 In remembering the legacy of four World War II chaplains — Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish — who went down together with their torpedoed ship in 1943, we speak with David Fox, nephew of one of the chaplains. We also hear interviews with surviving veterans and veterans of the German ship that torpedoed them. Finally, a conversation with author, poet, and Vietnam War veteran Bruce Weigl. His most recent book, The Circle of Hahn, chronicles the long personal journey he has made back to Vietnam and to the adoption of a beloved Vietnamese child. The paradox of his life as a writer, he says, is that the war ruined his life and gave him his voice. |
*Times denoted refer to web version of audio
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History of the USAT Dorchester
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| U.S. stamp commemorating the four chaplains. |
The USAT Dorchester, a luxury cruise liner converted to a troop transport ship, was torpedoed and sunk as part of a naval convoy during World War II. On the night of February 3, 1943, Convoy SG-19 left St. John's, Newfoundland, bound for the Army Command Base at Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland. SG-19 consisted of six ships: the Dorchester, two merchant ships leased by the United States from the Norwegian government that was in exile, D/S (Diesel Ship) Lutz, and D/S Biscaya. They were escorted by three small United States Coast Guard cutters: the Comanche (WPG-76), the Escanaba (WPG-77), and the Tampa (WPG-48).
Approximately 100 miles west of Cape Farewell, Greenland, the German submarine U-223 torpedoed the USAT Dorchester. The Dorchester was severely damaged, and eyewitnesses recounted the ship sunk in 15-25 minutes, taking about 600 men with her out of a total crew of 902. The ship's complement was 130 crew members, 23 Naval Armed Guard, and 751 passengers. The passengers were U.S. Army personnel, civilian workers, Danish citizens and USCG personnel. There were only 229 survivors. Six hundred and seventy five persons were lost.
On board the Dorchester were the four chaplains: George Fox, a former Methodist circuit riding preacher; David Goode, a rabbi from York, Pennsylvania; Clark Poling, a Yale Divinity School graduate and a pastor from Schenectady, New York; and John Washington, a Catholic priest serving a parish in Arlington, New Jersey. When war was declared, all four volunteered for the Corps of Chaplains.
The German submarine U-223 was sunk off the coast of Italy by vessels of the British fleet on March 30, 1944. |
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Audio Clip of Rabbi's Wife
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Theresa Kaplan Goode
| The female voice in the audio clip is Theresa Goode Kaplan, wife of Rabbi Alexander Goode. During their final three days together, she recounts, he was immensely disappointed that she did not bring their daughter Rosalie — who had received a vaccination and was running a fever — to New York so he could see her one last time. Shortly before he departed from Camp Miles Standish, he wrote her:
Darling: Just a hurried line as I rush my packing. I'll be on my way in an hour or two. I got back yesterday just before the warning. Hard as it was for us to say goodbye in New York, at least we could see each other before I left. Don't worry—I'll be coming back much sooner than you think. Take care of yourself and the baby—a kiss for each of you. I'll keep thinking of you. Remember, I love you very much. Alex. |
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Reference to Al Jolson
Fox says that Rabbi Alexander Goode, one of the four chaplains, was the son-in-law of Al Jolson's father. Known for his blackface, vaudevillian performances, Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson) would later become a superstar after acting in the first talking movie, The Jazz Singer, a 1927 film inspired by his life. In it, he uttered the famous words on the big screen, "You ain't heard nothing yet." |
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Audio Clip of Survivors
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| Courtesy: Immortal Chaplains Foundation |
In the picture to the left, the survivors of the incident clasp hands in front of the White House as part of the reconciliation process. From left to right: Kurt Roser, submariner on U-223; Walter Miller, survivor; Richard Swanson, coast guard rescuer; David Labadie, survivor; Gerhard Buske, first officer, U-223. |
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Speech by Tutu
The audio clip of Archbishop Desmond Tutu was excerpted from a speech presented at The Immortal Chaplains Foundation's 1999 Prize for Humanity ceremony. Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, the foundation's mission is to perpetuate the legacy of the four chaplains and their example of love and compassion for others.
The award's first recipient, Charles David, was an African-American mess attendant aboard the Comanche, the United States Coast Guard cutter that defied orders to save members of the Dorchester in 1943. David risked his life to save that of his executive officer and others during rescue operations of the Dorchester. Described as "a giant with tremendous physical strengths," David repeatedly dived into the freezing Atlantic in total darkness to help pull survivors aboard the Cutter.
Among those he rescued was his executive officer, Lieutenant Langford Anderson, who also had gone into the water to help with a rescue. Lieutenant Anderson, who had been pulled under water by drowning man, was rescued when David dived in, broke the survivor's stranglehold, and pulled both men to safety. David died of pneumonia following his exposure to the extreme conditions. |
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Rwandan Hotel Manager
From April through July 1994, Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager, sheltered over one thousand people of the Tutsi tribe while 800,000 others were slaughtered by his own Hutu tribesmen. After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Resesabagina received death threats from RPF supporters and fled to Belgium, where he now lives with his wife and children. Hewas awarded the 2000 Prize for Humanity in Washington D.C.
