It was hard to give five sons all at once to the Navy

A concerned mother fears the worst

Alleta Sullivan reads a letter from the U.S. Navy, January 1943. (Photo: Getty.)

In November 1942, during the three-day Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the USS Juneau sank after being struck by two Japanese torpedoes. As a result, 687 men were killed, five of whom were the Sullivan brothers—siblings who, ten months earlier, had enlist…