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CAPT Ronald Flanders (Ned)
to remember
Sullivan, Albert Leo, S2c.
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Casualty Info
Home Town Waterloo. IA
Last Address Waterloo, IA
Casualty Date Nov 13, 1942
Cause KIA-Body Not Recovered
Reason Drowned, Suffocated
Location Pacific Ocean
Conflict World War II
Location of Interment Manila American Cemetery and Memorial - Manila, Philippines
Wall/Plot Coordinates (cenotaph)
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
S2c Albert Sullivan perished along with his 4 brothers, Francis, George, Joseph, and Madison. Collectively they are known as the Five Sullivan brothers. He was stationed aboard the USS Juneau (CL-52) during the first Naval battle of Guadalcanal. His remains were not recovered and he was later declared dead.
A few minutes after 1100 on November 13, 1942, two torpedoes were launched from Japanese submarine I-26. These were intended for San Francisco, but both passed ahead of her. One struck Juneau in the same place that had been hit during the battle. There was a great explosion; Juneau broke in two and disappeared in just 20 seconds. Fearing more attacks from I-26, and wrongly assuming from the massive explosion that there were no survivors, Helena and San Francisco departed without attempting to rescue any survivors. In fact, more than 100 sailors had survived the sinking of Juneau. They were left to fend for themselves in the open ocean for eight days before rescue aircraft belatedly arrived. While awaiting rescue, all but 10 died from the elements and shark attacks, including the five Sullivan brothers. Two of the brothers apparently survived the sinking, only to die in the water; two presumably went down with the ship. Some reports indicate the fifth brother also survived the sinking, but disappeared during the first night when he left the raft and got into the water.
Service number: 6202069
Comments/Citation:
Albert Leo Sullivan was born on July 8, 1922, in Waterloo, Black Hawk County, Iowa, to Thomas Francis and Alleta (Abel) Sullivan. Albert was the youngest son born.
In 1910 Thomas (Tom) Sullivan moved from his family farm in northeastern Iowa to Waterloo, Iowa. After growing up on the family farm and working through his teens in the Colorado mines, he decided to work in the yards and on the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad. He married Alleta, a local girl from Waterloo, in 1914. Six children would be born to Tom and Alleta between 1914 and 1922 - five boys (George, Francis, Joseph, Madison, and Albert) and one girl (Genevieve). Another girl (Kathleen) was born in 1931 but died six months later.
Waterloo was a small town that built its foundation out of rural values. As the Sullivan family grew, they would move three times within Waterloo - each time to a larger home. The mother, Alleta, suffered from the strain of child rearing and was prone to nervous exhaustion that kept her bedridden for days. Alleta’s mother, May Abel, moved into the Sullivan household after her husband died in 1914 and helped with the children a great deal; she was known to be the organizing force for the Sullivan children. She instilled in her grandchildren the value of family by pointing out to the boys and their sister the bonds of family loyalty that would connect them for the rest of their lives.
As with most rural towns in the 1920s and especially in the Depression-era 1930s, times were hard for everyone - the Sullivan family included - but the children had a good childhood. The boys quit school in order to help the family survive; they also worked at the Rath Meat Packing plant in Waterloo.
Son Albert, nicknamed Al, was described as “a charmer, friendly with everyone and never resented his ‘baby-of-the-family’ status.” Albert, with his brother Madison, used the neighbor’s hedge for steeplechase foot races. Albert dropped out of school in 1938 in his ninth grade at East Junior high school.
All the Sullivan boys were known as “happy-go-lucky” average, working-class kids. They were outgoing, friendly and nice boys. They stuck together all the time. They were all pranksters with George being the family clown. The boys spent their summers with two paternal uncles who lived on the family farm and played with their uncles’ dogs, hunted small game and fished in a nearby creek. Their sister stayed in Waterloo with her mother and grandmother during the summer.
The only time the five Sullivan brothers were separated was when Frank and George were in the Navy; otherwise, they stuck together all the time.
On May 11, 1940, Albert married Katherine Mary Rooff in Waterloo. They had been dating for over a year before their marriage. Albert and Katherine had one child and were married about two years before Albert when into the Navy.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Aboard the USS Arizona was a childhood friend of the Sullivan brothers, William (Bill) Ball, who was killed in action on that day. After Bill’s death, all five brothers wanted to avenge their friend‘s death. Bill had become friends with the five Sullivan brothers when he lived in Waterloo and worked in the same meat packing plant with them; Bill and his family moved to Fredericksburg, Iowa, in 1936.
All five Sullivan brothers were working at the Rath Meat Packing plant in Waterloo when they traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, on January 3, 1942, and enlisted in the U. S. Navy - George and Francis for the second time. Albert was granted a waiver to enlist since he was married and had a young child.
