USS The Sullivans Goes Down the Ways -- A U.S. destroyer, named for the five Sullivan brothers, who died together in the service of the U.S. Navy, is launched at a U.S. West Coast shipyard to avenge their deaths. The Sullivans, serving on a U.S. cruiser, were lost when their ship was sunk in the south pacific last year. Mrs. Thomas Sullivan of the western U.S. State of Iowa, mother of the five boys, christened the ship the USS the Sullivans. May 24, 1943.