By Ron Leir
KEARNY –
For many years, St. Stephen’s Church in Kearny has offered a special Mass in February dedicated to the parish’s former curate, the Rev. John P. Washington, one of the “Four Chaplains” who gave their lifejackets to others during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester in the North Atlantic on Feb. 3, 1943, by a German U-boat.
With the 70th anniversary of the chaplains’ deaths to be observed next year, St. Stephens’ parish will be raising money for the design and construction of a monument honoring Rev. Washington and his colleagues.
Together with Rev. Washington, the other chaplains ship were the Rev. George L. Fox, a Methodist; Rabbi Alexander D. Goode; and the Rev. Clark V. Poling, of the Reformed Church of America.
John DelMonaco, president of the parish council, said that St. Stephens pastor, the Rev. Joseph Mancini, came to the council with the proposal “and we were very impressed and excited about it. We recommended that he proceed.”
The ambitious plan was disclosed to St. Stephens’ parishioners at the Mass honoring Rev. Washington earlier this month.
DelMonaco said that the monument project was being undertaken, not only for the local parish but also for the Town of Kearny and the larger community “to recognize the bravery and heroism of Father Washington and the other chaplains on the Dorchester … and to remind us of the sacrifices those in the armed services today make for all of us.”
“It is our intention to finish the project and have its dedication in time for next year’s Mass,” DelMonaco said.
John P. Washington was born July 18, 1908, in the Roseville section of Newark, the first child of Frank and Mary Washington. Six more siblings followed. The family’s home parish was St. Rose of Lima where young John served as an altar boy and, early on, aspired to the priesthood.
After graduating from Seton Hall College in South Orange in 1931, Washington entered the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Darlington, became a deacon in 1934 and a priest in 1935. He was assigned, initially, to St. Genevieve’s in Elizabeth and then to St. Venantius in Orange before arriving at St. Stephen’s in 1937 as the parish was in the process of relocating from Midland Ave. to Washington Ave.
St. Stephen’s parish trustee, retired Municipal Court Judge John McLaughlin, says he was in kindergarten or first grade at the time and he recalls that, “Father Washington used to take the altar boys and various classes from school to Bertrand’s Island, an amusement area in Lake Hopatcong. I went. He was pretty good at working with kids.”
Parishioner Paul Shalvoy, one of the altar boys who helped Rev. Washington serve Mass at St. Stephen’s, said that when the priest was in charge of the local Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), he arranged to transport a St. Stephen’s youth team to Ruppert Stadium in Newark’s Ironbound area to participate in CYO track meets. “I was in St. Stephen’s grammar school at the time and I ran in the relay races,” Shalvoy recalled. “And I remember that Father Washington bought us hotdogs and sodas and in the late ‘30s, that was a treat. He was a very nice guy.”
Revs. Washington and Byrne used to go house-to-house to take the parish census, McLaughlin recalled.
At St. Stephen’s, Washington developed a reputation as a “forward thinking” cleric, Mancini said. “He integrated public and parochial school children for social gatherings, for example, which was unheard of for that time.”
As the story goes, Mancini said, on Dec. 7, 1941, Washington had taken his mother out to dinner in North Arlington and, on their way back to Kearny, heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was then, Mancini said, that the young priest decided to enlist.
He very nearly didn’t make it.
According to Shalvoy, Washington wanted to go into the Navy but was rejected because of flawed sight in his right eye.
“Well,” Shalvoy said, “one of our other priests, Father Gordon Byrne, who was home on military leave at the time, suggested trying the Army, instead, because they gave the physical in a darkened room and when you read the eye chart, you could hold the card over the same eye for each reading, so that’s what Father Washington did – he covered the same (bad) eye twice” and passed the physical and was appointed an Army chaplain, assigned to the 76th Infantry Div.
On Nov. 13, 1942, Washington was sent to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Mass., and on the train ride there, relates St. Stephen’s parishioner Nancy Waller, Washington encountered her husband’s parents who were then enroute to Boston for their honeymoon.
