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Someone recently asked me if I knew the story of ‘The Four Chaplains.’  Indeed I do.  It’s a fascinating story of courage in the face of tragedy. 

There were four United States chaplains aboard the USAT Dorchester troop vessel in early February 1943, all carrying the rank of Lieutenant, they were: Methodist Reverend George L. Fox; Jewish Rabbi Alexander D. Goode; Roman Catholic Priest John P. Washington and the Reformed Church in America Reverend Clark V. Poling.   

When the vessel, travelling in convoy, was torpedoed by a German submarine in the North Atlantic, the Chaplains helped to calm the frightened soldiers and sailors.  They also aided in the evacuation of the ship and helped guide wounded men to safety.  When the supply of life jackets ran out, the Chaplains gave up their own. 

Of the 904 men aboard the ship, 230 were rescued.  The rest, including the four Chaplains, lost their lives in the frigid waters.

One survivor recalls:

As I swam away from the ship, I looked back.  The flares had lighted everything.  The bow came up high and she slid under.  The last thing I saw, the four Chaplains were up there praying for the safety of the men.  They had done everything they could. I did not see them again.

All four were posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross.  By an Act of Congress on July 14, 1960, the Four Chaplains’ Medal was established and subsequently posthumously presented to their next of kin by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker on January 18, 1961.

Another Act of Congress designated February 3rd as “Four Chaplains Day,” and they were also commemorated with a stamp which was issued in 1948. 

A chapel in their honour was dedicated in 1951 by President Harry S. Truman to honour these soldiers of different faiths.  The Chapel was eventually relocated to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 2001 and was given the name Chapel of the Four Chaplains. 

In addition to the above, the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation was established as a humanitarian foundation that exists to further the cause of “unity without uniformity” by encouraging goodwill and cooperation among all people. The organization achieves its mission by advocating for and honouring people whose deeds symbolize the legacy of the Four Military Chaplains.

The Foundation created the Legion of Honor Humanitarian Award and it is given in recognition of a lifetime commitment to selfless service and societal advancement that has demonstrably affected the quality of life in the community, state or nation.  It has been awarded to American and non-American recipients. 

The Reverend Daniel Poling, in honour of his son Chaplain Poling’s heroism, began the movement to celebrate the acts of courage of the Four Chaplains.

The French city of Caen, one of the largest cities in Normandy, was a vital objective after landing on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and remained the focal point for a series of battles throughout June and into July.

On July 7, 1944, at long last, the 3rd Infantry Division was given instructions to “take the city of Caen.” It would be tough, tough going.

Imagine our relief when the attack was temporarily called off to allow the RCAF and the RAF to bomb the outskirts of the city which, so far as we knew, contained thousands of Germans, ordered to fight to the last.

Those of us who sat in the fields and watched that bombing, cheered wildly. Incidentally, the cheering came to a sudden end when we saw at least two Lancasters fall from the sky, and we realized that there would be a price in human lives among the air force crews that night.

There has been public criticism about the bombing of Caen. I can tell you, because I was there, that it was very, very necessary for the softening-up process, otherwise we could never have gotten into that city.

The bombing of Caen was an essential part of the military strategy, as a prelude to taking this vital strongpoint in the German defences.

It will be noted that the Canadians still had to capture some major German strongholds which guarded the entrances to this ancient city, such as: Buron, Authie, Gruchy, Cussy and the Abbaye Ardenne. The strategic plan behind the bombing of Caen was to soften up the rear areas of this heavily fortified German position. It will be noted that the target zone was not in the heart of the city, but rather on the most lightly populated northern outskirts. Much of this ancient Norman town was spared, including the ancient church of St. Etienne, founded by William the Conqueror.

The main attack began the morning of July 8th. After the German troops withdrew on July 9th from the city centre to the north and west of the city, the Allied troops engaged in the north, but were kept from further advances by German snipers. At 18:00 on July 9th, the first units reached the Orne River in Caen. Later on that evening and on July 10th, the Allies reached the city centre.

And so ended the battle for Caen.

It tried the mettle of these young volunteers from Canada. They served with the infantry; with the armoured corps, the artillery, the signal corps, the medical corps, all the support groups, the tactical air force. It was just one grand magnificent battle that showed what it really would take to drive the Germans all the way from Juno Beach to the pivotal city of Caen.

The Canadians had pierced the Atlantic wall defences. They had captured Caen; they had opened the gateway to Falaise. At Falaise, two weeks later, the German forces in Western France would be trapped or annihilated.

Terry Copp, in A Canadian’s Guide to the Battlefields of Normandy, sums up the battle for Caen thusly:

“…The German defensive ring around Caen had been broken. During the night, Rommel had ordered the withdrawal of all heavy weapons south of the Orne and rearguards left in the battered city of Caen were in no mood to put up resistance on the 9th. The bridges across the river were down and the enemy firmly entrenched on the other side. But the city, which had loomed before the Anglo-Canadian forces since D-Day, was at last in their hands…”

In my continuing series, I would like to profile one of the lesser-known, albeit fascinating, stories of one of Canada’s Victoria Cross winners, Filip Konowal.  It’s a story that involves a VC winner, a gangster in Hull and even Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

Konowal arrived in Canada shortly before World War I and joined Ottawa’s 77th Battalion. 

