American Legion to honor four chaplains

American Legion Post 29 is hosting a Four Chaplains Memorial Service on the 77th anniversary of the World War II tragedy.

The service will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 2, at The Assembly church, located at 2909 Cheri Whitlock Drive.

The Four Chaplains Memorial Service is dedicated to the memory of four brave military chaplains who lost their lives while serving on the troop transport ship USS Dorchester during World War II when the ship was torpedoed by a Nazi submarine off the coast of Greenland on Feb. 2, 1943, according to a press release from the post.

Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Poling, Dutch Reformed, comforted and calmed service members after the attack and then gave away their life vests as the ship was sinking, according to the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation website, fourchaplains.org.

The post hopes to honor the chaplains' sacrifice and raise awareness of their story, according to Jerry Cavness, public information officer for the post.

"We want to bring this, as much as we can every year, to the forefront so the local community, especially, knows this happened, what it means, and what it should mean to all of us," he said.

Members of the local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troups will be participating in the ceremony, which will also include patriotic music, a retelling of the story and videos about the event, according to Cavness.

American Legion posts and Civitan clubs across the country honor the Four Chaplains in February. This is the third year for Post 29 to hold a Four Chaplains Memorial Service, Cavness said. The post honors the chaplains on the first Sunday in February and this year the ceremony will fall on the exact anniversary of the tragedy, he said.