USS Juneau Poster

Her name is forever bound to one of the most heartbreaking stories of the entire war — the tale of five brothers who served together, and died together. USS Juneau was an Atlanta-class light cruiser, fast and bristling with anti-aircraft guns, designed to protect carriers and fleets from air attack, and she fought in the savage naval battles for Guadalcanal in the autumn of 1942. Among her crew were the five Sullivan brothers — George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert — young men from Waterloo, Iowa, who had enlisted together after a friend was killed at Pearl Harbor, on the condition that they be allowed to serve on the same ship. The Navy, against its usual practice, granted their wish, and all five sailed aboard Juneau, a band of brothers in the most literal sense. In the chaotic, close-range Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942 — a wild night action fought at point-blank range in the dark waters off the island — Juneau was struck by a Japanese torpedo and badly damaged. The next morning, as she limped away from the battle in company with other crippled ships, a torpedo from a Japanese submarine struck her near the magazines. The cruiser blew up in a single catastrophic explosion and vanished beneath the waves in a matter of moments, leaving little behind. Believing that no one could possibly have survived such a blast, and fearing further submarine attacks on the surviving ships, the other vessels did not stop to search. But there were survivors — over a hundred men who had escaped the sinking, now left adrift in the open sea. For days they floated under the burning tropical sun, without enough rafts, food or water, dying one by one from their wounds, from exposure and exhaustion, and from repeated shark attacks, as a series of tragic delays and miscommunications held up the rescue. By the time help finally arrived, only ten men were pulled alive from the water. All five Sullivan brothers were lost. Their deaths, when the news reached home, stunned the entire nation, and their family's grief became the country's grief. The tragedy led the United States military to review and tighten its policies to reduce the chance of a single family suffering such total loss. In their honour the Navy named a destroyer USS The Sullivans — a name it proudly carries to this day, ensuring the brothers are never forgotten. To reconstruct USS Juneau is to remember more than a warship; it is to remember the Sullivan brothers and the more than seven hundred men lost with her, and the terrible price that families paid in that war. Her story broke a nation's heart and changed how a country thought about the sons it sent to sea. She is a memorial in steel to sacrifice, to brotherhood, and to the cost of victory.