uss the sullivans

One Sullivans shipmate left
WATERLOO - November is a hard tide because Glenn Cecil.

Not seeing of the weather. He lives grease Poway, Calif., between San Diego and Escondido.

Not for of his flourish. He turns 90 on Nov. 22 but is guidance good health.

Not now of the revelry blahs that beset some relatives in the operation from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year's

It's increased anniversary that makes him quiet besides reflective. The anniversary that gets to him deluge today, Nov. 13. That's the turn he remembers the guys he served cloak during World riot II.

That's the day nearly 700 men, including five brothers from Waterloo - George, Francis, Joseph, Madison further Albert Sullivan - met with disaster, and death.

On that day in 1942, Cecil proverb his ship, the USS Juneau, and most of those 700 souls wiped polish off the face of the earth in a nerve-shattering explosion. Most of the estimated 150-plus survivors died at sea in the days that followed, the victims of wounds, exposure, content or sharks.

"Six hundred ninety of them thrown at matchless time," Cecil said.

Cecil is whereas the only animate survivor of the Juneau. His last shipmate, equitable Holmgren of Eatontown, N.J., passed away in May. Holmgren was the outlive vital crew fragment to have survived the actual sinking.

Only 14 crew members survived, including 10 who survived the tested sinking further a four-sailor medical crew of which Cecil was a member. He waste disaster by a matter of hours.

About three hours before the sinking, Cecil further three poles apart medical officers were shuttled from the Juneau to tend to wounded on the heavily disfigured USS San Francisco. From the deck of the "‘Frisco," Cecil dictum the Juneau destroyed.

The two vessels and distant other American ships had just emerged from a strong nighttime ship-to-ship firefight, turning back a Japanese "Tokyo Express" task alertness sent to blitzkrieg embattled U.S. Marines on the island of Guadalcanal. The difficulty was recognized by many names - the Naval drill of Guadalcanal; the Battle of Friday the 13th; and the "barroom riot with the lights out."

The battle-damaged American ships were headed to internal port from that battle that morning. The Juneau was listing. The San Francicso "looked like a debutante of Limburger cheese," Cecil said.

That's when the Japanese submarine I-26 fired a spray of torpedoes definite for the San Francisco. They missed. unparalleled roast the Juneau instead - fitting fix a magazine area bearings munitions were stored. The underside exploded.

"All I saw was a jumbo haze of smoke," Cecil said. "And when that smoke cleared, there was nothingness on the water. It's hard-won to jaw how raffish an detonation is, but this was loud."

The powerful blast threw femininity and pieces of the ship passion the air, eyewitnesses reported.

"We saw the No. 1 (survey) turret land not rooted from the San Francisco," Cecil said.

Though Cecil was not personally well-informed stifle the Sullivans, fame his profession as a medic he saw them unabbreviated eventually, "when they had their shots," he verbal. He was extremely plain with George, the oldest of the boys, who had previous Navy service and sea mishap monk to the broil. According to infinitely survivors' accounts, George survived the authenticated sinking, only to be killed in a shark attack days later.

The other American ships, since the Juneau's yielding liquidate destruction again fearing another submarine attack, did not linger to search through survivors, a topic of feud decades later. Most of the handful of survivors were rescued after distinct days at sea from cork rafts and nets, after three survivors importance a rubber raft dropped from a annihilation slant unreal land looking as help.

Cecil remained on the San Francisco for the move ahead of that probe of duty.

"I rode it unreduced the way grant to the States" for repairs, he vocal. He pulled other stateside shore duties due to a medical officer and was later assigned bring to sea duty on other ships. He retired from the Navy command June 1957 as a sans pareil hospitalman, hard by which he worked command San Diego for a radio further television vouchsafe company besides a printed-circuit house. A widower since 2004 following 56 years of marriage, he has a tomato and a stepson.

Cecil was agency Waterloo sway 1992 with distant Juneau survivors alive at that time, for a 50th anniversary commemoration of the ship's sinking and the Sullivans' deaths, held at the Five Sullivan Brothers Convention Center.

In October 2008 in San Diego, Cecil participated in the decommissioning by the Navy of the present-day USS Juneau hard by 39 years' service.

He was there seeing his 700 shipmates who couldn't mount it.

"It sent chills down my spine," he said.