Customer Reviews

Left to Die: The Tragedy of the USS Juneau

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I first read this book when it came out in hardback a few years back and parts of it still stick in my mind. The author offers an interesting and truely sad account of the fate of the survivors from the USS Juneau. I have never forgotten the account of the five Sullivan brothers and the other men left to die in the sea around Guadalcanal. This is a terrible story which really reminds you that war is a horrible business. The author tells a great story and you will find it hard to put the book down once you start.

I was present and actually SAW the ship get sunk. I was aboard the USS HELENA CL50 and sitting on the fantail deck with a buddy and we were tring to figgure out where she had been hit the night before. There was a puff of smoke, a bang, and in less than 30 seconds there was nothing to see. G.Q. was sounded and before we could get to the hatch to go to aour station, about 20 feet, the smoke had cleared and there was nothing to be seen. The officers of the surviving ships did not and could not believe anyone could survive that explosion. Eugene E, Lajeunesse, USS HELENA survivor.

Dan Kurzman followed up his excellent account of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis ("Fatal Voyage") with another tragic sinking of an American warship, this time the USS Juneau. The Juneau disaster is probably best known because among the many deaths were five brothers who had joined the navy at the start of World War Two and insisted that they be assigned to the same ship. Only one of the brothers survived the initial sinking, and he tragically succcomed to dehydration and delirium while frantically searching for his siblings on the open ocean amidst the oil and debris from the wreck. Equally compelling is the story of how the commander of The Juneau's task force made a life and death decision to leave the survivors behind in the water lest he put his other ships at risk. As a result only a mere handful of sailors ultimately survived. Their story is as haunting as anything I've read.

This is a good book. It gives one a good look at the human element of the story of the USS Juneau. In fact, notable figures in her story such as Captain Lyman Swenson, the five Sullivan brothers, and the four Rodgers brothers all have a chapter devoted to them! Other people who were part of the story of the Juneau get sketched out as well. However, this book contains some inaccuracies. Here's a partial list of them. When Kurzman depicts the Japanese air raid on the reinforcement and suppy convoy to Guadalcanal on November 12th, 1942, Kurzman writes that only one Japanese plane "is known" to have escaped being shot down. In actuality, 34 Japanese planes survived the attack to return to base. Worse, Kurzman creates a paper-and-ink phantom when he credits the Juneau with skewering the Japanese light curiser Nagara with torpedoes during the night naval battle of November 13th, 1942. He even depicts Juneau as almost colliding with the Nagara after Juneau was damaged by a torpedo during the battle. In reality, Nagara wasn't hit by a single torpedo during this battle, and escaped to fight again. Regarding the near-collison, the Juneau may have actually almost collided with the USS Helena (and may have even fired at her!) during the vicious night battle she was flung into. However, the sinking of the Juneau and the hellish ordeal her survivors endured is very well done, is eye opening (particularly as to the fate of the Sullivan brothers), and is accurate. As I said, this is a good book. Just be aware of the fact that it contains some inaccuracies.

This book is riveting! Who would believe history could be made so interesting that you hate to put the book down? If history textbooks could be written like this, we'd have a lot more History Majors in college. Adding to this author's superb writing ability is the fact that he tells us the story of the Japanese submarine (and its inmates) involved in this story that was untold for too long. There is also an Epilogue that fills us in on what happened later.

"Left To Die" is one of the most compelling stories to come out of WWII. The story of the USS Juneau, her skipper, and crew is another of the great mysteries of the war. Why no search and rescue mission was initiated until all but 10 of the crew were dead, draws comparison to the later disaster following the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945. The bittersweet tale of Capt. Lyman K. Swenson adds more poigniancy to the story of a gallant crew that was left to the fates. The book also details the lives of the Juneau survivors after their rescue. It also brings to light the bungling of numerous sightings of survivors, which bordered on criminal negligence.

