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Remembering Heroes

The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.

Seventy years ago this month, during the height of World War Two, four U-S Navy chaplains
gave up their lives so that others might live.

Their troop ship, the U-S-S Dorchester, was torpedoed in the North Atlantic. The two
Protestant ministers, Catholic priest and rabbi guided panicky soldiers to the lifeboats,
then gave up their life jackets to others.

Rabbi Alexander Goode, Father John Washington, Dutch Reformed minister Clark Poling and
Methodist minister George Fox went down with the ship. More than two hundred of the other
men aboard the ship survived.

At ceremonies around the country this month remembering the clergymen's heroism, fears
were expressed that the Four Chaplains are being forgotten.

Not by those who collect U-S stamps.

A commemorative honoring the Four Chaplains was issued in 1948, five years after their
deaths. Anyone who collects or has collected post-World War Two stamps knows at least
the outline of the story.

That's one of the purposes of stamps: To memorialize a country's history, to keep it
from fading away.

I'm Lloyd de Vries of The Virtual Stamp Club. For more on stamps and stamp collecting,
visit virtual-stamp-club-dot-com.

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