Since George and brother Frances had just discharged six months earlier and had been assigned in Pearl Harbor, Francis stated to a newspaper reporter, “And that’s just where we want to go now.” As with everything else, the Sullivan brothers were sticking together and were going to war together.
Seaman Second Class (S2c) Albert Leo Sullivan, Service #6202069, attended training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois with his brothers and all were assigned to the USS Juneau (CL-52), an Atlanta-class light cruiser. All five brothers went aboard the USS Juneau on February 14, 1942.
When Albert left Waterloo to serve in the Navy, Katherine with her infant child moved into the Sullivan home.
The brothers wanted to stay together, and it isn’t clear whether the Navy denied their request or just advised against it. In the book, “We Band of Brothers - The Sullivans and World War II” by John R. Satterfield, it states the recruiting officer in Des Moines at that time may have played some role in allowing the brothers to serve together.
The USS Juneau was in the thick of the Pacific battle by October 1942, and in early November, it joined the fight for Guadalcanal. The ship was torpedoed and quickly sank on November 13, 1942, killing 687 men. Sister ships left the area, not realizing that about 100 USS Juneau sailors, including two Sullivan brothers, had survived. By the time rescuers returned a week later, only ten men were alive.
All five of the Sullivan brothers died at sea. Survivors of the USS Juneau reported that Francis, Joseph and Madison died instantly, and Albert drowned the next day with George floating in the water four days later and then disappearing in the water.
In a letter to the U. S. Navy dated only January 1943 by Alleta Sullivan, she pleaded for news about her sons. Another local mother had received a letter from her son saying the Sullivan’s were dead. The rumor is “all over town now, and I am so worried,” Mrs. Sullivan wrote. Her last letter from her sons was dated November 8, 1942. She stated in the letter that she “hated to bother you,” but that she wanted to know the truth. No matter what, she wrote, she would travel to Portland, Oregon, in February 1943 to christen a tug, the USS Tawasa, because her sons wanted her to do it. Parents Tom and Alleta had been invited to christen the ship to honor the family’s patriotism.
The official notification that the brothers were missing in action (MIA) was delivered to the family on January 12, 1943, by three Naval officers who had come to deliver the news personally to their parents. Throughout WWII, most American families learned about casualties through a telegram from the War and Navy Departments. The Navy realized this would not suffice for the Sullivan parents, so they sent a delegation, which consisted of the lieutenant commander of Iowa’s recruiting center in Des Moines, a Navy doctor and a chief petty officer, to deliver the news.
S2c Albert Leo Sullivan is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Manila, Capital Districts, National Capital Region, Philippines. A cenotaph is located at the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, Memorial Section MC 31-M.
S2c Albert Sullivan was awarded posthumously the Purple Heart, the Asiatic/Pacific Campaign and World War II Victory medals.
Years later, Albert’s widow, Katherine, recalled, “Being young you don’t know what it means to be in war. You think, ‘O, they’re going to be back.’ And all of a sudden, they’re not back.” Katherine remarried in 1946.
His parents, Tom and Alleta, went not only to Oregon to christen the USS Tawasa but toured around the country to support the war effort. They visited factories to encourage employees to speed up production and spoke at rallies for war-bond sales. The Sullivan sister, Genevieve, enlisted in the U. S. Naval Women’s Reserve (know as WAVES) and served 21 months before she was discharged in 1944.
It is often said that the death of so many from one family prompted the U. S. Navy to change policy and refuse to permit brothers to serve together; this is not entirely correct. The Navy endeavored to keep brothers apart, but in the middle of a war, military needs came first. If brothers had specialized skills that were in short supply, they sometimes served on the same ship. And, of course, transferring brothers who were already together wasn’t possible while out on the sea.
A destroyer ship, USS Sullivans (DD-537), was commissioned in 1943, followed by another in 1993. The brothers were the subject of a popular 1944 movie, “The Sullivans.” The Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum was dedicated in November 2008 in Waterloo. In March 2018 the wreckage of the USS Juneau was located by oceanographer Robert Ballard, best known for finding the wreckage of the Titanic.
SOURCES USED:
Ancestry.com: Birth Records; 1920, 1930 and 1940 Census Records; Navy Muster Rolls
Findagrave.com
Fold3.com: Military Records
Honorstates.org
Book: “We Band Of Brothers - The Sullivans and World War II” by John R. Satterfield,Copyright 1995 Mid-Prairie Books
Newspapers.com: The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), May 24, 1942
Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa), Jan 4, 1942
USS Arizona Mall Memorial (parts of this story are included and obtained from the William V. Ball Memorial, written by B.
J. Carter and permission granted by B. J. Carter to use the Sullivan Brothers information from the USS Arizona
Mall Memorial)
If you noticed anything missing in this profile, you may contact the author.
Contributing Author: clerickson220@gmail.com
This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the U.S. WWII fallen and saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the name of the fallen and read his/her story.
