have to just say thank you Lord, I know you\u2019re speaking to my heart.\u00a0 And, that somehow, some way you\u2019re going to see me through.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>And welcome to <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>, thanks for joining us.\u00a0 You know, Hollywood has told some tales of castaways left on a desert island, folks surviving in the middle of nowhere, and I've seen some of those movies, and you watch them, and they're interesting.\u00a0 They have never come close to telling the story that we've heard this week.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 No, I agree, Bob.\u00a0 Ed Harrell has been with us all this week and has told a story, a compelling story of how God enabled him to survive an ordeal at sea after being a crew member on the USS Indianapolis, which was sunk on the night of July 30, 1945, by a Japanese submarine.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tEd, I want to thank you again for your service as a veteran, but also for writing this book and for taking us there and giving us a greater appreciation not just for veterans and what they've done to protect our freedom as Americans but also for taking us there and showing us what tough-minded faith in Almighty God looks like.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBecause time and time again you've taken us to vivid scenes where you've been at a fork in the road where you've had to trust God, and you'd been at sea for four days in a life jacket.\u00a0 You'd only had a few tablespoons of water.\u00a0 You had some rotten potatoes that had come after you'd prayed for some food.\u00a0 You were on a raft, but you\u2019d been separated from your buddies, and on the fourth day you are virtually alone.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>No question.\u00a0 Even with my buddy at the time and, in fact, there were three of us at the tail end there that fourth day and the one then dropped his head in the water, and he's gone, and then it's just McKissick and myself.\u00a0 And my mind, by now, is beginning to fail me somewhat in that \u2013 McKissick, I know, would say to me, \"Hey, Marine, you ever been to the Philippines?\"\u00a0 And, \"No, I've never been there.\"\u00a0 Well, he had, and he promised to kind of take me under his wing when we got there. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI knew him.\u00a0 I knew who he was.\u00a0 I'd served under him, and he was a peach of a guy, and yet, to me, he was Uncle Edwin, and I called him Uncle Edwin.\u00a0 I can recall calling him Uncle Edwin.\u00a0 I had an uncle two years older than me.\u00a0 I guess I was thinking of the good times in my mind with someone back home, and yet McKissick was Uncle Edwin to me.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThen it was sometime then that afternoon, we had seen the planes, heard them at 30,000 feet, and I say to McKissick, \"I hear a plane.\"\u00a0 And he said, \"I hear one, too,\" and if you can imagine somewhat that you hear a plane, and you know that it's somewhere coming closer, and yet you don't know which direction it is.\u00a0 We began to look all around and, finally, we could detect that it's coming from that direction.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Was it coming toward you?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 It was coming toward us, and it was flying about 8,000 feet and, well, what do you do?\u00a0 I tell you what you do.\u00a0 You scream. You splash water; you make all kinds of contortions there in the water, hoping and praying that he can see you.\u00a0 But here he is flying over us, and had he come any further, he would have gone over us, but when he got, like a quarter of a mile or so out here, flying at 8,000 feet, he headed it straight down toward us as if he knew we were there.\u00a0 But he didn't know we were there\u2013impossible for him to see us.\u00a0 If we'd had on deer-hunter orange, and he knew we were there, he could not have seen us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIn fact, the pilot that later picked us up, he said the possibility of him seeing you would be the equivalent of taking the cross-section of a human hair and looking at the end of that human hair at 20 feet.\u00a0 He said impossible for him to see us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>So why did he go into the dive?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Why did he go into the dive?\u00a0 That's the miracle of the angel coming for us, and that is the end of the fourth day.\u00a0 Well, I've talked to Lieutenant Gwinn at different times, and \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 He was the pilot?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0He was the pilot, and he was flying out of Pulau, and he was flying a land-based plane, something like a B-29, a twin-engine plane, and as he was flying, he had left out that morning, and he had a problem with his antenna that kind of trails at the back of that aircraft.\u00a0 The stabilizer on that antenna had come off.\u00a0 They had put something on, and he went out and tried it, and it didn't work.\u00a0 They came back in, and then they put something on, and here they go again.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo as he is flying over us, and here, as I mentioned, here he's coming just at a point that he could nearly dive right down to us.\u00a0 At that point he had gone back to the bomb bay door and he'd opened the bomb bay door, and he was reeling in the antenna.\u00a0 He had turned it over to the co-pilot.\u00a0 He pulled that back in and he put a piece of rubber hose on that and was letting it trail back out so that he could pick up his transmission properly.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhile he had that bomb bay door open, he looks down for a split-second there in the late afternoon of the fourth day when the sun was setting on us late in the afternoon, and he saw the little mirror, so to speak, of the boy scout.\u00a0 He saw that light of the sun hitting on the oil on our clothing, and when he saw that he thought it was a submarine down there.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo immediately he rushes back to take over the controls, and the boys in the aircraft, they yelled back at him, with all that noise, with the motors still revving up, \"What is it?\u00a0 What is it?\"\u00a0 And he said, \"Look down there.\"\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd they looked down, and they could see the oil slick.