Often, lectures raise more questions than they answer saw i would be happy to do that with you. A year and a half ago, i he justd the book mentioned, serving god and country u. S. Military chaplains in world war ii. My research to put that together took me several years. I have studied a lot of American History. I have written American History. But i did not expect to be so influenced by Something Like this book. I have no sense of the crucial role chaplains played in world war ii. There, i had in my mind were these chaplains floating around during the war, a lot of them on the home front in america in those 600 plus chapels built on the basis and forts all over the country. Withthey went off on ships the troops, they were sort of in the background. Maybe in tent hospitals. Maybe they were holding Worship Services when they could. All of those things are true. But what i had no idea of was the hero as him perilous him heroism of these men. I have no idea of the crucial role they played in the war. Let me read to you a quotation from the commander of the 75th Infantry Division in world war ii. For the men and women under his command. This was general pricketts comment. He said religion is basic in American Life and fundamental to our survival as a strong people. Those words are almost shocking today because i dont think the typical american believes that sort of thing. I dont think we believe today religion is basic in American Life and fundamental to our survival as a strong person. The general believed it. He went on to say one of the four freedoms of the Atlantic Charter for which we contend is freedom of religion. Talk, heer on in his said this to his troops. Chaplains are more than morale builders. Morale building is every officers duty. The primary function of chaplains is to minister religion to the officers and men of this command. In order to do this work listen to what he is saying. Do the work most effectively, the chaplains are training with the men, going into the field with them, living with the troops, getting close, and understanding their psychology. A Navy Chaplain put it this way. He said what freed us up most was when the commanders of various units would say chaplains should be in harms way with the combatants. You see, chaplains were not drafted. Chaplains were volunteers. Chaplains were older than the typical soldier, sailor, marine because they had at least seven years of formal schoolhousing. College, seminary, and a year or two later on. They went in as volunteers in their 30s. Some went as late as 50 or 51. One Catholic Priest went in when he was nearly 70 because there was such a shortage of chaplains that he bagged to go back and. He was a retired chaplain and they put him on the california coast so he could minister in hospitals. He recall the machine retired a second time from the navy as a chaplain. This was an interesting group. Let me give you a glimpse of how few there were, but yet the important impact they had on the war effort. Eventually wei, had 12. 5 men and women 12. 5 million men and women in uniform. Only those, there were about 12,000 chaplains. Within aaplains military of over 12 million people. 9000 of those were army. Approximately 3000 were in the navy. Now,chaplains, then as served most both the marines and navy. Drywall or two, the Navy Chaplains were rotated every year during world war ii, the Navy Chaplains were rotated every year. This is the way those things went. If army, on the other hand, a chaplain was assigned to the 75th Infantry Division, that Army Chaplain would remain with the infantry until the war was over. At least for the duration of his time, he would be with them, so they did not rotate. Airbornee an 82nd chaplain, you were going to stay with them throughout the war, so you really got to know the troops you went with very well. The problem was it began to get in the way of knowing the troops well was the fact there were not enough to go around. I want to tell you some things about what they did. I want to tell you about a thesis of the book i wrote. I never would have expected it as i began my research. You might say, where do you find material on 12,000 chaplains are world war ii for world war ii . Army kept verye good records. And chaplainn, underwood who retired in 1988, did you have to do a monthly report in the army . That was going on in world war ii. In thetional Archives National archives, theres a group that has the month reports of every chaplain serving. Those reports existed. Ofas able to spend parts three summers at the annex of the National Archives poring through those records. Navy records were not as complete. The reason is this. I dont know the mans name. Im glad i dont. I hope he has passed the jordan into glory because i hope i never discover him. A naval officer around 1980 decided to destroy all of the naval chaplain records up to vietnam. He said they were old things in the way and lacked and they lacked space, which meant as an historian, you had to become more like a detective and busy bee trying to gather information because these records were gone. Imagine the records of the war of 1812, the mexican war, the spanishamerican war, world war i, the civil war, all of those records destroyed. Mercifully, the marine corps which has always been stubborn in cooperating with everything in the Navy Department cap some records. At quantico, there is a good archive. I was able to find some things there. There is an excellent now retired chief petty officer in the navy who oversaw an archive in norfolk, virginia. He helped me ferret out things. With the help of some very good people who love history and love to preserve things, i was able to get enough to put some things together and see the picture. I want to add one other topic with regard to sources. Most valuable sources i found were autobiographies of military chaplains in world war ii. To date, i have been able to find about 100. These things are rare. Booksew became popular and had