Category Archives: History
On This Day in Chaplain Corps History
On 6 June 1944, the largest amphibious combat assault in history took place as Allied forces landed in Normandy by air and sea. Among them were 13 chaplains who parachuted in with the airborne troops and many more who landed on the beaches. In this episode of “On This Day in Chaplain Corps History,” the stories of some of those chaplains are told.
.
.
.
C
A Virtual tour of Chaplains Hill
There’s a quiet place set aside at Arlington National Cemetery where chaplains are remembered and honored. It’s called Chaplains Hill. What better time than Memorial Day to visit Chaplains Hill and be reminded of the service and sacrifice of the chaplains buried there?
.
.
.
Honoring the Caisson Platoon
The Caisson Platoon of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) honors deceased Service Members who are interred at Arlington National Cemetery. This 80 second video briefly tells their story and seeks to honor those who honor our nation’s heroes.
.
.
.
.
On this day in Chaplain Corps history
On 28 May 1948 the United States Post Office issued a stamp honoring the four chaplains who perished ministering to others when the Dorchester sunk after being torpedoed by a German Submarine in World War Two. Here’s a little more history about the stamp with a lot of samples of the First Day Covers.
.
.
.
.
Memorial Day: It’s History & Meaning
Memorial Day should not be just another day off work or picnic opportunity. While those are great, it’s also important to remember what Memorial Day is all about and to remember those who have died while defending our freedoms.
.
.
.
.
“Tell it to the Chaplain!”
It’s news in this man’s Army when corporal tells chaplain to keep his chin up
by Corporal Grant Robbins1
.
“Look,” said the first sergeant. “Why don’t you just tell it to the chaplain?”
I had gone into the orderly room because my name was not on a new rating list. My sad story has such a long background of pyramided woes that I shall not go into it more than to say that only a good heart-to-heart talk with someone would straighten me out.
The following day I stood before the chaplain dressed neatly in patched fatigues to give the impression of a poor but honest home-spun GI.
“What have they done to you now?” asked the chaplain. “And kindly make it short.”
I sat down and let him have it straight. When the torrent had subsided, I sat back and searched the face of the chaplain for a reaction. He gazed at his feet and shook his head slowly.
“I just can’t understand the Army,” he said. “Now take me for example. You may think that I am doing pretty well, but I’ll tell you appearances are deceiving. After five country churches with an average salary of ten dollars a week, I finally get settled in a good town with a good congregation. And then, of course, I leave it to become a chaplain. Where do they put me? Out on a sand-blown camp in the desert, with a tent to preach in and a bunch of tank men who have no more inclination toward religion than Hottentots. Then the wind blows the tent away.”
I said that that was too bad.
“That was only the beginning,” he continued. “Shortly after I experienced a slight success in bringing some boys into the fold, they put another chaplain over me.”
He went on and on from one misfortune to another, and as his story developed one could easily see that he and Fate were at odds. Tears trickled down his cheeks and splashed off the bars on his collar.
Since passes were issued now only on Sundays his congregation had suffered a heart-breaking drop in attendance. And he had been ousted from his warm office to make room for the Red Cross. When he protested, he was mistaken for a mess officer and installed in a cubbyhole just off the mess kitchen, where from 0600 to 2100 came a heavy odor of frying Spam.
“And to top it all,” he said, “I have not received a promotion in eighteen months.”
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I reached across, patted him on the shoulder and said: “Keep your chin up, sir. I’m sure things will work out in the long run.”
He smiled miserably and thanked me. I tiptoed quietly out the door, leaving him in his grief.
.
.
.
1 “Tell it to the Chaplain,” CORONET magazine, September 1945, pg. 68. (Excerpted from the book The Best from Yank, the Army Weekly, published at $3.50 by E. P. Dulton & Co., Inc., New York, N. Y.; copyright, 1945, by Franklin S. Forsberg.)
On this day in Chaplain Corps History
On 23 May 1951 Chaplain Emil Kapaun died as a Prisoner of War during the Korean War. Today, we remember him and his ministry to the Soldiers of his unit and fellow POWs whom he served unselfishly.
.
Chaplain O’Callahan & the USS Franklin
On 19 March 1945 Japanese bombers attacked the U.S.S. Franklin off the coast of Japan. Chaplain Joseph Timothy O’Callahan’s actions on that day earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. This video uses narrative from the program “Profiles in Patriotism” from a vinyl record produced by the U.S. Navy Recruiting Service about 1968.
Today’s Technology Builds on Early Chaplain Media Pioneers
Chaplain (MAJ) Daryl Densford live streams a Catholic Mass at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, 22 March 2020
In our current COVID-19 situation, many chaplains have developed further in the use of alternative media to continue to provide religious support to the service members, civilians and family members to whom they minister. We have seen increased skill and creativity as chaplains and their enlisted assistants have learned and grown in their expertise. The use of alternative media isn’t new to the respective Chaplain Corps, however. In the early 1950’s, for example, the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Fort Slocum, NY, video recorded sermons for student development, cadre used closed-circuit television to increase their training reach and chaplain’s assistants were taught the use of audio-visual equipment. Chaplains are miles ahead of where they were 50 years ago, but still owe to their predecessors thanks for the foundation on which they now build to continue to serve and minister to those who depend on them.
Below are examples of how the Army Chaplain School used the technology of their day for training and preparing chaplains and their assistants in 1952.
This “picture shows a group of chaplain students in the course in Speech Techniques watching as an instructor briefs them for a laboratory exercise. Presently, each of them will give an assigned ‘speech’ before the camera. By this means, the student will have an opportunity to watch himself on a television receiver which is at the rear of his audience. Thus, while his voice is being recorded, he will be able to see himself ‘as others see him.'”1
.
“As with the chaplains, the occasion sometimes arises when it becomes desirable to receive instruction by way of closed circuit television system which originates in the studio to present the same lesson to several classrooms at once. The Chaplain School, a pioneer in this kind of teaching by closed circuit television, has worked with other educational agencies, military and civilian to develop effective techniques for this new adaptation of the television medium.”2
.
“The chaplain’s enlisted assistant is his ‘right hand man’ in garrison and in combat.” At the U.S. Army Chaplain School they take “…special courses in audiovisuals and motion picture projection [to] make it possible for them to increase their value as assistants to army chaplains.”3
.
.
.
1 “The Chaplain School,” Fort Slocum, NY: U.S. Army Chaplain School, 1952, pg 4.
2 Ibid., pg 12.
3 Ibid., pg 11.
.
.
Remembering Chaplain Downey on the Anniversary of Bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
Chaplain William B. Downey, 509th Composite Bomb Group
Many chaplains find themselves in the middle of history in the making, some of them making that history. Army Air Corps Chaplain William B. Downey, of the 509th Composite Bomb Group, was there when history was being made. According to Downey in a 1987 interview, “one of the security officers told me a little time before, there was going to be a really fantastic new thing, only one of the greatest things that ever happened in the history of the world.”1 In the midst of this “greatest thing,” Chaplain Downey was there bringing God to the crews of the Enola Gay and Bockscar who would drop the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945.
Read 186 more words and hear Chaplain Downey pray with the crew of the Enola Gay here…
.
.
.
