Have any of you ever heard of Alexander Goode, George Fox, Clark Poling or John Washington?

You see, Goode was a Jewish rabbi, Fox a Methodist minister, Poling a Reformed Church in America minister and Washington a Roman Catholic priest.

They were all lieutenants in the Army who became friends at Army Chaplains School, and were assigned to serve aboard the USAT Dorchester, a converted civilian liner.

While steaming through 34-degree North Atlantic water toward Army Command Base, Greenland, with 902 aboard, a German U-Boat, at 12:55 a.m. February 3, 1943, fired a torpedo at the Dorchester.

All power and communications were knocked out. Panic set in. Soldiers were trapped below deck. Men were scrambling to get off the sinking vessel.

The four chaplains tried to organize an orderly evacuation. They passed out life jackets, and helped others onto lifeboats. When all life jackets were gone they removed theirs and gave them to the men.

As the Dorchester was sinking the chaplains locked arms on the rising bow in prayer for the others. Survivors in the water heard them singing hymns in Hebrew, Latin and English.

U.S. Coast Guard cutters Escanaba and Commanche rescued most of the 230 survivors. A majority of the 672 who perished died from hypothermia.

One survivor recalled seeing the chaplains in their final act as “The finest thing I have seen, or hope to see, this side of heaven.”

In New York City there’s an unimposing small building that is “The Chapel of the Four Chaplains.”

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  (The Bible, John 15:13)

And to think that the vast majority of our fellow countrymen know little or nothing of World War II (or much of American history at all), and never attend Memorial or Veterans Day observances.

So it is.