widespread publication. A roman Catholic Priest who served with the 101st airborne division, father samsons book is still in print i think. It was called look out below. But that is an exception. Most of those books are small. They were self published for members of their family, church, or denomination. You have to do a lot of detective work to find them. My wife called me this morning on my cell phone to tell me she had just spotted another world war ii chaplains autobiography on ebay. It was coming up this afternoon. She said i will get it for you before you come home. I married up. I married someone who is a better researcher. She writes better than i and is a lot better looking than i am. Those kinds of things are what i drew upon to put together this story of the chaplains in world war ii. Theses is i am not sure we could have sustained from december 7, 19 41, through the horrid casualties and carnage and long deployments that did not end until august 1945. I am not sure we could have done it without chaplains. There are people who know the situation better than i that argued it quite emphatically. I would like for you to your these words hear these words. I want to read to you a brief a rabbi who was a jewish chaplain in the u. S. Army in world war ii. He looked back over there time and said this. Theirhaplains corps, greatest achievement i believe was making the soldier believe the army did care about him as an individual. We are a symbol to him, a guarantee the army recognizing its fallibility in dealing with large masses of men was sufficiently concerned for his welfare to set aside 7000 troubleshooters in the Chaplain Corps to shortcircuit redtape, right wrongs, to deal with injustices. And we talked with g. I. Joe. We made him laugh when his heart was heavy. We passed his bed of pain with a pleasantry. We gave him a sense of his own importance. Corps,r with the medical we were the soul of the army. 1945, two months generalpan surrendered, Alexander Vandergrift who led the marines at guadalcanal in world war ii, who stayed in as a combat marine officer and was appointed commandant of the marine corps near the end of the war, he addressed a group of military chaplains. Navy and Army Chaplains in washington, d. C. , in october of 1945. Listen to what he said. This was the kind of thing that turned the light on in a darkroom for me as i was studying this hidden threat of history on the role of chaplains which i thought was off on the side. To the chaplains assembled, he said the administrations you have carried to our fighting men have abeen an epic of spiritual heroism. Hence the topic of my talk this morning. Ministrations you have carried to our fighting men have been an epic of spiritual heroism. Never have our men lacked for religious care and guidance. You have gone wherever they have gone. To millions of american boys, you have been a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. In this war, they turned to you constantly. You were more than a conductor of devotional and Worship Services. You were helpers, advisers, listeners, and comforters. You prayed with them, toiled with them, laughed with them. I recall a sign on one chaplains tent which made it easier for a man to come and talk to him. It read this, see me at your earliest inconvenience. Like the teachers of old, you did not wait for men to come to you. You went out to the men. I should add parenthetically that they ministered to the women, too. Irt so predominately was ther men couldon to the you made any sacrifice to carry on the task of bringing god to men and men to god. Your life and the field was rigorous and perilous. Once when a chaplain came in weary and dirty from the day on the lines, i remember hearing a young marine say with awe in his that, that god is sure man is sure doing got a lot of good out here. Samuel johnson wrote religion is an abated only by faith and hope will glide by degrees of the minds unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, i stated calls to worship, and the selye tory influence selye tory of example. Luence they traveled far from home but did not go one step away from their churches. Faith did not fade. To worship and the example went with them even in the thick of battle men from your ranks marched at their side into the valley of the shadow of death. I frequently noted in the field how chaplains sought out the front line of action. Asssume that was because, one put it at the time, this is where the fighting man needs god most. That is where some of them know him for the first time. These were some of the things listening to a chaplain say how influential they were, but listening to a hardnosed marine general with a lot of combat under his belt twong, in essence he said, groups of men helped us sustain. He went on to say this in his talk. Two groups helped us sustain in the marine corps our climb up the ladder toward tokyo from guadalcanal with heavy casualties. He said those groups were the chaplains and the corpsman or the medics. He said the chaplain and corpsman helped keep spirits high and morale up and encouragement to take the next step. This astounded me as i encountered it. I had no idea what this had been all about. Let me pick up where we had left off. Is there anybody who was here when i spoke yesterday . A couple of you were. I will try to avoid repeating anything that will make it repetitious to you. I had taken people up to the point of our invasion of normandy. What the preparations were likely homefront, what went on. As the u. S. Army pressed deeper into europe, as we heard earlier, things began to change significantly. The work of chaplains changed in that they were constantly on call to be near wounded and dying men. There were over 400,000 killed in action in world war ii. This is an enormous effort on the part of chaplains to be with the dying, to oversee the burying of the dying and the care for the wounded. Let me give you a glimpse of a couple of these incidents that alivelp