San Francisco Chronicle Features Columnist Leah Garchik comments on WE STICK TOGETHER

Pier 70, a tumbledown village of battered brick buildings, rusting metal sheds, pothole-pocked fields of asphalt, piles of assorted junk, and taxicabs moving in and out, was once the site of the Bethlehem Shipyard. It is most famous around here for its role in producing destroyers during World War II. The shipyard, however, was active long before and after that, from 1905 until 1982, producing machinery and parts for bridge cables, cable cars, gas works, power stations, sugar plants and steam locomotives.

Wednesday’s inaugural gathering of the Maritime Historical Preservation Series, presented by the Bethlehem Shipyard Museum and the California Heritage Council, aimed to get history lovers and veterans involved in the creation of an actual museum. Right now, it’s a collection of artifacts displayed at pop-up venues, explained executive director Dennis Koller. Proponents are hoping that morphs into a mobile museum for display at middle schools, boys’ and girls’ clubs, and other institutions. (A stationary museum would complete that wish list, but for now, the mobile one is the immediate goal.)

Wednesday’s event, billed as “We Stick Together,” is a tribute to the Sullivan brothers, five siblings from Waterloo, Iowa, who died at Guadalcanal on Nov. 13, 1942, when the cruiser Juneau was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese. After the tragedy, their parents – grief-stricken but determined to help in the war effort – toured the country drumming up support for the military. The tragedy was so well-known at the time that President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that a destroyer be named after the Sullivans. That ship, the Sullivans (DD 537), was built at this San Francisco Bethlehem shipyard, christened by the Sullivans’ mother and launched on April 4, 1943, about six months after their death.

The Sullivans’ family motto was “We stick together”; they’d insisted on serving on the same ship. The destroyer named after them had those words emblazoned on its smokestack – hence the name of this event, honoring and remembering their sacrifice. The story is oft-told, but it packs a wallop still, and I noticed a few people in the room, veterans and non-veterans, dabbing at the corners of their eyes.

P.S.: Koller, a gracious emcee, introduced a latecomer, District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen, to the audience. She said she was glad to be there, and she wanted to take the opportunity to recognize the honorees. “Are they around?”

There was a gasp. And then a quick-thinking man – I didn’t see who – in this crowd of gray-haired veterans said, “They are all around us.”

A pretty good save.

Originally published as part of a Features column in the San Francisco Chronicle, November 19, 2013, by Leah Garchik

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