Shortly before 1 a.m. on February 3, 1943, a German submarine torpedoed the Army transport ship Dorchester in the icy North Atlantic, with 902 men aboard. In less than 20 minutes it would sink. In the chaos, four Army chaplains, a Methodist minister, a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Dutch Reformed minister, moved among the men, calming them, praying, and handing out life jackets. When the life jackets ran out, all four took off their own and gave them to four frightened young men. One survivor called it “the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.” As the ship went down, men in the rafts saw the four chaplains with arms linked, praying together.
