The brothers all enlisted after their sister's boyfriend was killed at Pearl Harbor. The Navy didn't allow siblings to serve together, but the brothers wanted to be together. At the time, the Navy usually ignored that rule, and let the brothers serve on the same ship. There were other brothers who served on the ship as well.

This event, and another where four brothers were killed in action is when the US War Department created the Sole Survivor Policy. What it did was to prevent drafting, or putting into a combat situation anyone who enlisted, from a family that had lost a family member in military service.

The movie was called "The Sullivans", and was later renamed to "The Fighting Sullivans".

One of the soldiers, William Guarnere, from the famed "Band of Brothers" found out on D-Day that his brother had been killed at Monte Cassini (I believe that's the location). He continued in the action, and lost a leg at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge. He passed on March 8, 2014.

 
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Just cruising the Topics list and came across this thread and thought I would add my one Sullivan brothers-related cover to it. It came to me in the mail in 2016 as a solicitation for money to help restore the battleship USS Iowa. On the right side of the cover is a photo of the five Sullivan brothers. The Sullivans had no connection with USS Iowa, but being from Waterloo, Iowa, and being the center of what was considered a national tragedy in 1942, the marketeers apparently considered their appeal advantageous for the fundraising campaign. The Pacific Battleship Center succeeded in restoring the USS Iowa and it is today an operating museum. Information about the ship and the center may be found at www.pacificbattleship.com/

I keep covers like this when they arrive in the mail as collectable examples of 21st-century illustrated advertising. This one also fits expecially well into my Iowa-related Cover Collection.

FF

 
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