Just Pray That I Shall Be Adequate
“Our most common link is that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air.
We all cherish our children’s future.
And we are all mortal.”
John F. Kennedy
During the first minutes of February 2, 1943, the 5,649-ton United States Army Transport Dorchester, once a luxury coastal liner, was crowded to capacity, carrying 902 soldiers, merchant seamen and civilian workers. The Dorchester, accompanied by Coast Guard Cutters Tampa, Escanaba and Comanche, moved steadily across the icy waters of Newfoundland toward an American base in Greenland.
On its sixth mission, the Dorchester had departed Staten Island a month earlier
For good reason, Captain Hans J. Danielsen was concerned and cautious – the Tampa’s sonar had detected a submarine, German U-boats prowled the vital sea lanes and several Allied ships had already been sunk.
Still 150 miles for its destination, despite the captain having ordered all onboard to sleep with their life jackets on, many soldiers in the ship’s hold disregarded the order, either because of the heat generated by the ship’s engines or because the jackets were uncomfortable.
At 12:55 a.m., an officer aboard the German submarine U-223 spied the Dorchester in the cross hairs of his periscope. Within minutes and after approaching and identifying its target, the U-223 fired a fan of three torpedoes. The most decisive – and deadly – struck the starboard side, amid ship, far below the waterline; it also destroyed the Dorchester’s telegram and radio contact with its three escort ships. With the Dorchester rapidly sinking, Captain Danielsen gave the order to abandon ship.
In less than 20 minutes, the ship would slip beneath the northern Atlantic’s icy waters.
While the Tampa continued on, escorting the two other ships in the convoy, crew members of the CGC Comanche saw the flash of the fatal explosion. The Comanche responded and rescued 97 survivors; the Escanaba circled the Dorchester, rescuing 132 survivors.
After the blast, men stunned by the explosion groped their way through the darkness to the upper decks, only to face a bast of Artic air and recognize that death awaited. Some over-crowded and capsized lifeboats, while other lifeboats drifted away before soldiers could reach them.
“Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure
whether they have it until the test comes.”
Carl Sandburg
In the unspeakable horror four men stood out as expressions of hope and light in the darkness. Spread out among the soldiers, they tried to calm the frightened, tend the wounded and guide the disoriented to safety.
“Witnesses of that terrible night remember hearing the four men
offer prayers for the dying and encouragement for those who would live.”
Wyatt R. Fox, son of Lt. George L. Fox
“I could hear men crying, pleading, praying.
I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage.
Their voices were the only thing that kept me going.”
Survivor witness Private William B. Bednar
The four were chaplains.
Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist
Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish
Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic
Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed
Amidst the chaos, the chaplains managed to open a storage locker and began distributing life jackets.
Engineer Grady Clark reported witnessing an astonishing sight. When there were no more lifejackets, the chaplains removed theirs and gave them to four frightened young men.
“It was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see
this side of heaven.”
Survivor witness John Ladd
Forgetting his gloves, Navy Petty Officer John J. Mahoney rushed topside and, when he was hit by the Arctic cold, attempted to return to his cabin before he was stopped by Rabbi Goode, who gave the Petty Officer his own gloves with the explanation “Never mind. I have two pairs.” Only later did Mahoney realize that Rabbi Goode was not conveniently carrying two pairs of gloves.
The Rabbi was determined not to leave the ship and abandon the men of the Dorchester.
Survivors reported that, as the ship went down and from their nearby rafts, they could see the four chaplains – arms linked and braced against the slanting desk – and hear them praying in English, Hebrew and Latin.
Six-hundred-and-seventy-two – 672 – soldiers, sailors, merchant seamen and civilians died.
“As I swam away from the ship, I looked back.
The flares had lighted everything.
The bow came up high and she slid under.
The last thing I saw, the Four Chaplains were up there praying
for the safety of the men.
They had done everything they could.
I did not see them again.
They themselves did not have a chance without their life jackets.”
Engineer Grady Clark, survivor witness
The Four Chaplains of the Dorchester were classmates during one of the first sessions of the U.S. Army’s Chaplain School at Harvard University. Their training included long marches, defense against chemical warfare, military law, military sanitation and first aid. Chaplains from different denominations were deliberately bunked together to promote tolerance and understanding.
George L. Fox was the oldest of the Four Chaplains of the Dorchester. He had served in “The Great War” as a medic and was ordained a Methodist minister and appointed as an Army chaplain in July 1942.
