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The official ending to the Guadalcanal Campaign was February 9th 1943. This was a deadly campaign for the Japanese forces in the Pacific theater and ended with the Allied forces capturing the Solomon Islands. The campaign involved multiple amphibious assaults conducted by U.S. Marines (some include multiple battles on Savo Island, Eastern Solomons, and more), it also led to a decisive Naval victory which caused the Japanese to abandon Guadalcanal and focus their energy on the Solomon Islands.

The Naval battle took place from November 12th – 15th. It resulted in The United States losing 7 destroyer, two light cruisers, and over 35 planes, in total, the American’s suffered a loss of 1,732 souls. The Japanese fleet felt greater suffering, they lost two battleships, three destroyers, two heavy cruisers, seven transportation ships, and 64 aircraft amassing an estimated 1,900 souls.

The legacy of this battle is forever in naval history and naval policy. One of the light cruisers that the Americans lost during Guadalcanal was the USS Juneau. The USS Juneau had five sailors on board, all from the same town, all brothers. These were the Sullivan brothers, as a condition to their voluntary conscription into the war effort, they were all allowed to serve on the same ship.

On November 13, 1942 The Juneau was struck by a torpedo fired by the Amatsukaze. The torpedo resulted in all Sullivan brothers dying that night. This left their parents with no more sons, and entire generation of a family was wiped out in a single night. The brothers were survived by wives, fiancés, a son (Al Sullivan’s child) and other relatives. Eventually, Al’s son would serve on the USS The Sullivans, which was christened by their grandmother.

This led to a change in Naval policy that is followed today, it is that siblings generally (especially if they are the only siblings) won’t serve on the same ship. This isn’t necessarily always the case, but the Navy does tend to try to limit assigning siblings to the same command.