Military Figure. He received recognition as a United States Army Chaplain, who performed heroic actions during World War II. During World War I, at age 17 he lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was trained to be an ambulance driver. While serving on the Western Front, he was highly decorated. He earned a Silver Star for the rescue of a wounded soldier from a battlefield filled with poisonous gas and the Croix de Guerre for outstanding bravery during an artillery barrage, after which he spent months in the hospital with wounds, receiving the Purple Heart. After returning home, he became a Methodist preacher and held a student pastorate in Downs, Illinois. He attended Wesleyan University in 1929 and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1931. He was ordained a Methodist minister on June 10, 1934. In 1936, he accepted a pastorate in Vermont. After Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he volunteered for the Army Chaplain Service, beginning active-duty August 8, 1942, which was the same day that his 18-year-old son enlisted in the Marine Corps. He was assigned to the Chaplains school at Harvard where he first met his classmates, Jewish chaplain, Alexander Goode; Dutch Reformed chaplain, Clark Poling; and Catholic chaplain, John WashingtonJohn Washington. He then reported to the 411th Coast Artillery Battalion at Camp Davis. In January of 1943, he was reunited with his classmates as the four chaplains embarked on the converted ocean liner "USAT Dorchester", which was transporting 902 soldiers to Britain via Greenland as part of convoy SG-19. On February 2, 1943 after midnight, a German U-boat fired a torpedo and struck the "Dorchester". The "Dorchester" lost all power, and in the cold and dark, men scrambled for the lifeboats. The four chaplains organized the men as best they could, handing out life jackets from storage, encouraged the men with prayers, and tending to the wounded. When it became apparent that there were not enough life jackets, each of the chaplains took off his own life jacket and gave each to a young soldier. When the last of the undamaged lifeboats were away, the chaplains prayed with those left behind on the sinking ship. Less than thirty minutes after being hit, the "Dorchester" sank with the loss of 672 men, including the four chaplains. The survival of some 230 men was directly credited to the chaplains' actions. On December 19, 1944 each of the chaplains was posthumously awarded a purple heart and a distinguished service cross. A US postage stamp was issued in 1948 commemorating the Four Chaplains. A stained-glass window in memory of the four chaplains was installed in the A-ring of the Pentagon on the third floor. On July 14, 1960 the US Congress created the Four Chaplains Medal which was presented to each of the chaplains' next of kin by the Secretary of the Army. For their courage and self-sacrifice, by Act of Congress, February 3rd is designated Four Chaplains Day. Besides the widow at the Pentagon, he has a cenotaph at Jefferson Cemetery in Vermont, Somerford Cemetery in Ohio, East Coast Memorial in New York, the Chapel of Four Chaplains in Philadelphia.