Military Myths & Legends: The Fighting Sullivan Brothers

The dramatic story of Steven Spielberg's award-winning 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan" was loosely based on the Niland brothers' story and the tragic tales of other American brothers who served and died in World War II. 

Upon joining the military, the four Niland brothers-Robert, Preston, Edward and Fritz- of Tonawanda, New York, were spread out amongst various units with Fritz and Robert in the 501st and 505th Parachute Infantries, respectively, and Preston in the 22nd Infantry and Edward in the Air Force. All four were supposedly killed in action. Fritz, however, was alive in France.  

When George Marshall General of the Army, Army of the United States, heard three Niland brothers were dead and Fritz still fighting in France, he ordered Fritz to be shipped home so the Niland and other families with sons severing in the war wouldn't lose all their sons. 

Fritz was shipped to England, then back home to New York, where he served as an M.P for the remainder of the war. Back at home, Fritz and his family grieved over the loss of his brothers, but then they got one piece of good news; Edward, presumed dead, had in fact been found alive in a Japanese POW camp where he'd been held until Burma was liberated. Now, a second Niland brother was on his way home.

This loss of family members such as the Niland's serving in war zones helped established the creation of the Sole Survivor Policy or DoD Directive 1315.15 "Special Separation Policies for Survivorship" describes a set of regulations in the Military of the United States that are designed to protect members of a family from the draft or from combat duty if they have already lost family members in military service.

Among the families that lost loved ones serving in World War II was the Sullivan family who lived in Waterloo, Iowa, population 50,000 in 1942. 

Thomas F. Sullivan, the head of the family, worked for the Illinois Central railroad. He was named after his grandfather who had been born in Ireland. Tom Sullivan married Alleta Abel in 1914 at St. Joseph's Catholic church. As was typical of Irish-Catholic families of that generation, they lost no time in starting a large family.

The Sullivan family led lives much like other middle-class families of the 1920s and 1930s. It was Depression time and Tom Sullivan was fortunate that he had a job. Not all his children were able to finish high school. A few of the boys found it necessary to help meet the household expenses. Most of the family found work at the Rath meat packing plant. When the two oldest, George and Frank, returned home from a hitch in the Navy, all five Sullivan brothers were working together again, just as they were when playing sports on that lot next door to their home.

The youngest, Albert was the first to get married. He and his wife Mary became parents when their son, James Thomas, was born on May 11, 1940. The other brothers would probably have done the same, but World War II got in the way. 

When reports were received about the death of their friend, Bill Ball, who was on the battleship Arizona when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the five brothers-George, Frank, Joe, Matt, and Al Sullivan-all joined the Navy on the same day shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As they signed up, they stated that they had just one stipulation: If they were going to serve, the requested the Navy to allow them to stay together throughout their service. The Navy agreed.

On January 3, 1942, less than a month after Pearl Harbor, they were sworn in at Des Moines and left for Great Lakes Training Center. Following their training, all five were assigned to the light cruiser USS Juneau, which was part of a large U.S. Navy task force operating in the waters around New Caledonia. By August 1942, the USS Juneau was participating in the months-long Guadalcanal Campaign.

On the evening of November 12th, air reconnaissance discovered the approach of a large Japanese task force approaching Guadalcanal.  The engagement began about 1:45 am of November 13, 1942. There was no moon that night and there was instant chaos as searchlights suddenly illuminated the two adversaries at close range to one another. All ships unleashed their barrage of heavy armaments at point blank range. Within 30 minutes the engagement was essentially over. 

The Japanese lost a battleship and two destroyers. Five of the 13 U.S. ships had been sunk or were heavily damaged. Many men were lost, including the task force commander, Rear Admiral Callaghan. The USS Juneau had just barely survived, having received a torpedo hit on its port side which left a gaping hole and an almost severed keel, forcing the ship to withdraw.

Later that day, as it was leaving the Solomon Islands' area for the Allied rear-area base at Espiritu Santo with other surviving U.S. warships from battle, the USS Juneau was struck again, this time by a torpedo from Japanese submarine I-26. The torpedo likely hit the thinly armored light cruiser at or near the ammunition magazines and the ship exploded and in a large cloud of black, yellow black, and brown smoke. Debris showered down among ships of the formation for several minutes after the explosion to such an extent as to indicate erroneously, a high-level bombing attack. 

