Postmark Calendar

Four Chaplains

“Greater love hath no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for friends.” When the troopship USS Dorchester was torpedoed in the North Atlantic on February 3, 1943, the four military chaplains on board — Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Father John P. Washington, and Reverends George L. Fox and Clark V. Poling, who had become friends while classmates at the military chaplains school — strove to calm the troops and offer encouragement as they led them from the battered, darkened hull to the wave-ravaged deck. There, they helped organize the launching of life boats and distribution of life jackets. When the supply of life jackets ran out, the four chaplains removed their own and gave them to others. As the Dorchester sank with almost 700 of its 900-plus troops, the four chaplains linked arms, and many around them heard their voices strong in song and supplication, offering strength and support at the hour of greatest need. These four men symbolized for the nation the sacrifices the war required, when citizens of different backgrounds, of nonmilitary professions, became soldiers and sacrificed their lives so that others might live. Chapels at the Pentagon and at West Point have stained glass windows commemorating the four chaplains, and in 1960 Congress posthumously awarded them a special medal — the Four Chaplains’ Medal.

Source: USPS Publication 528, Veterans and the Military on Stamps