Post 29 to hold Four Chaplains Memorial Service Sunday

American Legion Post 29 will be honoring the lives of four World War II chaplains during a special service at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4.

The Four Chaplains Memorial Service, which will be held at the Siloam Springs Grace Episcopal Church, is designed to raise public awareness about the historic event, according to Jerry Cavness, public relations officer for Post 29.

“A lot of people don’t know the story,” Cavness said.

On Feb. 2, 1943, the USAT Dorchester was carrying 902 soldiers, merchant seamen and civilian workers from Newfoundland toward an American base in Greenland, according to the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation website, www.fourchaplains.org. The luxury coastal liner, which had been converted to transport Army troops, was hit with a German torpedo and sank in less than 20 minutes.

Many men were killed by the blast and even more were wounded. Survivors rushed to evacuate the sinking ship. Through the pandemonium, four Army chaplains — Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D.

Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed —worked to calm the frightened soldiers, the website states.

The chaplains opened a storage locker and began distributing life jackets, and when there were no more life-jackets left the chaplains gave their own life-jackets to four young men. As the ship went down, the four chaplains could be seen with their arms linked, braced against the slanting deck, as they offered up prayers and sang hymns, the website states.

Of the 902 men on board the ship, only 230 would survive. The four clergymen were posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart and a Special Medial for Heroism — an award that was never given before and will never be given again.

Each year the local Civitan Club reads the story of the chaplains during their annual clergy appreciation breakfast. The American Legion also has a long tradition of honoring the four chaplains, but this will be the first time that Post 29 will hold a memorial service, Cavness said.

During the service, the colors will be posted, the story will be retold along with background information about each of the four chaplains and several videos will be shown.

The Siloam Springs Grace Episcopal Church is located at 617 N. Mt. Olive St.