Selfless Gesture of World War II’s Four Chaplains Lives On

It was the chaplain’s badge that jolted Willie Stricklin, and his blurted cry answered the chaplain’s 28 years of prayer.

Stricklin, then 47, had been taken to Providence Hospital in El Paso, Texas, in 1971 with a near-fatal heart attack. Paul Poling, a retired minister, stood silent in the hospital room as Stricklin’s eyes popped open and saw the name tag: “Chaplain Poling.”

The badge carried the former Navy gunner and oil field worker back to 1943 and the torpedoed troop ship Dorchester.

“Stricklin sat straight up like he’d been hit with an electrical shock, and he said, ‘I was on the Dorchester with Clark Poling,’ ” said David Poling, another member of the family who has co-authored a novel about the Dorchester disaster, “Sea of Glory” (Broadman & Holman, 358 pages; audiobook by Americanabooks.com).

Clark Poling, Alexander Goode, John Washington, George Fox: They were the four chaplains of the Dorchester who gave up their life jackets--and their lives--after a German submarine torpedoed the ship off Greenland. Of 902 soldiers, sailors and civilians aboard, 672 died Feb. 3, 1943.

Stricklin nearly froze, leaping barefoot into the sea. Many lifeboats were frozen to their deck fittings or damaged by torpedo. Extra life jackets were below decks, under water, as the sea quickly filled the ship.

The chaplains took off their life jackets and put them on four passengers who needed them. The recipients’ names are unknown.

And then the chaplains--a rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and two Protestants--joined hands in prayer as the ship went down.

That’s how Stricklin, who died in 1973, remembered last seeing them, says his daughter, Tamara Stricklin Boss of Alamogordo, N.M.

“He told that story over and over, how they were praying as the ship went down and willingly gave away their life jackets,” she said. “How they didn’t try to save themselves over saving other people, when everybody else was worrying about themselves.”

That’s how Michael Warish, another Dorchester survivor, remembers it too.

The crew was warned that a German submarine was nearby, said Warish, a first sergeant on the Dorchester. Capt. Hans Danielsen advised everyone to keep life jackets on, Warish said by phone from Taunton, Mass.

The heavily laden ship became a sitting duck, falling behind its convoy because of storm damage, he said.

“When the torpedo hit, it first was like a crash,” Warish said. “Then about one second later, the torpedo exploded. Everything went--the lights, the steam pipes and then came the distress whistle, boop-boop-boop.”

The explosion drove a bed frame across the room, pinning Warish to the wall.

Desperately, he worked himself free and dashed topside. There, he said, he watched Rabbi Goode give his life jacket to an injured man. Then the chaplains stood together on deck and began to pray.

With their prayer ringing in his ears, Warish plunged into the water.

“I got oil in my mouth, and I started coughing,” he said. “Then, I thought God was talking to me. Somebody said, ‘Pull him up.’ It was the lifeboat.” Only two of 14 lifeboats had hit the water.

The novel by Poling of Albuquerque and by film and television producer Ken Wales of Los Angeles focuses on the chaplains’ impact on people’s lives, much as they affected the authors’ own lives.

David Shepherd, senior vice president and publisher of Broadman & Holman, says the book was six years in the making, and the authors chose to fictionalize story elements to facilitate the telling.

“We’re taking elements from history and building a story around it--in this case, a modern-day parable to underscore the idea of love and the greatest sacrifice of love, the laying down of one’s life for one’s friends,” Shepherd said.

For 28 years, Paul Poling prayed to meet a Dorchester survivor. Stricklin was the only one he met, his son says. The authors have spoken to about 20 survivors.

David Poling clearly remembers cousin Clark, even though David was not quite 5 when the chaplain went off to minister to U.S. crews building a top-secret air base, weather station and radar center in Greenland.

He remembers swimming in the family pond in New Hampshire with Clark as lifeguard; he and his brother, Charlie, skating on a frozen river in winter or riding a sled pulled by their pet dog, Clark keeping watch and laughing; Charlie at the beach being plucked from the sea by Clark after a breaking wave flattened the wading child.

“Everybody wanted to be around Clark,” David recalls. “He was just one of those graceful, funny, athletic, caring guys--and always able to organize games for his younger cousins.”

It was natural for Clark to enter the ministry in a family dedicated to Christian service. Family tradition didn’t lend impetus, David says; it merely removed imaginary obstructions.

Wales’ father attended Yale Divinity School with Clark Poling and gave son Ken a keen awareness of the chaplains’ story.

Wales, who produced film and television projects such as “The Tamarind Seed,” “Islands in the Stream” and “Christy,” said his father relentlessly encouraged him to write about the chaplains, saying: “Ken, tell this story so that it will never be forgotten.”

And Wales remembers promising at age 10: “I will, Dad, I will.”

Since no one ever identified any of the four life jacket recipients, the authors fictionalized one--the grizzled, scruffy Wesley Adams.

“He’s the guy you just didn’t want to be around, but God in his great grace reaches out through the chaplains and of course saves the least worthy,” Wales says.