The Sullivans enlisted in the US Navy on January 3, 1942, with the stipulation that they serve together. The Navy had a policy of separating siblings, but this was not strictly enforced. George and Frank had served in the Navy before, but their brothers had not. All five were assigned to the light cruiser USS Juneau. The Juneau participated in a number of naval engagements during the months-long Guadalcanal Campaign beginning in August 1942. Early in the morning of November 13, 1942, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the Juneau was struck by a Japanese torpedo and forced 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 US warships from battle, the 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 quickly sank. Wikipedia. For more information click this link.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
The Naval Battle of Ironbottom Sound off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, takes place on November 13, 1942. Seven Japanese destroyers are sunk, as well as the battleship Hiei. The Japanese sink three American destroyers and two American cruisers, but fail to land reinforcements on Guadalcanal (the goal of the Japanese sortie). One of the American cruisers lost is USS Juneau — all but 10 of her crew of 673 officers and men die, including the five Sullivan brothers who were serving aboard. In Europe, another German attempt to take Stalingrad ends in failure. The Germans manage to make a foothold on the River Volga, but the Soviets mount a stiff resistance.
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal continues on November 14. Despite U.S. losses, control of the seas around Guadalcanal is passing to the Americans, with supply problems mounting for the Japanese. Already many Japanese soldiers on the island are sick and hungry. Elsewhere in the Solomons, the Japanese occupy New Georgia. In the Mediterranean, the British submarine HMS Sahib sinks the Italian cargo ship SS Scillin. Around 800 Allied prisoners of war being transported by the ship from North Africa to Italy die, along with 79 Italian crewmen.
The battleship USS Washington on November 15 sinks the Japanese battleship Kirishima off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, beating off a Japanese resupply convoy heading towards the island. In North Africa, a German buildup is taking place in Tunisia, with 10,000 troops and over 100 combat airplanes getting into position. Church bells are rung throughout England to celebrate the Allied victory at El Alamein. It is the first time they are sounded since they were ordered silenced in 1940. In the U.S., the first issue of the comic book “Archie” hits the newsstands.
In Papua-New Guinea, U.S. and Australian troops link up on November 16 for an assault on the last Japanese stronghold in northern Papua, the Buna-Gona bridgehead. In the U.S., Brig. Gen. Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer select a remote boys’ school in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as the site for “the Project.” Oppenheimer then begins traveling the U.S., recruiting top scientists and persuading them to move to New Mexico. Hungarian-American nuclear physicist Edward Teller is the first of the 100 or so scientists to join the Manhattan Project. Allied forces advance into Tunisia against determined German resistance.
The British Eighth Army occupies Derna, Libya, on November 17. In Tunisia, British paratroopers engage German troops, while the first clashes occur between the newly landed U.S. troops and Axis forces. Any remaining Vichy resistance to the Anglo-American “Operation Torch” landings in North and West Africa collapses as Vichy Adm. Jean Darlan and Gen. Alphonse Juin, commander of French troops in Morocco, reiterate their cease-fire order to all French troops in Africa. Germany begins to extend its occupation of Vichy-controlled France.
In an attempt to counter Adm. Darlan’s control of Vichy forces in Africa, the Vichy government in France on November 18 gives Vice-Premier and Prime Minister Pierre Laval absolute authority to rule by decree in Africa. The British Eighth Army reaches Cyrene, Libya. President Roosevelt orders all males who have turned 18 since July 1, 1942, to register for the Selective Service draft. This makes almost 500,000 additional men immediately eligible for military service.
On November 19, British troops engage a German tank column only 30 miles from Tunis, in Tunisia. The Red Army opens a winter offensive with a pincer movement around Stalingrad with the aim of encircling and destroying the German forces fighting in the city. The initial attacks by the Soviet 5th Tank Army, from the north, and the 51st Army, from the south, are directed against the exposed rear flanks of the German Sixth Army and 4th Panzer Army. The German flanks are held by the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies, which are overrun and scattered, losing 65,000 prisoners in 24 hours. Two RAF Horsa gliders carrying 34 British Royal Engineer commandos crash in Norway en route to their mission of destroying a German “heavy water” plant at Telemark, important to Germany’s nuclear-weapons development program. The survivors are captured by the Germans, interrogated, tortured and killed, even though they are all in uniform. The executions are carried out per Adolf Hitler’s “Commando Order” of October 18, 1942, which mandated that captured Allied commandos — even if in uniform and having surrendered — be executed without trial.