“They were probably the last parishioners to see Father Washington before he shipped out,” Waller said.
It was in New England that Washington made his final stop on the road to war: He went to Military Chaplains School at Harvard where he met Fox, Goode and Poling.
In January 1943, all four sailed out of Boston Harbor on the Dorchester, a converted luxury liner, as part of a threeship Army Transport convoy, bound for Greenland.
They would never reach their destination.
According to Mancini, survivors’ accounts indicate that Washington went to bat for Jewish servicemen looking to hold Sabbath services Friday night in the ship’s mess hall. Non-Jewish soldiers playing cards there weren’t inclined to move but Washington reportedly persuaded them to take their game elsewhere.
Early on Feb. 3, 1943, a German sub fired three torpedoes into the Dorchester, quickly sending the vessel to a watery grave. Of some 900 men aboard, only 230 survived.
In 1944, the Army awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart to the four chaplains, presenting the medals to family members; in 1948, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating their selfless actions; and in 1961, Congress authorized a Special Medal for Heroism awarded by President Eisenhower.
After the tragedy, Waller said, “Clubs were formed in the parish in Father Washington’s name. They put on performances, fundraisers.” McLaughlin remembers parishioner Irma Long spearheaded a campaign to have Father Washington canonized by Rome, “but it never got off the ground.”
And St. Stephens began a practice of holding an annual Mass in Father Washington’s memory. Last year’s service, for example, drew close to 400 attendees, including about 100 members of veterans’ organizations, Mancini said.
Mancini said the idea for the monument came about as a byproduct of a conversation he had last October with Brooklyn artist Fred Moshey, who does reproductions of religious statutes and other items.
“At the time, I was thinking of establishing a (religious) gift shop here at the parish,” Mancini said, “and I was giving Fred a tour of the church and I showed him the granite tablet there honoring Father Washington.”
Moshey happened to mention his visit to St. Stephen’s and the connection to the Four Chaplains to a Canadian sculptor colleague Timothy P. Schmalz who expressed his desire to memorialize the quartet with a 12-foot-tall, 2,000 pound bronze monument.
As envisioned by Schmalz, the front of the monument would depict the chaplains, praying, in the stern of the Dorchester and the back would present an angel holding the four life vests and, enclosed in the center of the angel’s spreading wings, an image of the Dorchester sinking beneath the waves.
Mancini proposes to install the memorial on the front lawn of the church, close to Kearny Ave. and just off the Centennial brick walkway, near the flagpoles.
The pastor said he’s considering relocating the 9/11 steel beam cross to that area, together with the Four Chaplains monument, to create a “memorial garden reflection area.”
A “core committee” of Deacon Earl White and parishioner Nancy Waller has been appointed to flesh out those plans and to raise the estimated $97,000 needed to pay for the monument.
“We plan to raise a portion of that from our parishioners,” Mancini said. “We would also reach out to local businesses and we want to talk to veterans’ groups about enlisting their support.”
The local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, has also volunteered to help, he said.
Parishioners are being invited to participate in the Four Chaplains Memorial project via a “three-tiered level of giving” as follows: A gift of $125 to $249 entitles the donor to a 12- inch replica of the monument; for $250 to $399, the donor receives the 12-inch statue and a paver in the walkway; people who give $400 or more get the statue, paver and an invitation to “Meet the Artist” at a wine and- cheese reception the eve of the dedication.
With the number of World War II-era veterans dwindling, Mancini said the monument will serve “to keep the story of the Four Chaplains going” and to reinforce the message of the chaplains’ “bravery, courage and sacrifice, which kids today especially need to hear.”
“Today,” the pastor said, “there’s a lot of emphasis on ‘I’ – we have the I-Pod, I-Pad, I-Max – there’s no sense of ‘you’ or ‘us.’ We read about multi-million dollar sports celebrity heroes. But we need genuine heroes who embody truth. And I know of no better example than this excerpt from the Gospel of St. John: ‘Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.’ ’’
