For the Tomahawk Leader
TOMAHAWK – Tomahawk’s American Legion Post 93 and VFW Post 2687, earlier this month, held its annual remembrance ceremony honoring four chaplains who lost their lives in World War II.
The Four Chaplains Day event, held at Generations Funeral Home on Sunday, Feb. 4, recognized the “Four Chaplains” – Methodist minister the Reverend George L. Fox, Reform Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Catholic priest Father John P. Washington and Reformed Church in America minister the Reverend Clark V. Poling.
The four men were aboard the USAT Dorchester traveling from New York to Greenland when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Labrador Sea on Feb. 3, 1943. After the troop ship was struck, Fox, Goode, Washington and Poling gave away their life jackets when the supply ran out and died when the craft sank.
Only 230 of the 904 people on board survived.
Members of the local posts said they “hope that by annually celebrating the heroism that the chaplains displayed that day, the four men who never came home from WWII won’t be forgotten.”