To learn more about Rusesabagina's story, read a report by Steve Bradshaw from the BBC. American RadioWorks produced an excellent documentary about the Rwandan tragedy in April 2004 entitled "The Few Who Stayed: Defying Genocide in Rwanda." |
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Account at An Khe
Weigl had contracted dysentery while in Vietnam. During this time, he says, he was convalescing at a base camp near An Khe in the central highlands of Vietnam. A steep pass near An Khe was infamous for ambushes taking place during the conflict because a hairpin curve located near the top forced convoy vehicles to slow to a crawl. View a topographical map (lower left corner) and a aerial photo of the "The Hairpin".
The book that Weigl first read while recovering was Crime and Punishment, written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. |
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Reference to Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh, translated as "he who enlightens," was a Vietnamese revolutionary and president of communist North Vietnam. He declared independence from France in the 1940's and led the campaign to reunite the northern and southern parts of Vietnam. In 1975, Saigon would be renamed Ho Chi Minh City in remembrance of the place Ho Chi Minh started his revolutionary cause. |
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Reading of Poem
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Bruce Weigl during Vietnam War
| Weigl reads his poem "Song of Napalm, " published in the 1988 collection Song of Napalm:
Song of Napalm
After the storm, after the rain stopped pounding,
we stood in the doorway watching horses
walk off lazily across the pasture's hill.
We stared through the black screen,
our vision altered by the distance
so I thought I saw a mist
kicked up around their hooves when they faded
like cut-out horses
away from us.
The grass was never more blue and that light, more
scarlet; beyond the pasture
trees scraped their voices into the wind, branches
crisscrossed the sky like barbed wire
but she said they were only branches.
Okay. The storm stopped pounding.
I am trying to say this straight: for once
I was sane enough to pause and breathe
outside my wild plans and after the hard rain
I turned my back on the old curses. I believed
they swung finally away from me…
But still the branches are wire
and thunder is the pounding mortar,
still I close my eyes and see the girl
running from her village, napalm
stuck to her dress like jelly,
her hands reaching for the no one
who waits in waves of heat before her.
So I can keep on living,
so I can stay here beside you,
I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings
beat inside her until she rises
above the stinking jungle and her pain
eases, and your pain, and mine.
But the lie swings back again.
The lie works only as long as it takes to speak
and the girl runs only as far
as the napalm allows
until her burning tendons and crackling
muscles draw her up
into that final position
burning bodies so perfectly assume. Nothing
can change that, she is burned behind my eyes
and not your good love and not the rain-swept air
and not the jungle-green
pasture unfolding before us can deny it. |
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Reading of Poem
In 1994, Bruce Weigl edited and translated a poetry collection. It was the first book after the war in which Vietnamese poems appeared side-by-side with their English translations. This collection is called Poems from Captured Documents and it contains informal poems found in the diaries of captured or killed North Vietnamese soldiers.
They are predominantly love poems or verses of longing for family and home. During the program, Weigl read his personal favorite, "One Moonlit Night":
One Moonlit Night
Tonight the wind is cold on bamboo trees.
The moon hides behind the mountain's top.
In sadness the river ripples.
I received your letter and read it
Nervously through the night
And afterward
I knew you grieved for me like a mother and wept.
Nephews and nieces wait far away.
Sorrowfully, aunts and uncles wait too.
You beg me to come home, my love,
To the family of our village
Because my life is still full of sweet promise.
You do not understand the way of truth.
Life must be spent for the people's good.
I picked a violet to tuck into my book.
Tears mixed with the violet's ink
To weave into my writing.
All the wishes I send, so you will understand. |
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Reference to Robert Stone
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Mushroom cloud after atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki.
Courtesy: National Archives
| When talking about a kind of beauty associated with war, Weigl says Robert Stone spoke about the beauty of a mushroom cloud formed by an atomic bomb. Weigl also quotes a line from his poem, "The Impossible," when he recites:
"Say it clearly and you make it beautiful, no matter what."
The Impossible
Winter's last rain and a light I don't recognize
through the trees and I come back in my mind
to the man who made me suck his cock
when I was seven, in sunlight between boxcars.
I thought I could leave him standing there
in the years, half smile on his lips,
small hands curled into small fists,
but after he finished, he held my hand in his
as if astonished until the houses were visible
just beyond the railyard. He held my hand
but before that he slapped me hard on the face
when I would not open my mouth for him.
I do not want to say his whole hips
slammed into me, but they did, and a black wave
washed over my brain, changing me
so I could not move among my people in the old way.
On my way home I stopped in the churchyard
to try and find a way to stay alive.
In the branches a red-wing flitted, warning me.
In the rectory Father prepared
the body and the blood for mass
but God could not save me from a mouthful of cum.
That afternoon some lives turned away from the light.
He taught me how to move my tongue around.
In his hands he held my head like a lover.
Say it clearly and you make it beautiful, no matter what. |
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