Robert Gessinger - USS Juneau
Today, we remember Robert R. Gessinger (Trafford High Class of 1937) who was aboard the USS Juneau on November 13, 1942, when a Japanese torpedo struck the vessel causing a catastrophic explosion. The ship sank in less than 20 seconds with 673 officers and sailors aboard. Only ten men survived.
In January 1942, Gessinger was living in Pitcairn with his family. He and two of his brothers, along with their father William, worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Robert enlisted into the Navy and started his service on January 15, 1942. A little over a month later he boarded the Juneau, and two days later, on February 14, 1942, this photograph was taken aboard the ship. It is very likely that Robert is one of the men standing in this group photograph.
The story of the Juneau drew heightened awareness when it was learned that five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, all perished while serving together (Albert, Francis, George, Joseph and Madison Sullivan). The story of the Sullivan Brothers is well documented and this incident would later result in the Department of Defense creating the “The Sole Survivor Policy” (DoD Directive 1315.15) which provides for immediate discharge of serving military personal or no military service when there is only one surviving sibling in a family.
In 2018, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, along with the crew of the RV Petrel located Juneau’s wreck site lying 13,800 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific near the Solomon Islands.
Lest We Forget.
