Sadly, when the battleship USS Arizona was destroyed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor - 37 sets of brothers and Father/Sons were killed http://www.ussarizona.org/lists/USS_Arizona_Brothers_List.pdf
Tradition has its cost! You always wonder about the families receiving these multiple messages of condolence. The Sullivans was an anomaly however two, like the examples above were common in the navy.
Yeah it took terrible things like this to make the Govts etc to mix Army formations & Ships companies up, seperating family members and people from the same towns etc. Especially in the Armie's, as many armies raised Div's, Bgds, Btns from the one area, so if that formation or in this case Ship gets hit hard then one area of their home land is full of mourners. Though 37 sets of family members, man thats a lot of family's in mourning. Especially in the very first day of the war for the USA. They used to think that if the brother or son was with them then they could look after one another.
