{"id":350,"date":"2021-08-13T19:55:27","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T19:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/?page_id=350"},"modified":"2024-01-29T03:06:48","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T03:06:48","slug":"four-chaplains-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/american-legion-yorktown-post-1009\/programs\/four-chaplains-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Chaplains Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every year on the first Sunday in February our Yorktown American Legion Post gathers to educate our community on the Four Immortal Chaplains of World War II. Veterans, clergy, school children, Scouts, and members of the community join us in our Hall as we tell the heroic story of these four men of faith. For the past several years we have been fortunate to have four prominent members of the clergy join us for this ceremony and stand in to light a candle for each of these chaplains. This service and story has moved many people to return each year to honor these men. During the 2021 COVID shutdown our Post could not let this ceremony ‘stop’ due to the pandemic and we created a video version of the ceremony filmed safely in sections with participants recording their parts remotely at different times. <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n

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The Story of the Four Chaplains<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Early on Feb. 3, 1943, an enemy torpedo struck the Army transport Dorchester as it carried 902 officers and enlisted men, Navy armed guard, merchant seamen and civilian workers in the North Atlantic. The Coast Guard cutter escorts Comanche and Escanaba rescued 230 men. As Dorchester took on water, four Army chaplains \u2013 Lt. George L. Fox (Methodist), Lt. Alexander D. Goode (Jewish), Lt. John P. Washington (Roman Catholic), and Lt. Clark V. Poling (Dutch Reformed) \u2013 calmed frightened soldiers, aided the wounded and guided the disoriented toward safety. On deck, they opened a storage locker and began distributing life jackets. When there were no more available, the chaplains removed their life jackets and gave them to four young men. \u201cIt was the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven,\u201d said John Ladd, a survivor. As the ship went down, men in rafts saw the four chaplains, arms linked and braced against the slanting deck, singing hymns and praying. Congress attempted to confer the Medal of Honor on the chaplains but was prevented by strict requirements of heroism under fire. It authorized a one-time posthumous Special Medal for Heroism, awarded by President Eisenhower in 1961; it was intended to have the same weight and importance as the Medal of Honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every year on the first Sunday in February our Yorktown American Legion Post gathers to educate our community on the Four Immortal Chaplains of World War II. Veterans, clergy, school children, Scouts, and members of the community join us in our Hall as we tell the heroic story of these four men of faith. For the past several years we have been fortunate to have four prominent members of the clergy join us for this ceremony and stand in to … Continue reading “Four Chaplains Ceremony”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":368,"parent":22,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-350","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350\/revisions\/711"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nylegion1009.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}