Grandson of one of the four chaplains speaks about his namesake ahead of annual Prayer Breakfast [Video]

YORK COUNTY, Pa. — On Feb. 23, 1943, at 1 a.m. the S.S. Dorchester was struck by the Germans during World War II. The ship was transporting U.S. Troops from New York to Greenland. 

There were 902 people on board; 230 people survived and 674 died. 

Four of the dead were chaplains of different faiths. 

“I think they represented the unity that was necessary during the war years,” said Gordon Freireich, the founder of Four Chaplains Memorial of York. 

The four chaplains, also known as immortal chaplains, helped soldiers get on lifeboats and even gave up their own life jackets when they ran out. 

The four men, George Fox, a Methodist minister from Lewistown, Mifflin County; Clark Poling, a reformed church minister; John Washington, a Catholic priest; and Alexander Goode, a Jewish rabbi who left his pulpit at York’s Temple Beth Israel, linked arms as the ship went …