Last month the Napoleon Ouellette, Post No. 24 of the American Legion in the small town of Rumford, Maine, held a ceremony for the four chaplains aboard the troop transport “Dorchester.”

With 900 troops on board in the icy seas off Greenland on Feb. 3, 1943, the Dorchester was hit by a torpedo in the black early morning hours. All troops frantically headed for the top deck, where four chaplains led them to boxes of life jackets and calmly handed them out.

With the boxes empty, the four chaplains each slipped off their preservers and gave them to four troops. These four — 1st Lieutenants Clark V. Poling (Reformed Church of America); Alexander O. Goode (Jewish); John P. Washington (Catholic) and George L. Fox (Methodist), all with the U.S. Army, were last seen standing together praying as the Dorchester went down 24 minutes later. More than 600 men were lost that morning, but more than 200 were saved by the actions of these four chaplains.

Little known facts of war come out in the strangest of ways, but it’s good that they do come out.

JACK F. BLANCHARD

Coeur d’Alene