The American Spectator

After World War I, Fox sensed the call to ministry, attending Boston School of Theology, a Methodist school that ironically was central to importing European pacifist theologies into American religious thought. Fox went on to pastor Methodist churches in the Berkshire villages of northern Vermont.

AT THE TIME of Pearl Harbor, Fox was already 41 and had a son old enough to join the U.S. Marines. But the older Fox did not hesitate to enlist as a U.S. Army Chaplain in early 1942.

He would meet the other three of the Immortal Four at Army Chaplains School at Harvard University. Like the other three, Fox enlisted for overseas duty, believing that his World War I combat experience would equip him for ministry among young soldiers.

The USAT Dorchester was a converted passenger liner that was among three troop transport ships that had left New York for Greenland. Heading through “Torpedo Ally,” the ship’s captain had ordered the men to sleep in their clothes with their life vests close by, but the crowded heat of the ship barracks had persuaded many to ignore these orders.

The torpedo strike, which would sink the ship in less than 30 minutes, pushed hundreds of men onto the deck, many unclothed in the February night.

Amid the chaos, as panicking soldiers capsized their crowded lifeboats, while others jumped or fought over life jackets, the chaplains helped people while they calmly witnessed to their faith.

Those among the 200 survivors who saw them would never forget.