Wreck of Juneau is found, 76 years after five brothers perished
In this underwater video image, an anti-aircraft gun can be seen in the wreckage from the USS Juneau, a U.S. Navy ship that was sunk by a Japanese torpedo 76 years ago. The ship was found this month in the South Pacific off the coast of the Solomon Islands.
At the Battle of Guadalcanal during World War II, hundreds of sailors — including five from the same family — lost their lives while serving on the same ship for the U.S. Navy.
The ship, the cruiser Juneau, was blasted apart by a Japanese torpedo on Nov. 13, 1942. For decades it was lost, resting in pieces somewhere in the South Pacific.
Now it's been found, after a team onboard the Petrel, a research vessel funded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, identified the wreckage about 2.6 miles underwater off the coast of the Solomon Islands.
It was found on St. Patrick's Day, a bit of coincidence because among the hundreds aboard the Juneau when it sank were five brothers from a large Irish-Catholic family. Because they were all serving together, the sons of Thomas and Alleta Sullivan, of Waterloo, Iowa, were well known even before they deployed.
News outlets interviewed them. They had their picture taken on the Juneau when it was commissioned Feb. 14, 1942. They met champion boxer Jack Dempsey at his restaurant in New York City. Then they went to war. During the Battle of Guadalcanal, a series of clashes between Allied and Japanese forces on and around the island of Guadalcanal from 1942 to 1943, thousands of men lost their lives and dozens of ships were destroyed. U.S. troops eventually pushed Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, marking a turning point for the Allies in the Pacific.
But the Sullivan brothers The USS Juneau is shown in October 1941, just after being launched at the Federal Shipbuilding Company in Kearny, N.J. The ship’s wreckage was found on St. Patrick’s Day. Among the sailors who died on it when it was torpedoed in 1942 were the five Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa.
did not see the outcome of those battles, and they never returned to Waterloo.
For Kelly Sullivan, the granddaughter of Albert, the youngest of the Sullivan brothers and the only one who had married, the discovery of the Juneau was bittersweet. She was excited by the news, she said, and grateful to Allen and the researchers on his team.
But at the same time, she added, ‘‘it kind of opens up a scab. You feel that loss. I don’t have the big IrishCatholic family that I would
have had if even one of the boys had survived.’’
The Juneau was spotted in an area so littered with warships and debris that it is sometimes referred to as Iron Bottom Sound.
‘‘It suffered massive damage on the surface and was broken into pieces probably before it sank completely, so the wreckage was scattered over a mile,’’ said David Reams, senior director for Allen’s maritime operations.