A rabbi, a priest, and two Protestant ministers . . .

February 2, 2018 10:55 PM

Actually, this is not a joke. The Four Chaplains and the sinking of the USAT Dorchester. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

At 12:55 a.m. on February 3, 1943, a German U-boat torpedoed the USAT Dorchester, a U.S. troop ship headed for southern Greenland. It took only 20 minutes for the ship to sink. Of the 907 souls aboard, only 229 ultimately survived . . . four of whom did so because of the ultimate sacrifice of the four chaplains aboard the transport: Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Father John P. Washington, the Rev. George L. Fox (Methodist), and the Rev. Clark V. Poling (Reformed)--sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers--all of whom gave up their lifejackets to soldiers aboard the Dorchester, locked arms, prayed, and subsequently perished in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.

On this day, February 3, the Four Chaplains are honored by the United States Army and by act of Congress and are commemorated in the Episcopal Church as martyrs and holy men. A chapel has been dedicated to their memory at Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Zekher tzadik livrakhah.
Requiem aeternam dona eis. Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescat in pace.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

posted by filthy_prescriptivist (9 comments total)

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posted by leotrotsky at 4:35 AM on February 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

Saving those four was an incredible act of moral courage, but I what really stands out to me is their ministry to those who would die.

When the last lifeboats were away, the chaplains prayed with those unable to escape the sinking ship. 27 Minutes after the torpedo struck, the Dorchester disappeared below the waves with 672 men still aboard. The last anyone saw of the four chaplains, they were standing on the deck, arms linked and praying together.

Just a guess, but based on my training I suspect comforting as many of those 668 other men still onboard was a bigger motivation to them than saving four. Those chaplains didn’t need their life jackets, anyway. They weren’t going anywhere. There was still work for them to do.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:45 AM on February 3, 2018 [23 favorites]

In the long-standing debate about whether religion has done more good or ill in the world, that quartet definitely provides evidence for the plus side. My feature article The Faithful Four appeared 10 years ago this month in a magazine called America In WW II.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:06 AM on February 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

Thank you, LeLiLo! I'm sorry I can't edit this post to add your article, because it's much more in-depth than more recent coverage--it would have been perfect.
posted by filthy_prescriptivist at 9:41 AM on February 3, 2018

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
posted by Reverend John at 12:12 PM on February 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

.

Another hero on that night, African American Coast Guardsman Charles W David Jr, died of pneumonia after pulling many survivors from the water.
posted by monotreme at 1:10 PM on February 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

I learned about the Four Chaplains from collecting stamps when I was a little kid, and there it was, right at top of the lead article.
posted by lagomorphius at 2:40 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I learned of them in a dim, watery room where they were standing in a row at the rail of a listing deck, at the old Wax Museum in Washington DC.
posted by Rash at 5:27 PM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

LeLiLo's article mentions that the prisoners from the U-233 (eventually sunk later in the war) were brought back to the United States as POWs. It's likely they were kept at Camp Michaux near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Most captured German naval personnel were brought there. Some even stayed in, or moved back to the area after the war. (An old German navy guy and his wife ran a little grocery store down the road from my grandmother's house.) An earlier farm in the same location was used to house Hessian POWs. So the same location has the odd distinction of having held German POWs from the Revolutionary War and WWII.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:06 PM on February 3, 2018 [3 favorites]