Clark V. Poling

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Four Chaplains

Clark V. Poling (7 August 1910 - 3 February 1943) was a Dutch Reformed minister and lieutenant in the United States Army, who became famous during the Second World War as one of the Four Chaplains who gave their lives to save other soldiers during the sinking of the USAT Dorchester following an attack by the German submarine U-223 in the mid-Atlantic.

[edit] Life

Born as one of four children to an Evangelical Minister in Columbus, Ohio, Poling was raised in Auburndale, Massachusetts until his mother passed away in 1918 and his father remarried and converted to the Baptist church, becoming an ordained minister in that faith. Poling moved to Poughkeepsie, New York and attended Oakwood High School, where he excelled on the football team. After graduation he moved to Hope College in Michigan and then moved to Rutgers University in New Jersey, graduating in 1933 and going to Yale Divinity School for further study, graduating from there in 1936. He then took up a position as pastor of the First Reformed Church in Schenectady, New York where he settled with his wife Betty and their son Corky.

At the outbreak of war in 1941, Poling immediately volunteered for service as an army chaplain in the footsteps of his father Daniel, who had served in the same role in World War One. After a brief spell in Mississippi with a transport regiment, he was united with the other four chaplains at Harvard University. In January 1943, he embarked with them on board the Dorchester, which was crammed with over 900 soldiers for the passage to the United Kingdom via Greenland.

[edit] Death

A few days into the passage a torpedo struck the side of ship, causing it to instantly begin to sink. With his fellow officers, Poling took to the deck and organised soldiers crowding into lifeboats, gave up his own lifejacket to a man without one and prayed with those unable to escape the sinking ship. 27 minutes after the torpedo struck, the Dorchester disappeared below the waves with 672 men still abaord. The last anyone saw of Poling and his companions they stood on deck, arms linked, praying together.

When news of the disaster reached the United States, the four chaplains were all awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart along with national acclaim for their courage and self-sacrifice. Post-war a memorial chapel was designed and built in their memory, and in 1961 a new medal was commissioned specifically for these four officers, the Chaplain's Medal for Heroism.