The Sullivan brothers

Good morning,

I hope you had a great weekend. This week I bring you a tragic but interesting story of 5 brothers who all served and died together.

Today we salute......

The Sullivan Brothers

These 5 Irish American brothers were all Sailors in WWII and the story is both heart warming and tragic. ⬇️ 

The 5 Brothers grew up in Waterloo, Lowa in a traditional Catholic family and were all born from 1914 to 1922 to Tom and Alleta, their father and mother. The brothers, from eldest to youngest were George, Francis, Joseph, Madison, Albert and on January 3rd 1942 they were all enlisted into the Navy onboard USS Juneau.

Though the Navy was already working on a policy prohibiting brothers serving on the same ship, when the five Sullivan brothers requested it in January 1942, the Navy agreed.

Five brothers going off to serve together was big news in Waterloo. The Waterloo Iowa Courier, in a story about local boys going off to war, asked Alleta Sullivan how she felt about all five of her sons going to war together. “I remember I was crying a little,” she said. No doubt it was far more than “a little.”

All five were assigned to the USS Juneau, a light cruiser, and sailed off "into harm’s way” in the Pacific later that year. One can only imagine the anguish Alleta and Thomas felt waiting for each letter to arrive to confirm that their sons were still alive.

Then suddenly, after a letter dated November 8th, the letters stopped. This was due to the government not wanting to give the Japanese any information on any battle losses, the Sullivan’s did not know for some time that the Juneau had been sunk.

Weeks passed, it must have seemed like years for the distraught Sullivans. Rumors began to circulate around Waterloo about a disaster involving the brothers, but still the family heard nothing from the Navy. Then, the family got a letter from one of the 10 survivors of the sinking, who had been a good friend of George’s on the ship. “I am afraid all hope is gone for your boys,” he wrote. “I don’t know whether a letter of this sort helps you or hurts. But it’s the truth. I saw it.”

When the Waterloo Daily Courier published a headline “FIVE NAVY SULLIVANS MISSING,” it included an interview with the distraught mother. She had hoped that they would “show up somewhere someday soon, but if they are gone it will be some comfort to know that they went together, as they wanted, and gave their lives for their country’s victory.” Each day of waiting for word must seemed like a lifetime.

When Alleta opened the door one day, she saw Lt. Commander Truman Jones in full-dress uniform, grim-faced. She must have known the news she dreaded had arrived. Though Jones could only say for sure that all five of their sons were missing in action, he must have also let them know that they were “presumed dead.” "Loss of the five Sullivan brothers ranks as the greatest single blow suffered by any one family since Pearl Harbor and probably in American Naval history,” the Navy’s public statement would later say. Shortly after Jones saw them, they received a letter from President Roosevelt.

Tom passed away in March 1965 and Alleta in April 1972. They lived alone with their tremendous loss through those final decades, with the media no longer beating down their door. Through those years, however, they did sometimes have unexpected visitors.

Sailors who had known their sons, and other sailors who simply knew of them, would sometimes stop by to give their condolences

May they Rest in Peace.

Did you know?

Their legacy lives on:

• A museum wing in Iowa was completed in 2008 and was build in their honor

• The Navy shortly after their deaths changed the policy so that this scenario could never happen again

• The Navy named two destroyers to honor the brothers and the motto for both ships was "we stick together"

• Their story inspired the film "Saving Private Ryan"

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