Alabamians are taking pride in the state’s role in the new World War II movie, “USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage,” starring Nicolas Cage, filmed on the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay and in the Gulf at Orange Beach. The movie is in theaters Memorial Day weekend.
But there’s a much more personal angle for one Alabama Power employee.
The grandfather of Todd Perkins, a communications specialist in Public Relations, rescued sailors from the Indianapolis, which is a major focus of the movie. The ship was sunk by two Japanese torpedoes after delivering components of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.
The Indianapolis was on a secret mission, which is why the rescue of crew members took four days. Many were killed by sharks.
Horace Taylor, of Etowah County, Perkins’ grandfather, was a gunner’s mate and gun captain on the USS Register, which rescued 12 of the 317 survivors from the original crew of 1,196.
“He talked about picking up their crew members,” Perkins said. “He said he would reach down and grab a guy in the water to pull him in and the bottom half of him would be gone, eaten by a shark. He always seemed to wince when he talked about it. He said it was the worst part of the war for him, which is saying something since he survived a kamikaze attack.”
He doesn’t recall his grandfather having emotional issues because of the gruesome rescue.
“You could tell it was not pleasant for him, but at the same time, I don’t think it haunted him,” Perkins said. “Just like the rest of his life, I think he was proud to be there to help those in need.”
Taylor earlier served on the USS Memphis, the flagship escorting President Franklin Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference in Morocco in 1943. There, Roosevelt met with United Kingdom Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill to plan the next phase of Allied strategy for the war in Europe.
Perkins, a Tuscaloosa native, relished hearing his grandfather’s war stories.
“I don’t know exactly how old I was, but he told me about it several times as a child and a teenager,” Perkins said.
Perkins found video on the internet of the USS Register rescuing Indianapolis sailors, and an earlier kamikaze attack his grandfather survived on the Register, but it was years after his grandfather’s death in 2005.
“It made the stories so much more real. In one frame you can actually see him behind his gun. All it did was reaffirm how proud I am of him.”
Perkin’s familiarity with the rescue led him to notice inaccuracies in the recently released promotional trailer for the film.
“The USS Alabama was a battleship. The Indianapolis was a heavy cruiser. There is a scene with the Alabama’s 16-inch guns and multiple 5-inch guns in the background. The Indy only had 8-inch guns and much fewer 5-inch guns,” Perkins said.
Nonetheless, he anticipates watching the movie.
“I have seen others in the past, including ‘Mission of the Shark, with Stacy Keach, which was pretty good,” Perkins said. “With today’s special effects, I expect this movie to seem much more realistic. The fact it was filmed in Alabama, on the USS Alabama, makes it even more exciting.”
