Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Inseparables
Others on as s found
my third graders said, ‘Look, you can the letters on the ship.’ I got chills. My dad said to me, ‘I don’t know how xplain how I am feeling, because I t explain it myself.’ That is how I am ng, it’s bittersweet. It’s reopened me wounds for us all, but I am still y excited that this happened.” ll Ball was a friend of the Sullivans when they heard he had died in the anese attack on Pearl Harbour on ember 7, 1941, they signed up. he Navy discouraged siblings from ing together but the brothers kept he family motto “We Stick Together”. eorge wrote a letter to the Navy artment saying: “We’ve always ght for each other and now we want to continue fighting side by side.” Kelly, 47, says: “My grandpa and uncles, along with the other Juneau sailors, all enlisted right after Pearl Harbour. All of them had such dedication to their country.”
The US was so shocked by the boys’ deaths that new regulations were introduced to protect members of a family from combat if they had lost relatives in the military.
The Sullivans were famous even before they died, with the Navy using them as poster boys. “Seeing those five strapping men on the poster, what could be a better way to recruit?” Kelly says. In her grief, Alleta threw herself into the war effort and toured the country with her husband, selling war bonds together. In 1944 the boys’ story was told in a film, The Fighting Sullivans, which was nominated for an Oscar. Losing her five brothers took its toll on Kelly’s great-aunt Genevieve and she enlisted in the Navy.
Kelly says: “I think she felt a desire to continue the patriotic spirit. I think she also felt like she was the last one left but the one who was never good enough.”
Following in his family’s footsteps, Jim joined the Navy when he was 17 but told no one he was Albert Sullivan’s son.
“When he graduated from boot camp reporters came to take pictures and his shipmates said, ‘Why are they making such a big deal? We look good in our uniforms too’. Then they realised.
“They tried to get him to serve on the SS The Sullivans but he didn’t want to.”
It is likely that the brothers will stay with Juneau on the seabed for ever. Sam Lagrone of the United States Naval Institute, says: “Bringing it up might be almost impossible. The Navy treats the site like a military grave and it’s almost certain it will remain undisturbed.”
One day, Kelly wants to sail out on the USS The Sullivans to the site, along with others whose relatives perished.
She hopes the legacy of the Sullivans’ patriotism lives on through her and her children, Kelcie, 20, and Luke, 18.
Kelly says: “The Sullivans are talked about because of how the family persevered, with Genevieve joining the Navy and my great-grandparents raising money. As my great-grandmother said, ‘My boys did not die in vain.’”