My Uncle Jimmy... MORE TO COME

It was in the news yesterday, that Billionaire Paul Allen (I believe the co-founder of Microsoft, with Bill Gates) found the wreck of a WWII ship, the USS Juneau, on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, 2018. The Juneau was famous for the Sullivan Boys... 5 brothers who wanted to serve together. Sadly, their ship was hit and all 5 perished. The Navy, believing that no family should have to endure such a great loss, would no longer put brothers on the same ship. Which was why my Uncle Jimmy and my Uncle Gordon were not on the same ships during their time in the Navy during WWII.

This got me to starting to research my uncle, and his lost ship, on the internet, in the middle of the night.

Jimmy was oldest of the four Long boys, my father's oldest brother. I do not know if he joined up or was drafted.

First I went to findagrave.com to find his memorial stone in the cemetery in Bedford, Indiana, my family's home town. This gave me the date of his death.

I then went to a page I found that listed all of the Naval ships that were lost during WWII. I went through each category until I found one with the same date, July 18th, 1943... the LST-342. I had asked my oldest cousin some time ago if my aunt remembered the name of Jimmy's ship. It really didn't have a name, just a number...

There had always been the story that when Jimmy's ship was struck, the back half with most of the crew had sunk immediately. That appears to be the fact.

More of the same general information...

I am not sure if this map shows where LST-342 was hit, or where the bow was towed and remains abandoned.

Iron Bottom Sound is located here...

But at least in this general area, is where we lost our family's son, brother and uncle...

The bow was towed...