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| Joseph Sullivan served on the USS Juneau with his brothers Frank, Albert, Madison, and George. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10092/joseph-eugene-sullivan |
Joseph Eugene Sullivan never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on August 28, 1918 in Iowa. His parents Thomas and Alleta were also both born in Iowa. His father worked as a railroad conductor. Joseph had two older brothers, an older sister and two younger brothers. By 1940 Joseph had completed two years of high school and was working as a plant laborer while still living at home.
He enlisted in the US Navy along with his two younger brothers, Madison and Albert on January 3, 1942. His two older brothers George and Francis had served in the Navy before and they reenlisted. Although it was against Navy policy for siblings to serve on the same ship, the Sullivans were able to get this requirement waived. They were all mustered to serve on the light cruiser USS Juneau. Joseph became a seaman second class.
Juneau supported the American effort to remove the Japanese from Guadalcanal. During the night of November 12-13, 1942 it participated in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
Early in the darkness of Friday, November 13, 1942, a Japanese naval force of two battleships, one light cruiser and nine destroyers approached Guadalcanal. In contrast, the Americans had two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eight destroyers. In the costly battle, Juneau suffered a torpedo hit that broke her keel and knocked out most of its systems. Having no ability to contribute to the battle, it withdrew out of harm's way.
With many of the surviving American ships heavily damaged, they retreated away from Guadalcanal during the daylight hours of November 13. During the retreat, Juneau was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sank with all but 100 of its crew. Fearing additional submarine attacks, the other ships did not remain to pick up survivors. Due to poor communications, the survivors were not picked up for another eight days at which time only ten men were left. There testimony reported that Joseph, Francis and Madison never made it off the torpedoed ship. Al survived one day after the sinking and George lasted four or five days. The five Sullivan bothers were among the 687 men who were lost at sea.
On January 12, 1943 three navy representatives visited the Sullivan home. The naval officer told Thomas Sullivan, "I have some news about your boys." Mr. Sullivan asked, "Which one?" The officer replied, "All of them."
The destroyer USS The Sullivans was named in the honor of the brothers and was in service from 1943 to 1965.
The wreckage of the Juneau was discovered five months ago by Micro-soft cofounder Paul Allen.
Joseph's cenotaph grave is at Arlington National Cemetery.
Last year on this date I profiled B-17 waist gunner Cletis Campbell and the man who created Marvel Comic's Captain America. You can read about Cletis here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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