Corporal Konowal earned the Victoria Cross for his actions in August 1917, while leading his section in overcoming German resistance on Hill 70, near Lens in France. During these operations, Konowal himself killed at least 16 of the enemy. Arriving at one of his battalion’s objectives, he realized that a machine gun was holding up the right flank of the Canadian attack. Konowal assaulted the German position, killed the crew of the machine gun, and returned with the gun. The next day he attacked another machine gun emplacement, and killed three of the enemy before destroying the position and the gun with explosives. Corporal Konowal then continued his advance until he was severely wounded.

After the war, he returned to Canada to begin a long and difficult convalescence from the serious head wounds he suffered.  His first wife, Anna, died of starvation in Ukraine; his only daughter was lost in a Soviet work camp.

While in the process of demobilization, Konowal went to the aid of a friend in a fight in a café in Hull.  In a decision in which the courts say he acted in self-defence, he killed his opponent.  The court found him guilty of murder, but on the grounds of insanity, and he spent six years in the Saint Jean de Dieu Hospital in Montreal.  The Ukrainian veterans organizations, together with the Militia Unit of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, went to his defence.  Some time between 1928 and 1931, he was released from the institution. 

In the judicial decision, which resulted in his release, Dr. C.K. Wallace, who had operated on Konowal in France, was able to prove to the court that his war wounds had resulted in a skull fracture which had never completely healed and that this was responsible for the attack for which he was imprisoned.

He married a widow, Juliette Leduc-Auger, who had two children, and found work as a governmental janitor.

It is said that then Prime Minister Mackenzie King spotted the crimson ribbon of the VC on Konowal’s uniform one night in the Parliament Buildings, and ordered that he be assigned as a special custodian for the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Konowal died in 1959 at the age of 72. 

In August 2000, I was pleased to present the National Council of Veteran Associations Order of Merit, posthumously, to Ottawa resident and Victoria Cross winner Cpl. Filip Konowal in a brief ceremony at Ottawa’s Bytown Museum.

The plaque was presented to Konowal’s granddaughter, Claudette Wright, at a display in the museum honouring Konowal, the only Ukrainian-Canadian to win the Victoria Cross.  The exhibit was erected by local Ukrainian-Canadian groups.

A coinciding presentation of a translation of the plaque was made at a ceremony held in Konowal’s hometown of Kudkiv, Ukraine, in which a memorial was unveiled marking the 83rd anniversary (August 21 and 22, 1917) of the actions which won him the VC as a member of the Canadian Infantry.

A transcript of an interview that I did on this occasion can be seen here.

My recent entry about the murders of Canadian soldiers at the hands of the Hitler Jugend in 1944, reminded me of a very special memorial service that took place at The War Amps National Headquarters.

On June 8, 2000, the personal effects of the late Rifleman E.W. Bradley, Royal Winnipeg Rifles, arranged as a framed history, was presented to The War Amps Museum by Ms Gilda Michaels, of Calgary, after a memorial service conducted by Reverend Canon Fairlie.  The occasion was the 56th anniversary of the death of Rifleman Bradley, who was one of the Canadians murdered by the SS Hitler Jugend on June 8, 1944.  Following, hereunder, is the text of Ms Michaels’ moving speech at the dedication, which tells the story: 

Ms Gilda Michaels Remarks on June 8, 2000:

RFN Ernest William Bradley was a member of B Company of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles.  He died on June 8, 1944, near Putot, France and is buried 7 ½ miles northwest of Caen at Beny-sur-Mer Canadian Cemetery.  He was survived by a wife, Laura of Toronto, Ontario.  This is what history records about this man.

I did not know this man – but I knew Laura.  Laura was the lady who would become my mother.  Laura was sensitive and sometimes shy, Bill (I was told) was handsome and kind, everything a girl would want.  They had married when she was 18.  How would she have known that, before her first wedding anniversary, she would be a widow?  She was so very young when her world was torn apart, merely 19 years of age.

I remembered those things in 1989 when I visited Bill’s grave in France, the year after Laura had died.  It was very surreal to be standing at that place.  The realization that he was merely 20 years old when he died made the horror so real.  It was an emotional experience.

Such a tragedy is not something one gets over.  This loss overshadowed the rest of Laura’s life, and while she went on to live a good life that contained its share of peaks and valleys, her connection to Bill was always there.  While I had been aware of Bill’s existence and her great loss, I never truly realized the strength of her bond to him, until her death 44 years and 2 days after his.

When my mother became terminally ill in 1985, she gave me these items which she had kept all those years.  I felt something should be done with them and had them arranged in this frame.  She gazed on it with wonder and I remember her showing various relatives who came to visit what I had done.  When I looked at this frame, it represented to me what could have been.

There is a personal, human face to war.  In this case, that face belonged to my mother. I have donated this item as a reminder that war causes dreams to be lost – lives to be changed forever.

If Laura were here in person, she would be very moved that this dedication is taking place on this, the 56th anniversary of Bill’s death.

When Laura received her late husband’s personal effects, she was too stricken with grief to open them or accept the invitation by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to compose an inscription for his headstone in France.  With her daughter’s help, his memorial, pictured herewith, now hangs in an honoured place, a testament to lost love and a tragic episode in our military history.