\u00a0 Well, my story is this\u2013that we see him coming, and as if God had planned it for us, when he gets to about a quarter of a mile from us, he heads down, and he comes down, and he circles us.\u00a0 And as he circles us, then he tilts his wings a few times, and then he leaves us.\u00a0 He goes back up and he circles us again up here.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And we wondered, \"Well, what in the world is he doing up there?\"\u00a0 Well, he can't land on the water, we knew that.\u00a0 But what he did, he came down, and he saw that there was someone down here.\u00a0 He goes up, and he breaks radio silence to declare, \"ducks on the pond.\"\u00a0 He didn't know whether we were Japanese or American boys, but he broke radio silence to declare ducks on the pond.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThen he comes back down, then, and he circles us again.\u00a0 He tilts his wings a time or two to give us assurance that we know you're there.\u00a0 We don't know who you are, but we know you're there.\u00a0 And then he drops a life raft in, and in the meantime, then, he has radioed back into Pulau, and the next pilot, then, gets into a PBY that could land in the water, and Adrian Marx, then, he's on his way to come and to pick us up.\u00a0 And sometime later, then, he arrives, and in the meantime the raft that Gwinn had dropped\u2013I know, my friend McKissick, had made his way to the raft.\u00a0 Then he's leaving it, and I wonder what's wrong.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI get to the raft then, and it was bottom side up.\u00a0 I try to get it turned over, managed to get it halfway turned over, but the CO2 on it was torn off, so I couldn't inflate it\u2014no food, no water, no nothing\u2014kind of a torn place in it, so it wouldn't even hold me just to stand on that, so to speak, hole in that pile of rubber.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIn the meantime, then McKissick had gotten far enough away from me that the PBY landed and had picked him up, and then I wondered, well, will he tell them that there's a Marine out there with him?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWell, he did, but it was a period of time that the plane seemingly\u2013I couldn't see it, but he was running the swells\u2013they were, like, 20-foot swells.\u00a0 He'd run the swells back and forth trying to make his way over to me, and it took a period of time for him to run those to where he could get across because if he had turned those props into the water it would have flipped his plane.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd he pulled a no-no when he landed.\u00a0 It was against all regulations for him to land his plane in the open sea, and yet he did, because as he landed he said he could see more sharks than he saw boys.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd we were scattered over, like, a 75-mile area, and he took reconnaissance of that and could see that there are boys in life rafts, there are boys on floater nets, and there are stragglers.\u00a0 Then he actually saw a shark attack on several boys, and he was determined that he was going to land, and he cleared it with the rest of the crew.\u00a0 They all voted somewhat that they would take the punishment, but we've got to land.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tSo they landed then and finally then they came over me and threw out a little life ring and picked me up.\u00a0 I recall that as they got me out of the water I blacked out or nearly blacked out.\u00a0 I had no control over myself.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThey got me aboard the plane and they would take me like a sack of feed and set the guy here, and the next guy just stack him against him, and they kept stacking us in there.\u00a0 Finally it wouldn't hold anymore, and there were still some boys, stragglers out there.\u00a0 It was getting dusk dark and they picked up all that they could, all that they could find.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThey actually fastened them out on the wings, and then finally then sometime later in the night, the seas calmed down after night somewhat, and they shut off the motors.\u00a0 We sat there and waiting until 12 or 1:00 or so in the morning when the little destroyer, Doyle, came in, and they picked us up.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWhen I got aboard the plane, after a moment to board the plane, then I could look across at a Marine, and I could see that it was a blond-haired guy.\u00a0 I could see he had eyeballs that were just big red sores, and I knew it was Spooner, and I saw what he was doing.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHe had a can of green beans\u00a0 was feeling down on the deck of the ship, and he finally found a stud bolt or something down there, and he kept hacking away until he knocked a hole in the can of green beans and then he was turning that juice up and drinking it.\u00a0 I recall saying to him, \"Hey, Marine, how about some of your bean juice?\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWell, you'd have to know Spooner, but he kind of told me where I could go, and \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t(laughter)\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the guy that you saved his life by grabbing him by the life jackets on day 2, right?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Then I said to him, \"Spooner, you don't know who this is.\u00a0 This is Harrell.\"\u00a0 Well, I didn't have to say any more.\u00a0 He just kind of fell across the plane there toward me and kind of spilled some of his bean juice as he shared that with me.\u00a0 I was transferred, then, aboard the Doyle, and sometime that night, 1:00 or so that night.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 When you first heard that plane, when it started to dive and was tilting its wings at you, you thought, \"We're going to be rescued!\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 I would think you'd just weep.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, you know, there's times when you weep, and there's times when you weep for joy.\u00a0 I look back on this, and when I look at the first day that I had every assurance that somehow, some way, the Lord is going to see me through.\u00a0 I felt that from the very moment that I went into the water.