USS Juneau-(5) Sullivan Brothers (Battle of Guadalcanal)
Historical Data of World War 11 USS Juneau and The (5) Sullivan Brothers: (CL-52): Named after the city in Alaska, A light cruiser commissioned in 1942, she was sunk eight months later in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
On Board the former light cruiser USS Juneau (CL-52) November 1942, were the (5) Sullivan Brothers, (Albert, Francis, George, Joseph and Madison, of Waterloo, Iowa),when the Battle of Guadalcanal commenced, in November 1942. Within a few minutes a Japanese torpedo struck the Juneau, and knocked out power to her fire control systems. She limped away from the battle struggling to make knot speed headway. Rejoining her battle group the following day, in a zig-zagging motion, approximately noontime she crossed paths with Japanese Submarine I-26.
I-26 fired (3) torpedoes at the USS San Francisco, all but one passed but one struck the crippled Juneau. Juneau's magazine exploded, chopping the light cruiser in half, and killing most of the on-board crew. She sank within minutes. The USS Helena ( later also sunk) transmitted a message that a B-17 picked up that the Juneau was sunk and survivors were in the water. Helen's message did not reach Noumea, and the number of Japanese ships and subs in this area were unknown. Because of possible further submarine attacks, the task-force did not check for survivors. About 115 of the Juneau's crew survived the explosion and were in the waters. Within (8) days after the Juneau sinking (10) survivors of the 115 were rescued. The remaining were either taken by exposure, exhaustion, or shark attacks.
USS Juneau-(CL-119) Commissioned 1946 / Decommissioned-Scrapped- 1962
USS Juneau-(5) Sullivan Brothers (Battle of Guadalcanal)
During the hours of research, I came across some very rare WW-11 photos of the original USS Juneau, photographed at her launching and a few months before she was sunk, the following day after the night of the Battle of Guadalcanal, November 1942. This was the ship the (5) Sullivan brothers were aboard.
