Capturing memories

Burry Hunt, left, and right with his nephew Jack, went missing in the South Pacific during World War II. (Hunt family photos)

She was sitting on her couch in the fading light, talking about her brother, Burry Hunt, the boy who never came home from war.

"His name was Bernard," Betty Locke said, "but he was always Burry because one of us called him that when we were little, and it just stuck."

They grew up in South Boston, near the bottom of H Street, seven kids in all.

"Burry was tall and handsome," Betty said. "He was six years older than me, and all my girlfriends loved him. All the girls chased him."

But they never caught him.

By the time the Nazis invaded Poland, the Hunts had moved to Dorchester. Their uncle owned a produce company, Tampa Fruit, and Burry was working there when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

"Burry signed up right away," Betty said.

He joined the Navy and was assigned to the USS Juneau. Before heading for the South Pacific, the Juneau docked in Boston in the spring of '42.

"They had a big party at one of the hotels in town," Betty said. "We all went. It was a big thrill for Burry, because not many of the sailors had family there."

Among those dancing that night were the five Sullivan brothers, later immortalized as the Fighting Sullivans.

On this day, 66 years ago, Burry Hunt, the Sullivan brothers, and 700 other sailors were aboard the Juneau as she sailed into the Battle of Guadalcanal. A Japanese torpedo hit the Juneau and blew her in half. A commander ordered other American ships to sail away, without stopping for survivors.

Eight days passed before rescue attempts began, and by then only 10 of the 100 men who survived the explosion and sinking were still alive. The rest had died from thirst, exposure, and shark attacks.

Six months later, the Hunts received a letter saying Burry was missing and presumed dead.

"Everyone was sitting in the kitchen, crying," Betty said. "My mother never got over it."

Tom Hunt, an Army veteran, tracked down one of the 10 who survived the sinking of his brother's ship. The man never saw Burry in the water.

He also said Burry had won the ship's boxing title in his weight class two days before the sinking.

Steve Power was born 26 years after his great-uncle Burry died, but he grew up hearing stories, and one day last July he asked his great-aunt Betty where he could visit Burry's grave. When Betty told him there was no grave because they never had a body, he made it his mission to change that.

Last Thursday, 66 years to the day that Burry Hunt wrote his last letter home, Steve Power and 11 other relatives stood in Arlington National Cemetery. There were 17 sailors in the honor guard. Six of them folded a flag with such precision that it was a tight triangle when one of them handed it to Jack Walsh, Burry's nephew. Seven riflemen stood on a hill and fired a salute. One sailor stood nearby and played "Taps."

Burry Hunt's body was not in the grave, but his name was on the headstone. He took his rightful place among the nation's most honored warriors.

Betty Locke couldn't make it to the ceremony last week. She's 83, and some days her bones ache as if someone's driven a nail through them. But she didn't have to go to Washington to remember her brother.

"I remember him vividly. Like he's right there," she said, pointing across the room. "Smiling. Because he was always smiling."

For a moment, Betty Locke seemed lost in a memory, a good one, somewhere in Dorchester, and one of her girlfriends was chasing Burry, the boy with laughing eyes.

And he got away again. They never caught him. The girls never caught Burry Hunt.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.