Sullivan brothers
On Saturday, March 17, 2018, the wreckage of the USS Juneau was discovered off the coast of the Solomon Islands by the expedition crew of RV Petrel, owned at the time by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
She was the girlfriend of Bill Ball, whose death while serving on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor prompted her brothers to join the Navy to avenge him.
Early in the morning of November 13, 1942, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Juneau exchanged fire with the destroyer Yūdachi but failed to make any hits.
[4] Later that day, as it was leaving the Solomon Islands' area for the Allied rear-area base at Espiritu Santo with other surviving US warships from battle, the force was located by the submarine I-26, which fired two torpedoes at the crippled heavy cruiser USS San Francisco.
The torpedo likely hit the thinly armored light cruiser at or near the ammunition magazines, and the ship was blown in half and quickly sank in a fiery explosion.
[5] Captain Gilbert C. Hoover, commanding officer of the light cruiser USS Helena, and the senior officer present afloat (SOPA) of the battle-damaged US task force, was skeptical that anyone had survived the sinking of Juneau and believed it would be reckless to look for survivors, thereby exposing his wounded ships to a still-lurking Japanese submarine.
Helena signaled a nearby US B-17 bomber on patrol to notify Allied headquarters to send aircraft or ships to search for survivors.
In actual fact, approximately 100 of Juneau's crew had survived the torpedo attack and the sinking of their ship and were left in the water.
The B-17 bomber crew, under orders not to break radio silence, did not pass the message about searching for survivors to their headquarters until they had landed several hours later.
It was not until days after the ship had been sunk that headquarters staff realized that a rescue operation had never been mounted, and belatedly ordered aircraft to begin searching the area.
The survivors reported that Frank, Joe and Matt were all killed instantly, Al drowned the next day, and George survived for four or five days,[3] before suffering from delirium as a result of hypernatremia (though some sources describe him being "driven insane with grief" at the loss of his brothers);[additional citation(s) needed] he climbed over the side of the raft he had occupied and fell into the water.
[6] That morning, the boys' father, Tom, was preparing for work when three men in uniform – a lieutenant commander, a doctor and a chief petty officer – approached his door.
[13] Thomas and Alleta Sullivan toured the country promoting war bonds and asked that none of their sons died in vain.
"[16] The Sullivans Association, an organization of veterans who served on both US Navy ships named after the brothers, conducted a reunion on September 25, 2011, in Waterloo, Iowa.