The captain of the USS San Francisco, H.E. Shonland, reported that: "It is certain that all on board perished." Captain Shonland was wrong-there were survivors from the Juneau. It was not known exactly how many made it into life rafts; there were at least 80. Among them was George Sullivan, the oldest brother, and Al, who drowned the next day. Frank, Joe and Matt had been killed instantly when the ship exploded.

Captain Gilbert C. Hoover, commanding officer of the light cruiser USS Helena and senior officer present in the battle-damaged US task force, was also skeptical that anyone had survived the sinking of the Juneau and believed it would be reckless to look for survivors, thereby exposing his wounded ships to a still-lurking Japanese submarine. 

Hoover ordered his ships to continue towards Espiritu Santo and signaled a nearby U.S. B-17 bomber on patrol to notify Allied headquarters to send aircraft or ships to search for USS Juneau's crew that may have survived the torpedo attack and the sinking of their ship and were left in the water.  

The B-17 bomber crew, under orders not to break radio silence, did not pass the message about searching for survivors to their headquarters until they had landed several hours later. The crew's report of the location of possible survivors was mixed in with other pending paperwork actions and went unnoticed for several days. It was not until days later that headquarters staff realized that a search had never been mounted and belatedly ordered aircraft to begin searching the area. In the meantime, USS Juneau's survivors, many of whom were seriously wounded, were exposed to the elements, hunger, thirst, and repeated shark attacks. 
 
Gunner's Mate Allen Heyn was one of the survivors that was finally rescued from the sinking of the Juneau. He reported that there were 10 days of intense suffering as, one by one, the men succumbed to the intense heat, their wounds, and sharks. Many were badly burned and died a painful death. They became delirious from hunger and thirst. Heyn recalled how George Sullivan decided to take a bath one night. He took off all his clothes and swam around the raft. His movement attracted a shark and that was the last Heyn saw of him. Only ten men survived the ordeal.

Security required that the Navy not reveal the loss of Juneau or the other ships so as not to provide information to the enemy. Letters from the Sullivan sons stopped arriving at the home and the parents grew worried, which prompted Alleta Sullivan to write to the Bureau of Naval Personnel in January 1943, citing rumors that survivors of the task force claimed that all five brothers were killed in action.

This letter was answered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 13, 1943, who acknowledged that the Sullivan's were missing in action, but by then the parents were already informed of their fate, having learned of their deaths on January 12. 1943. That morning, the boys' father, Tom, was preparing for work when three men in uniform - a Lieutenant Commander, a doctor and a Chief Petty Officer - approached his door. "I have some news for you about your boys," the naval officer said. "Which one?" asked Tom. "I'm sorry," the officer replied. "All five."

Al was survived by his wife Katherine Mary and son Jimmy. Joe left a fiancee named Margaret Jaros, while Matt left behind a fiancée named Beatrice Imperato. Genevieve, their only sister, served in the WAVES. She was the girlfriend of Bill Ball, whose death at Pearl Harbor prompted her brothers to join the Navy to avenge him.

The Navy named two destroyers 'The Sullivans' to honor the brothers: The Sullivans (DD-537) and The Sullivans (DDG-68). DD-537 was the first American Navy ship ever named after more than one person. The motto for both ships is "We Stick Together."

The issue that gave rise to the regulations first caught public attention after the five Sullivan brothers were all killed when the USS Juneau was sunk in the waters off Guadalcanal. The policy was enacted as law in 1948. No nominally peacetime restriction was in place until 1964 during the Vietnam War; in 1971, Congress amended the law to include not only the sole surviving son or daughter but also any son or daughter who had a combat-related death in the family. Since then, each branch of the military has made its own policies regarding separating immediate family members. 

A museum wing has been built in honor of their service in World War II. The museum is in downtown Waterloo, Iowa, their hometown. It was completed in 2008. The grand opening occurred on November 15, 2008. The $11.5 million, state-of-the-art facility aims to play a role in preserving the history and service of Iowa veterans and serve as a facility for research and genealogy studies.

The brothers' story was filmed as the 1944 movie "The Sullivans" (later renamed "The Fighting Sullivans") and inspired, at least in part, the 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan." 

On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2018, the discovery of the long-lost wreckage of the USS Juneau by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen off the coast of the Solomon Islands.

Previously, Allen's research vessels also identified the wreck of the WWII Italian naval destroyer IT Artigliere, sunk in 1940, and the remains of the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Lexington, sunk in 1942. The Lexington was dubbed "The Ship That Saved Australia" after helping to defeat Japanese forces during the Battle of the Coral Sea.