16 December 1942. Gona. The three Chapman brothers from Moonta, South Australia, who all joined the 2/27th Infantry Battalion. The siblings are pictured, pausing during a break in the fighting against the Japanese just after the fall of Gona in Papua New Guinea.
The lads, the sons of Maurice and Mabel Chapman, all survived the war but an elder brother, Lance Chapman, age 25, was killed in Egypt six weeks before this photo was taken.
Left to right: SX12357 Private Maxwell Maurice Chapman; SX12689 Private Desmond Chapman; and SX10196 Private Raymond Chapman. They were lucky and all survived the war.
The Sole Survivor Policy
The Sole Survivor Policy describes a set of regulations in the U.S. Military that are designed to protect members of a family from the draft or from combat duty if they have already lost family members in military service.
The issue that gave rise to the regulations first caught public attention after the five Sullivan brothers were all killed when the USS Juneau (CL-52) was sunk during World War II.
In World War II, the Borgstrom brothers, Elmer, Clyde, and twins Rolon and Rulon, were killed within a few months of each other in 1944. Their parents then successfully petitioned for their son Boyd, who was also on active duty, to be released from service. Their sixth son, Elton, who had not yet reached conscription age, was exempted from military service.
The three Butehorn brothers of Bethpage, New York, Charles, Joseph, and Henry, were all deployed during World War II. After Charles was killed in action in France in 1944 and Joseph was killed in action in the Pacific in 1945, Henry, who was serving with the Army Air Forces in Italy, was ordered home by the War Department. The "Veterans of Foreign Wars" post in Bethpage is named after their sacrifice.
In the case of the Niland brothers, U.S. intelligence believed that all but one of four siblings were killed in action. The eldest brother, Technical Sergeant Edward Niland, of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was later found to have been held in a prisoner of war camp in Burma. The Academy Award-winning film Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg, was loosely based on the Niland brothers' story.
Both the Borgstrom and Butehorn incidents occurred before the Sole Survivor Policy was put into effect in 1948. They, along with the deaths of all of the Sullivan brothers in 1942, helped lead to it.
Colour by Jake
Source: Australian War Memorial
The lads, the sons of Maurice and Mabel Chapman, all survived the war but an elder brother, Lance Chapman, age 25, was killed in Egypt six weeks before this photo was taken.
Left to right: SX12357 Private Maxwell Maurice Chapman; SX12689 Private Desmond Chapman; and SX10196 Private Raymond Chapman. They were lucky and all survived the war.
The Sole Survivor Policy
The Sole Survivor Policy describes a set of regulations in the U.S. Military that are designed to protect members of a family from the draft or from combat duty if they have already lost family members in military service.
The issue that gave rise to the regulations first caught public attention after the five Sullivan brothers were all killed when the USS Juneau (CL-52) was sunk during World War II.
In World War II, the Borgstrom brothers, Elmer, Clyde, and twins Rolon and Rulon, were killed within a few months of each other in 1944. Their parents then successfully petitioned for their son Boyd, who was also on active duty, to be released from service. Their sixth son, Elton, who had not yet reached conscription age, was exempted from military service.
The three Butehorn brothers of Bethpage, New York, Charles, Joseph, and Henry, were all deployed during World War II. After Charles was killed in action in France in 1944 and Joseph was killed in action in the Pacific in 1945, Henry, who was serving with the Army Air Forces in Italy, was ordered home by the War Department. The "Veterans of Foreign Wars" post in Bethpage is named after their sacrifice.
In the case of the Niland brothers, U.S. intelligence believed that all but one of four siblings were killed in action. The eldest brother, Technical Sergeant Edward Niland, of the U.S. Army Air Forces, was later found to have been held in a prisoner of war camp in Burma. The Academy Award-winning film Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg, was loosely based on the Niland brothers' story.
Both the Borgstrom and Butehorn incidents occurred before the Sole Survivor Policy was put into effect in 1948. They, along with the deaths of all of the Sullivan brothers in 1942, helped lead to it.
Colour by Jake
Source: Australian War Memorial