it, life come as if it is a glimpse into the past. There is a chaplain i was able to have a conversation with once, and i did read his autobiography which sold better than a lot of them. He is now deceased and in glory. Cosby servedon with the hundred first airborne division. Chaplain cosby jumped. He had several combat jumps with the 101st. When it was in bastogne and , theunded by the germans germans were shelling and it looked like the place might 101stthe americans in the were surrounded. They were cut off from supplies. This was during the battle of the bulge. The weather was inclement. Supplies could not be flown in. The germans came up with a white flag and said you guys need to surrender. If you dont, we are going to level the place. We have plenty of ammo. We are going to level the city and kill all of you, so surrender now. General mcauliffe who was head of the operation stuck inside uts, so responded n the germans went back with this to their commander. He did not know what that meant at first. Someone fluent in english explained it meant jump in the lake, we are not surrendering. Because the at night but cosby at night would move around and go to trenches and foxholes to talk to the men. This was the testimony of a lot of men who were there. Many did not know his name. But he would come up and say, would you lie to pray with you . Would you like me to read a ps you . O is there anything i can do to help ease your concern because we are in a deep victim and predicament . He said we have got to be realistic. He wrote an article that he did not put a name on, but he wrote to churches in the United States. He said my son was never killed. My son survived because we are praying at the church. He said i am burying men every day who have people praying in their families and in the church. Prayer as aour magic lamp to get things you want. He goes from man to man talking reality to them. He said, i want you to know that i dont know what tomorrow holds, but i wanted to know who was in control of tomorrow. What can i do to help you . He wrote in his autobiography this one glimpse. He usually did not say anything about what anybody said to him. He felt that was personal and he should not do it. He said one man said to him, chaplain, i have a premonition im going to die tomorrow. Said, you have a deep sense of that . He said, i do. What i want from you is to tell me what is on the other side. He said i dont want any of your bloomintheology. I dont want to hear any of your doctrinal preferences. I want to know as a soldier sitting here tonight if i died tomorrow what is going to happen to me. Cosby said that moment he realized a lot of what he had learned in Divinity School or seminary was not very helpful to dying men. About in to this man his tradition the Lord Jesus Christ told him about the hopi could have in christ, that if he had died on the cross with jesus and was assured of being in paradise the next day by talking to jesus and seeking jesus. Anyway, he prayed with him and moved on to minister to other men. Stayed up most nights doing that. Out axt day he took battalion roster, and they began to find the dead and calculate. Sure enough, this young pfc had died. He would write a letter and send it home when he had the time to do it to tell his family he had been killed, but that he died with peace because they had a great conversation. He told them about that. That was the kind of thing a chaplain would do. I want to tell you about another chaplain. It happened not far from where john mcmanus took us on his slide presentations morning. This was a roman Catholic Priest. Cosby was a baptist. This was a chaplain named joseph p oconnell. I have a World War Ii Museum in my home. It is about 700 square feet of temperature controlled museum. S, ig the chaplains thing have by the grace of god a wonderful collection of chaplains things for more war to. I have the uniform and papers of father joseph oconnell. He was with the 451st antiaircraft artillery battalion. 1944, around from where the normandy invasion had taken place, he was farther down with pattons guys coming in at that point. Let me read to you what he received. He received what is called the award of soldiers medal. It was for somebody who was not a combatant but had done her wrote things in combat wrote things in combat who had done heroic things in battle. Not many were given. When i saw the state at first, i did not believe it. For further Research Underscores it. The most highly research decorated branch of the United States army in world war ii was the chaplain score. The even surpassed the Army Air Corps, which had enormous casualties. B casualties rates in the Army Air Corps were phenomenally high. But per capita, the chaplains were even more highly decorated. There were 2450 through decorations for various forms of valor for the chaplains. 2453. Those went to 1700 and 83 chaplains. 1783 chaplains. One of these was to father oconnell. Here is what the citation said. Chaplain oh, upon witnessing a Landing Craft receive a direct enemy bombnmate crossed a heavily mined beach in the darkness. Keep in mind the beaches covered in mines. A german shell or bomb has blown up a Landing Craft. The chaplain takes off in the darkness. This chaplain could not swim. Guided only by calls for help, he proceeded alone to the stricken vessel on an abandoned draft. He finds an abandoned draft and takes it out to the vessel. Despite intentional allusions on the shift which showered the area with fragments of ammunition and wrecked equipment causing casualties on the beach which greatly endangered his life, chaplain oconnell rescued from the burning ship six soldiers seriously wounded and too weak to reach the shore. Theheroic actions in saving , he did six soldiers that for six men even though he could not swim and things were exploding around him. He said these are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service. Entered service from springfield, massachusetts. Chaplains