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The men below deck almost certainly drowned at once. The explosion\u2019s aftereffect might have sucked most of those on deck to the bottom, while the blast blew others to bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of those pitched clear soon died of their injuries, or of poisoning from the black fuel oil, scalding water, or flying metal. They were burned from the fire of the blowup, covered with thick oil, belching salt water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dead, the quickly dying, and assorted human carnage floated in a huge oil slick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost two months later, in early January 1943, the Navy gave fuller details of the eventual American victories at Guadalcanal, but also announced the great cost of the engagements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the losses on Juneau were the five brothers from Iowa<\/a>, the Sullivans: George, 27; Francis, or \u201cFrank,\u201d 26; Joseph, known as \u201cRed,\u201d 24; Madison, or \u201cMatt,\u201d 23; and Albert, or \u201cAl,\u201d 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was \u2014 and remains \u2014 the single greatest wartime sacrifice of any American family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Navy immediately picked up a thread begun before the brothers\u2019 deaths to weave a story about the Sullivan family \u2014 one continued by newspapers, filmmakers, and Midwestern and national leaders. It was American myth-making at its finest, serving to distract a grieving family from its loss, misdirect attention from a series of Navy bungles, and help accustom a nation to the idea of sacrifice for the greater good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Varied authorities with mass media pull would convince Americans of the boys\u2019 luster as the brothers and their family became cogs in a propaganda machine that would transform them all into heroes \u2014 individuals unrecognizable to their Waterloo, Iowa, hometown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The five Sullivan brothers and their sister Genevieve, or \u201cGen,\u201d grew up with little parental guidance, according to interviews conducted soon after the disaster and in the years that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Locals repeatedly told investigators that their father, Tom, was a physically abusive alcoholic who went on benders whenever he had a couple days off his job as a freight conductor on the Illinois Central railroad. Their mother, Alleta, was often \u201cblue\u201d and, when she had her \u201cspells,\u201d would take to bed for days at a stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All five boys had left school at age 16 or so, barely completing junior high, and were often out of work \u2014 in part a result of the Great Depression. Without jobs, Tom\u2019s underage sons snitched their dad\u2019s moonshine and shadowed him to the downtown backstreets to pick up drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1937, George and Frank enlisted in the peacetime Navy, serving together for four years; when they returned home in May 1941 they found work with their brothers at the local meatpacking plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the 1930s, the family lived a stone\u2019s throw north of the black neighborhood. Like most whites, the ethnic working class of Waterloo was not at all friendly to \u201cthe colored\u201d and kept its distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not the Sullivans, according to town residents. Neighbors spoke of the boys lurking in the African American slum; there they \u201cstirred the shit,\u201d one of its residents recalled, initiating fights so they could beat up blacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was too much even for white Waterloo, which saw the Sullivan youth as \u201cmischief-makers,\u201d acting out a malicious streak a few blocks south of their home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the late 1930s, the brothers were mainstays in an early motorcycle club. The \u201cHarley Club\u201d organized rallies and meetings at a biker bar and sped around Waterloo wearing military-style outfits of Italian Fascist design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more genteel folks in Waterloo averted their eyes from the scene, intimidated by a large group of men in soldiers\u2019 outfits. One often-repeated story claimed that the boys filched gasoline to fuel their vehicles, and stole and \u201crefurbished\u201d bikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The motorcycle club to which they belonged only underscored a way of life not particularly admirable in the eyes of their fellow Iowans. By 1940 and 1941, the brothers had grown up to be habitu\u00e9s of saloons and dance halls, drinking and brawling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The dramatic American entry into World War II galvanized the five Sullivans, giving their lives an object and shape they had not previously had. The brothers immediately decided to join the Navy \u2014 even the youngest, Al, who had married at 17 and had a 21-month-old son, Jimmy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe had 5 buddies killed in Hawaii. Help us,\u201d George wrote to the Department of the Navy in late December, asking that the Sullivans and two friends from their motorcycle club be allowed to serve together, as they \u201cwould make a team together that can\u2019t be beat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s where we want to go now, Pearl Harbor,\u201d explained Frank to the Des Moines Register.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the boys passed their physicals at the Des Moines recruiting headquarters in early January, the Register wrote that \u201cfive husky Waterloo brothers\u201d who had lost friends at Pearl Harbor were accepted as recruits. A photo of them reenacting their physical exams ran along with the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In January 1942, the seven team members \u2014 the Sullivans and their Harley Club sidekicks \u2014 began their month-long training at Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With their prior Navy experience, George became a gunner\u2019s mate second class and Frank a coxswain; the three younger boys and two friends who enlisted with them were all seaman second class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Navy acceded to the Sullivans\u2019 wish that they serve on the same ship; the service may not have encouraged family members to serve together, but it did not discourage the practice and even emphasized how it might keep families\u2014two, three, four siblings\u2014whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the day the brothers\u2019 assigned ship, the Juneau, was commissioned\u2014 Feb. 14, 1942 \u2014 a photographer took a shot of the five smiling Sullivans on board the vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The publicity photo would later become a familiar emblem of American sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The family now regularly made the front pages in Waterloo, and the city knew Tom and Alleta\u2019s children as \u201cthe Navy\u2019s five Sullivans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March 1942, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox asked Mrs. Sullivan to \u201csponsor\u201d a ship; she agreed to christen a fleet tug, Tawasa. Ceremonial duties and honors continued to roll in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brand-new Juneau spent its first months in service at the periphery of combat against Germany, in the Caribbean and North and South Atlantic before steaming for the southwestern Pacific on Aug. 22, 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With its specialized array of antiaircraft guns, the speedy Atlanta-class light cruiser could protect naval forces from enemy planes. But, with its lightly armored hull and deck, it could be a deathtrap if