\u00a0 And then the second day, when He provided the water for me \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>\u2026 the rain shower \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u2026 you know, you have to just say \"Thank you, Lord, I know that you are speaking to my heart and that somehow, some way, you're going to see me through.\"\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd then on the third day, then, when the little raft came into the group, and you know that your life jacket no longer is holding your head out of the water, and now you have a spare life jacket that He provided for you, and you have to thank Him again.\u00a0 And then sometime, then, that third afternoon, likewise, when you're starving still for water and for some food, and then for Him to provide the half-rotten potatoes, I have to thank, He's still with me.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd as I look back on that, you know, I think of the water of life.\u00a0 You know, if you drink of this water, you're going to thirst again.\u00a0 If you drink of that salt water, you're not going to make it at all.\u00a0 But if you drink of the water that I give you, you'll never thirst again.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd then the bread of life, the potatoes that I had and then when I get to the last day, the plane that came in, well, you know, it's like the Lord says, \"Let not your hearts be troubled.\u00a0 You believe in God believe also in Me.\u00a0 In My Father's house are many dwelling places.\u00a0 I go to prepare a place for you, and since I go to prepare a place for you, I'm going to come again, and I'll receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd so here He's coming, for me, at that time, He came for me in the person of Lieutenant Gwinn as he came.\u00a0 So I look back on the whole experience, and I think I have to say that it's a wonderful experience to have lived through, and I just praise and thank the Lord all the time for His mercy and then for His grace.\u00a0 Unworthy as I am and yet He saw fit to spare my life through this ordeal.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>You know, you mentioned that it was two years before you shared anything with your father.\u00a0 We got a letter\u2013you may remember this, Dennis, from a woman whose husband had passed on, and she said it wasn't until the last years of his life, some\u2013almost 50 years after the battle had occurred\u2013that she knew he'd been on Iwo Jima.\u00a0 They'd gone their whole married life; she had never known that he was in that battle until near the end of his life.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI thought to myself as I read that, it was another way that he was protecting and defending by not sharing his story, and yet she wrote, and she said, \"Knowing that sure explained some of the nights when he would wake up in terror.\"\u00a0 Have you had that experience?\u00a0 Have you had the nightmares and the terror of remembering some of that?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 I have not had nightmares.\u00a0 I have had, many times that I've awakened and have a vivid scene of the happenings, and yet I think my counteraction to that is that \"Thank you, Lord, for sparing my life and for bringing me through all of this.\"\u00a0 I like to look at it and say that the Lord reminds me even today of those incidents.\u00a0 As He reminds me of those, then they help to strengthen my faith and my resolve to live a life for him today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>You mentioned that pilot ended up finding 56 survivors on that fourth day.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 In total, there were 317 survivors.\u00a0 How did the rest of them all get picked up?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Well, as soon as they picked us up and found out that it was the Indianapolis, then all word went out.\u00a0 They broke radio silence everywhere.\u00a0 And any ship within a couple of hundred miles or so; that is, a destroyer or something that could move fast, they came to the scene.\u00a0 And when the USS Doyle, the ship that picked me up, when it got close in, knowing the longitude and latitude, as they got closer and closer, what did he do, Commander Claytor, he turned on his powerful spotlights up on the under part of the clouds, and you can imagine what that did to that whole area.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIt was just like a mushroom with lights underneath the clouds.\u00a0 For the boys that were out there, they knew that rescue was there, and that gave them the hope that they needed.\u00a0 And some of those had to go through another night, because they couldn\u2019t pick them up at night.\u00a0 They tried to, they picked up many of the boys at night.\u00a0 But, it would be dangerous as dark as it was to try to take some kind of a craft out there and maneuver around without hitting someone.\u00a0 But that gave them hope through the night until the next morning.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, I was picked up aboard the Doyle off the PBY.\u00a0 I know, as they took me aboard, there was a couple of sailors that there's no qualms about them getting dirty or anything, and, of course, we were grease monkeys, really, with all that oil and all on us.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI recall that they had to put me in somewhat of a little wire basket, then drag me up into the ship.\u00a0 Then, when they got me up there, this couple of sailors just took my arms and put them around their neck, and they drug my feet, and they took me down below deck, took me to the forward part of the bow of the ship, and then they began to\u2013they stripped off my clothing, and then they began to take something like a diesel fuel or kerosene, and they began to wash that oil off of me.\u00a0 And then some kind of soap that they used, then they put me in\u2013a Marine being put in Navy skivvies.\u00a0 So they put their Navy underwear on me, and then \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>You were okay with that, at that point?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 I was okay.\u00a0 In fact, may I just say after 57 years I met the guy aboard the Doyle that actually cleaned me up, and he took me, then, to his bunk and gave me his bed, and then the corpsmen then came, and they had a cup of sugared water, warm sugared water, and they gave me a couple of tablespoons full or so of warm sugared water to kind of rehydrate me, I guess.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Did it taste pretty good?