Immortal Chaplains Foundation gets new office aboard Queen Mary

Published: 2006-01-17

LONG BEACH, Calif. (CNS) -- The new headquarters of the Immortal Chaplains Foundation are in the city of Long Beach and aboard the Queen Mary, a historic ocean liner that also served as a World War II troopship. The foundation, which moved from Minneapolis, plans to build at the new location an interfaith memorial sanctuary that will include a diorama depicting the final moments of the four chaplains who died aboard the USS Dorchester Feb. 3, 1943, along with 670 other men. The four -- Father John Washington, Catholic; the Rev. Clark Poling, Dutch Reformed; Rabbi Alexander Goode, Jewish; and the Rev. George Fox, Methodist -- all gave up their life jackets to soldiers on the torpedoed Dorchester and went down together, arm in arm, in common prayer. Family members of the chaplains and Dorchester survivors founded the Immortal Chaplains Foundation in Minnesota in 1997.

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