February 3, 1943: The troop ship SSAT Dorchester, with 904 men aboard, was torpedoed on its way to Greenland. Four chaplains on board—one Jewish, two Protestant and one Catholic—gave up their lifejackets to soldiers, joined arms, said prayers and went down with the ship. There were 230 survivors. The Catholic chaplain, Father John Washington, was a New Jerseyan, born in Newark in 1908. Washington was a graduate of Seton Hall University and Darlington Seminary. At the time he joined the army, he was assigned to St. Stephen’s parish in Kearny. Washington and the other three chaplains were posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart. There is a monument to Father Washington at Saint Rose of Lima Church, his home parish, on Orange Street in Newark and another to all four chaplains in Kearny.
February 3, 2013: Saint Stephen’s Catholic Church in Kearny dedicated a monument to the four chaplains—Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, Reverend George Fox, Reverend Clark Poling and Kearny’s Father John Washington—who gave their lives to save their fellow soldiers aboard theUSS Dorchester on February 3, 1943.
