The story of the five fighting Sullivan' brothers who paid the supreme sacrifice
It was on November 13, 1942, that the USS Juneau was sunk, when struck by a Japanese torpedo. Aboard that ship were five brothers named Sullivan. They had enlisted after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
They were: George Thomas Sullivan, 27; Francis "Frank" Henry Sullivan, 26; Joseph "Joe" Eugene Sullivan, 24; Madison "Matt" Abel Sullivan, 23; and, Albert "Al" Leo Sullivan, 20.
Shortly after the tragedy of the sinking of ship, a black sedan pulled up at the Sullivan’s’ home in Waterloo, Iowa, on January 12, 1943, and three uniformed men got out—a lieutenant commander, a medical doctor, and a chief petty officer.
Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan were standing on the front lawn---holding each other very close. Picture that scene for a moment. You could cut the fear with a knife. "I have some news for you about your boys," the navy commander said. The silence was broken when the father, Thomas Sullivan, asked, “Which one?” “I’m sorry sir,” said the commander. “All Five.”
How does a nation express its undying gratitude for such a loss? The answer: It can’t.
We merely blush with our own inadequacy in the presence of such sacrifice. There is a host of American heroes to whom this country owes a great debt of gratitude which it can never repay. They are, as Sir Winston Churchill so rightly called them, “our honored dead.”
And the story of the Five Fighting Sullivan’s lives on in our Nation’s history.
Posted on
Mon, May 2, 2011
by Hugh Morgan