![]() Without jobs, Tom’s underage sons snitched their dad’s moonshine and shadowed him to the downtown backstreets to pick up drink. Their mother, Alleta, was often “blue” and, when she had her “spells,” would take to bed for days at a stretch.Īll five boys had left school at age 16 or so, barely completing junior high, and were often out of work - in part a result of the Great Depression. Locals repeatedly told investigators that their father, Tom, was a physically abusive alcoholic who went on benders whenever he had a couple days off his job as a freight conductor on the Illinois Central railroad. The five Sullivan brothers and their sister Genevieve, or “Gen,” grew up with little parental guidance, according to interviews conducted soon after the disaster and in the years that followed. (Office of War Information poster 42, number 0254) All were lost with Juneau on 13 November of that year. ![]() ![]() THEY did their part." It shows the Sullivan brothers on board the light cruiser Juneau in early 1942. "The five Sullivan brothers 'missing in action' off the Solomons. The dead, the quickly dying, and assorted human carnage floated in a huge oil slick.Īlmost two months later, in early January 1943, the Navy gave fuller details of the eventual American victories at Guadalcanal, but also announced the great cost of the engagements. They were burned from the fire of the blowup, covered with thick oil, belching salt water. ![]() Many of those pitched clear soon died of their injuries, or of poisoning from the black fuel oil, scalding water, or flying metal. The explosion’s aftereffect might have sucked most of those on deck to the bottom, while the blast blew others to bits. The men below deck almost certainly drowned at once. Less than two years later at the pivotal battle of Guadalcanal, a torpedo from Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze ripped into the port side of the American light cruiser, taking out its steering and guns and killing 19 men in the forward engine room. The USS Juneau sits in New York Harbor on Feb. ![]()
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