First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal - Sidebar: November ‘97 World War II Feature

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The Five Sullivan Brothers Perished with the Cruiser USS Juneau

When Hollywood re-created the sinking of USS Juneau, the cruiser was shown being torpedoed and sunk at night to heighten the drama.

The fact of the matter is that Juneau was sunk in broad daylight, but the horror needed no accentuation. Nearly 700 American sailors died in a grim epilogue to the naval battle fought off Guadalcanal on November 13, 1942. Aboard Juneau were all five Sullivan brothers, from Waterloo, Iowa: George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert.

All five had enlisted in the Navy on January 3, 1942, when they heard that their mutual friend, Bill Ball, of Fredericksburg, Iowa, had been killed aboard USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. For George and Francis it would be their second hitch in the Navy.

When the five brothers enlisted, they gave their naval recruiter a tough condition–all five Sullivans had to serve together. The Navy agreed, and nine months later the Sullivans reported aboard USS Juneau, a new 6,000-ton warship equipped for anti-aircraft warfare with 12 high-angle, 5-inch guns.

Dawn on November 13 found Juneau badly damaged by an enemy torpedo in the port fireroom. The crew was nursing the ship to safety.

By 11 a.m., the force was sailing along at 18 knots. Everybody was taking a breather from the strain of battle and damage control. On the destroyer Fletcher, Lt. Cmdr. J.C. Wylie, the ship’s executive officer, sat with his skipper, Commander Bill Cole, discussing the after-action report. Both were exhausted and were breaking the rules by indulging in a cup of medicinal whiskey from sick bay stores.

Aboard the cruiser Helena, Lieutenant William Jones was sitting in the main battery control. He stepped outside on deck to get some air.

At that moment, on Juneau, Gunner’s Mate Second Class Allen Clifton Heyn prepared to relieve a shipmate on a 1.1-inch anti-aircraft gun on the fantail. Heyn said to his shipmate, "Are you all ready?"

The sailor "just looked at me," Heyn said later, "with his mouth open. I didn’t know what it was…everybody was just standing there and then [there was] an explosion."

On Fletcher, Cole and Wylie had just finished dividing the whiskey when they heard "the most tremendous explosion I could have ever imagined," Wylie said later. The two officers dashed out of the chart house and looked aft to see an enormous mushroom of smoke rising from where Juneau had been. A 5-inch gun mount came flying at Fletcher. Cole and Wylie called for emergency flank speed and hit alarm bells. Wylie said to Cole, "My God, the welders must have touched off a magazine."

On Helena, Jones saw Juneau explode. He later said it looked like pictures of an atomic bomb blast. As he started to step into the main battery to avoid being hit by flying debris, he was blown right against the bulkhead by the shock wave. Jones watched a 5-inch gun mount from Juneau sail overhead and hit the water behind Helena.

Aboard Juneau, Heyn was thrown against his gun mount, one foot painfully pinned by the gun shield. He grabbed a nearby life jacket and took a deep breath as water closed over him. Suddenly, the sheet of steel pinning his foot was removed, and Heyn floated to the surface.

In less than a minute Juneau had disappeared, leaving behind a pall of smoke, hurling debris half a mile.

On Helena the officers trained a battery of binoculars in Juneau’s direction. An officer said, "There are no survivors." But the men aboard Fletcher were less certain. Cole ordered right full rudder to look for possible survivors.

On Helena, Captain Gilbert C. Hoover, in overall command, was doing some quick figuring. He had only one destroyer capable of tracking a submarine, there was at least one enemy sub nearby, and his other ships were damaged. The heavy cruiser San Francisco and the destroyer Sterett were cripples. Helena was the only combat-ready cruiser in that part of the Pacific. If Hoover stayed in the area, more ships might be sunk. And there just did not seem to be any survivors from Juneau in the water.

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