His childhood in a Catholic family was shaped by the tyranny of an abusive father whom he escaped by enlisting to serve in World War I before finishing high school. Unable to reconcile the Church’s teachings with the abuse he received at home and determined to leave his past behind, he abandoned Catholicism and earned the Silver Star, several Purple Hearts and the French Croix de Guerre as a medic. After the War, he studied at Moody Bible Institute in Illinois, served as an itinerant Methodist minister, and earned his Bachelor’s degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from Boston University School of Theology and was ordained in 1934.
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, he returned to active duty at the age of forty-two on August 8 – the same day his son Wyatt entered the Marine Corps.
Chaplain Alexander D. Goode followed his father into the rabbinate, earning a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and Hebrew Union College and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Almost penniless as a student during the Great Depression, he considered abandoning his studies but believed that it was God’s plan for him to follow a religious vocation. For much of his youth, he served in the National Guard to help make ends meet. As a young rabbi in York, Pennsylvania, Rabbi Goode, who was committed to ecumenism, founded a multi-cultural, mixed race Boy Scout troop – the first in the U.S. to have scouts earn Catholic, Jewish and Protestant awards. He was turned down by the Navy when he attempted to enlist after Pearl Harbor and became an Army chaplain.
As an expression of the Almighty’s sense of humor and great love for His People in times of desperate need, John P. Washington, who was ordained a priest in 1935, was turned down because of poor eye sight when he volunteered for the Navy after Pearl Harbor. (The child of a tough Irish neighborhood, he almost lost his sight in a BB gun accident and then nearly died of fever.)
He did not let the Navy’s rejection get the better of him and applied to the Army. During the Army’s physical, he covered his bad eye both times when reading the eye chart, correctly assuming the doctors would be too busy to pay much attention – and trusting that God would forgive his subterfuge.
.American Reformed Church Chaplain Clark V. Poling descended from a family that had produced six generations of ministers. With his advanced degree from Yale University School of Divinity, he was ordained in the Reformed Church of America and received his chaplaincy commission in 1942. When his father spoke of the high casualty rates among chaplains in WWI, the newly appointed chaplain asked his father to pray “Not for my safe return, that wouldn't be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty...never be a coward...and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just pray that I shall be adequate."
On Tuesday, November 22, while pies were a-bakin’ and turkeys awaited stuffing, he who has twice lost the popular presidential election by a combined almost thirteen-million votes entertained a now disgraced footwear designer/rapper and a vicious antisemite who proclaims an indefensible, obnoxious and downright heretical political theology.
Two-thousand years ago, a great rabbi cautioned against calling anyone an “idiot.” (Matthew 5:22) So, how’s about we say he’s “troglodyte,” “nebbish” or “putz.”
We will not name either of the antisemitic dinner guests. Without years of public penance and “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” their names deserve only to be confined to the dustbin of history.
Let’s just be clear. The following are lies. They are untrue. They stand in stark contrast to the teaching of every major Christian denomination, the Roman Catholic Church, the documents of the Second Vatican Council and The Catechism of the Catholic Church. We offer them only as examples of the lies spread by the former president’s dinner guest. We call them lies. And unchristian.
“And basically, we are having something like Taliban rule in America. In a good way. We are having something like a Catholic Taliban rule.”
June 27, 2022 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision
“The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the US is godless and liberal. The defeat of the US government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development.”
In a public Telegram post cited by The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2021
“You are either a Catholic or a Jew. You’re either a Catholic or you are with the Jews. That is how it is. That’s the way the world is. And when are Catholics going to start asserting their control? I want Catholics to run this country not Jews. I want this country to be run by Catholics. Not Jews. And I don’t think that’s controversial. I want this country to have Catholic media, Catholic Hollywood, Catholic government. I want this to be a Catholic occupied government, not a Jewish occupied government. That’s not controversial for us…. We are Christians, you are not… Jesus already came, dude. The messiah has arrived. What are you doing?”
November 25, 2022 in livestream program
“We want to go back to 1099. We want to go back to the Middle Ages.”
June 14, 2022 in livestream program.
Let’s not wait for the Catholic bishops to call out this antisemite and condemn him for who and what he is – a 24-year-old freshman-year college drop-out bigot who – unless he publicly confesses his sin of antisemitism and does public penance - has no place in in the community of the Faithful. The bishops won’t.
Let us pray for his conversion.
And let us pray in thanksgiving for the Faiths, the heroism, the kindness and the example of The Four Chaplains of the Dorchester.