This is one of the most EXCITING books I have ever read, and I read A LOT! I am a female and rarely read any kind of military history book. I picked this one up because of the story of the Sullivan brothers, and because I vaguely remember hearing about this ship sinking and the subsequent shark attacks on the survivors. As I read this I was reminded again that TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION, not to mention more thrilling! What a writer! What a story! What a book! I can't wait to read Kurzman's Fatal Voyage: the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis, written before this one. (P.S. The movie of LEFT TO DIE was an abomination! The movie covers about five minutes of the book, and not even the exciting stuff. Oh Hollywood, shape up!)

Before the loss of the U.S.S. Indy, there was the U.S.S. Juneau.
The Navy performed in the same poor manner in regards to the
rescue of the 150 survivors, after this light cruiser blew up after being torpedoed. The result was sailors left in the water
or on rafts being seen by airmen flying over the wreckage site.
The airmen reported the siting of survivors, and reports were filed by no action resulted in the survivors being rescued. The result were 140 sailors dying due to the negligence of the U.S. Navy. Among the dead were two Rogers brothers and the five Sullivans. This was one of the U.S. Navy's worst disasters.

Author Dan Kurzman has done an excellent job in describing the events leading up to and the sinking of the anti-aircraft cruiser USS Juneau. The Juneau was taking part in the great Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of November 13, 1942. Designed to provide anti-aircraft protection, the Juneau was not very well equipped for ship to ship fighting. During the course of the battle, the Juneau suffered many hits from Japanese ships which resulted in a broken keel, but she was still able to manuver under her own power. However, a lurking Japanese submarine snuck in and torpedoed the hapless ship.

700 men, including the five Sullivan brothers, managed to abandon ship, but, to their surprise and ultimate dismay, the task force kept on going without stopping for survivors. The task force commander felt that it was too risky for the other ships to remain in the sub-infested waters, so the survivors were left to fend for themselves for eight days against the sun and shark attacks. In the end, only about 100 of the 700 who went in the water survived. Among the casulties were all five Sullivans.

I highly recommend this book. The author does an excellent job of describing how the Sullivans enlisted together and insisted on serving on the same ship. The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal is described in a vivid narrative that places the reader at the center of the action. I've also read several books about the sinking of the Indianapolis, and the parallels between the Juneau and Indianapolis are uncanny; both sunk under very similar circumstances, and the survivors of each ship suffered under almost identical conditions. Finally, the U.S. Navy named a destroyer after the Sullivan brothers.

Read this book and learn about the heroic Sullivans and how they made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. I would also recommend the book "Fatal Voyage" by the same author, and the movie "The Fighting Sullivans" for more information on this topic.

Being somewhat of an avid naval military history fan, I've read quite a few books on WWII sea disasters. This one by Dan Kurzman has become one of my favorites.

There are many WWII naval history accounts out there, but quite a few of them tend to be a little "dry" because they don't contribute enough to the human-interest side of the story. As a result, books like that can become a monotonous succession of ships' names, and who released which torpedo that hit which target. However, when it comes to a story leading up to a major disaster befalling a single ship, it is important to concentrate on the individuals (at least a few of them) who were part of the crew. This book did exactly that.

Kurzman gives us important insights into the lives of a few notable individuals involved in the sinking of the USS Juneau. All 10 survivors are covered nicely, as well as a few significant crew-members who didn't make it, including the skipper, the 5 Sullivan brothers, and the 2 Rogers brothers. Adding personal details prior to the main story of the disaster involves the reader in a significant way. You get to really see these people as individual human beings instead of them being part of the statistics of the incident.

Kurzman is a master storyteller. Once I got started, I could hardly wait to see what happens next. Although not strictly a military historian per se, his account of the naval battles leading up to the tragic sinking were superb. He even tells parts of the story from the point of view of the Japanese side. (Much of these parts were directly taken from Tameichi Hara's "Japanese Destroyer Captain". For those who have never, or never will, read this book, these accounts from the Japanese point of view are essential to the understanding of what happened.)

I highly recommend this work to anyone who's into naval battle history or naval disasters. There is not a boring moment in this book, at least not to me. I have yet to read Kurzman's "FATAL VOYAGE", but "LEFT TO DIE" is written in a similar style to Doug Stanton's "IN HARM'S WAY", which was an excellent book about probably the most well-known WWII naval disaster, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.