Most gruesome shark attack in history saw 150 sailors eaten one by one

150 people died in history's worst ever recorded shark attack and it's connected to a very famous incident you've probably heard of before.

Of all the creatures you'd least want to share a body of water with, the shark has got to be up there at the very top of the list.

Their carnivorous diet, rows of razor sharp teeth and ability to sniff out the smallest drop of blood from great distances away makes them champion chompers.

While sharks have their own predators in the deep blue sea, those creatures don't tend to have a hunger for humans so you'd only really be in trouble if they mistook you for one of their usual targets.

There are plenty of sharks which would also prefer not to bite chunks out of humans and mind their own business, but it's the ones who think otherwise that you've got to watch out for.

There have been plenty of narrow escapes from shark attacks and they have been spotted deploying some very devious tactics to sneak up on unsuspecting swimmers.

However, when sharks attack the number of victims tends to be incredibly low, whereas history's worst ever shark attack claimed around 150 lives over the course of several days.

Aviation History Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

In the final days of the Second World War, a US heavy cruiser called the USS Indianapolis was sent on a secret mission to deliver uranium and other components for the nuclear bomb which would later be known as the 'Little Boy' and dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

Four days after the Indianapolis delivered her secret cargo, she was attacked by a Japanese submarine and hit by two torpedoes, sinking the vessel in about 12 minutes.

Of the almost 1,200 strong crew of the Indianapolis, around 300 went down with the ship while the remaining 900 were left stranded in the Pacific Ocean.

It would be three-and-a-half days before anyone actually knew the survivors were still out there floating in the ocean, and in that time they were forced to endure the worst shark attack in history.

imageBROKER / Alamy Stock Photo

Drawn by the sound of explosions and the movement of 1,800 legs thrashing around in the water, hundreds of incredibly aggressive Oceanic Whitetip sharks appeared and began feasting on the dead.

However, they didn't stay eating the dead for long and the ravenous sharks soon turned their teeth towards the surviving sailors.

Of the 900 who went into the water only 316 survived, and of those who died in the sinking of the Indianapolis 150 of them were eaten alive by the swarming sharks.

There's a very good chance you've heard of this incident before, and that's because it's the centrepiece of one of the most iconic scenes from Jaws.

Universal Pictures

In the movie Quint (Robert Shaw) reveals he was on the Indianapolis and gives a harrowing account of the shark attack.

While Quint says one of the reasons for so many lives being lost is that the ship never sent out a distress signal due to the top secret nature of its mission that's actually not true.

Tragically, three stations received a distress signal from the Indianapolis but received no response as one station commander was drunk, another told his men not to disturb him and a third assumed the signal was a Japanese trap.