called upon to attack surface vessels, or if put in their way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The insubstantial armor also made the light cruiser dangerously vulnerable to torpedoes. After the war, many authorities would testify that these antiaircraft cruisers were high-speed ammunition dumps, easily wiped out by ship-to-ship combat \u2014 exactly the sort of battle in which the Juneau was engaged in November 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Juneau sank, the crippled group of ships it had trailed hastened on: Japanese subs were still in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is certain that all on board perished,\u201d an officer on one of the vessels noted. \u201cNothing could be seen in the water when the smoke lifted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Within a half hour of the sinking, however, an American B-17 bomber flying overhead spotted men in the sea. There were 100 to 200 sailors \u2014 many of them badly injured \u2014 clinging to debris from the cruiser: mattresses, life jackets, tarpaulins, and three oval rafts, 10 by 5 feet, with decks of wooden slats and attached ropes to accommodate hangers-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The B-17 radioed the commander of the flotilla, Capt. Gilbert Hoover of the light cruiser Helena, who continued onward \u2014 perhaps misunderstanding; perhaps not wanting to risk more men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aircraft circled again to drop supplies, yet for several days the Navy did nothing to assist the sailors. As time went by, their numbers thinned as the remnants of Juneau\u2019s crew succumbed to their injuries, dehydration, or shark attack \u2014 a common cause of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When South Pacific Area commander Adm. William F. Halsey learned what had happened, he immediately stripped Capt. Hoover of his command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time the survivors were collected \u2014 a week after the sinking, on Nov. 19-20 \u2014 only 10 men remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At least one, maybe two, of the Sullivans survived the initial sinking. Two survivors remembered the death of the eldest Sullivan, George, in particular. He had been on board one of the small life rafts and, after three or four days, was weak and hallucinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One night, Gunner\u2019s Mate 2nd Class Allen Heyn recalled, George declared that he was going to take a bath. He removed his uniform and jumped into the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A little way from his raft, \u201ca shark came and grabbed him and that was the end of him,\u201d Heyn told a naval interrogator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never seen him again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In early 1943, gossip circulating through Waterloo compelled Alleta to send a poignant letter to the Department of the Navy: \u201cI am writing you in regard to a rumor going around that my five sons have been killed in action in November. A friend from here came and told me she got a letter from her son and he heard my five sons were killed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She added, \u201cI am to christen the U.S.S. TAWASA Feb. 12th at Portland, Oregon. If anything has happened to my five sons, I will still christen the ship as it was their wish that I do so. I hated to bother you, but it has worried me so that I wanted to know if it was true. So please tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday morning, Jan. 11, she got her answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019m bringing you very bad news,\u201d Lt. Cmdr.Truman Jones told Tom and Alleta and Al\u2019s wife, Keena, as they gathered in the family\u2019s living room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jones read from a prepared script: \u201cThe Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your sons Albert, Francis, George, Joseph, and Madison Sullivan are missing in action in the South Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The formal announcement made no mention of the foul-ups that punctuated the final act of this drama. As attention across the United States focused on the family at home, the service reframed the colossal loss as an explicable national misfortune and came forward to sympathize and show solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the behest of the Navy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote Alleta a personal letter of condolence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs Commander in Chief of the Army and the Navy, I want you to know the entire nation shares your sorrow. I offer you the condolence and gratitude of our country. We, who remain to carry on the fight, must maintain the spirit in the knowledge that such sacrifice is not in vain,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naval authorities encouraged the parents to come to Washington, where First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Vice President Henry A. Wallace met with the parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of this may have stirred resentment among Waterloo families who had also suffered losses. In a letter, Alleta later told a friend that the Navy had urged her to disregard the unkind treatment or talk she had complained of receiving back home, telling her \u2014 perversely \u2014 \u201cit was just jealousy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vice Adm. Clark H. Woodward, at the helm of the Navy\u2019s Industrial Incentive Division, arranged a further project for the grieving parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For four months, beginning in February 1943, the Sullivan couple traveled around the United States with a message for the millions in defense industries on the importance of productivity on the home front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Navy had other goals as well. If citizens, at the urging of Mom and Pop Sullivan, rededicated themselves to winning the war, the nation might justify the five deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What had happened to the Juneau had also shocked Navy officers, who wanted to mourn with the parents. The service would give Alleta and Tom something to do so that they would not focus on what could not be altered or alleviated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, the Navy wanted to keep the nation\u2019s attention away from details of the deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sullivan parents made scores of stops at defense production plants and war bond rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have no regrets that our boys joined the Navy,\u201d Alleta told one audience, in remarks typical of the tour. \u201cI\u2019d want them to do it again; it made men of them. I have a little grandson, Jimmy, who is almost two, and when he gets old enough, I want him to join\u2026. My boys did not die in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The circuit had to have been grueling \u2014 Alleta was reported to have broken down, sobbing, at a stop in San Francisco \u2014 but she did see one positive in it: \u201cThe trip has kept me from thinking\u2026,\u201d she told a reporter. \u201cIt\u2019s bad to think too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manufacturing and military leaders were appreciative as well. Businessmen praised the Sullivan parents in letters to the Navy, saying that these \u201cplain common Americans\u201d \u201cstirred\u2026workers deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an internal memo, Undersecretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal wrote to Navy Secretary Knox that the parents were a \u201cremarkable success\u201d and hoped that the Navy could \u201cuse them to the maximum degree<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Sullivan-brothers.jpeg.jpg\")
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