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 It tasted wonderful, it tasted wonderful.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Sixty years after this happened, how many of the survivors are still alive?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 A week or so ago, I got a report.\u00a0 I think there were 97 of us still alive.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Spooner?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Spooner's gone.\u00a0 There's five of we Marines.\u00a0 Nine of we marines survived out of\u2014there were 39 of us aboard, and nine of us survived, and of the nine there are five of us still living today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 How about McKissick?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 No, McKissick\u2019s gone.\u00a0 And, by the way, McKissick was not a believer at the time, and McKissick told me later, he said, \"Harrell, I went home, and I got to looking at all that the Lord had brought me through there.\u201d\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd he said, \"Finally, I just had to get down on my knees and thank the Lord and tell Him that I trusted Him as my Savior because I know that He had a purpose for my life.\"\u00a0 And he became a real Christian friend of mine as long as he lived.\u00a0 He passed away four years ago, maybe.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Dennis:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, Ed, wow.\u00a0 I'm exhausted from treading water here with you.\u00a0 But I have to say, what a great story.\u00a0 What a great story of faith and redemption, God's providential care, and how you have faithfully given Him the credit and the honor for doing that.\u00a0 I'm grateful for your book and just pray that God will give you many great years of health and many more great-grandchildren, and I appreciate you being with us here on <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ed:<\/strong>\u00a0 Thank you so much, my delight, and my pleasure to be with you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, you know, if any of our listeners today have missed any of Ed\u2019s story this week, I want to encourage you go online at FamilyLifeToday.com.\u00a0 You can listen to the programs from this week, or you can order the programs on CD if you\u2019d like.\u00a0 Ed also has a book that tells the story of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and of the survivors and their rescue.\u00a0 We\u2019re making that book available this month to those of you who can help support the ministry of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> with a donation of any amount.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tIf you\u2019d like to get a copy of the book, all we\u2019re asking is that you call or go online and make a donation, whatever you\u2019re able to do, and feel free to request a copy of Ed\u2019s book.\u00a0 If you\u2019re making your donation online, at FamilyLifeToday.com, just type the word \u201cdepths\u201d into the online key-code box as you\u2019re filling out the donation form.\u00a0 There\u2019s a key-code box there.\u00a0 Just type \u201cD-E-P-T-H-S\u201d, \u201cdepths,\u201d and we\u2019ll send you a copy of Ed\u2019s book.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOr call, 1-800-FL-TODAY, 1-800-358-6329.\u00a0 Make your donation over the phone, and just ask for a copy of the book called <em>Out of the Depths <\/em>or the book we\u2019ve been talking about this week, and we\u2019ll know what you\u2019re referring to and again be happy to send it out to you.\u00a0 We just so much appreciate those of you who are able to support the ministry, and who make donations from time to time.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYour financial support is critical to keep <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> on the air on this station and on our network of stations all across the country.\u00a0 Particularly in the summer, our ministry and other ministries often see a slow-down in donation response or contributions from listeners.\u00a0 So, if you\u2019re able to do something this month, it would be even more meaningful and we want to say thanks in advance for whatever you\u2019re able to do and for your support of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd, we hope you have a great weekend, hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend.\u00a0 And, I hope you can join us back on Monday, when we're going to talk about what ought to be your core objective as you raise your sons and your daughters. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Ken Hemphill:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>Our purpose here on this planet\u2014I think many Christians, myself included--very candidly\u2014for much of my life, we gave lip service to the fact that we were created for another kingdom, but we actually live life like it was about this kingdom.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThat\u2019s the tragedy of many parents.\u00a0 That we mean well, but we want our kids to succeed at college, nothing wrong with that.\u00a0 We want them to be good baseball players, or good athletes, or good ballerinas or good artists.\u00a0 We oftentimes push them in those agendas at the expense of spiritual kingdom development.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>Bob:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0 <\/strong>We\u2019re going to talk about that next week with Ken Hemphill.\u00a0 I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 Have a great weekend, we'll see you back Monday for another edition of <em>FamilyLife Today<\/em>. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<em>FamilyLife Today<\/em> is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tHelp for today.\u00a0 Hope for tomorrow.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright \u00a9 FamilyLife. All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>www.FamilyLife.com<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>","theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast\/302075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/podcast"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302075"},{"taxonomy":"podcast_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast_series?post=302075"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=302075"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=302075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}