Chaplains muse on war years: lasting bonds formed under combat stress

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 15, 1995

Civilian priests ministered as chaplains on both sides of the American Civil War. World War I saw U. S. Catholic priests in uniforms -- regular military uniforms for commissioned officers and Knights of Columbus uniforms recognized by the military. By World War II, there was a standardized approach to the chaplaincy services: Ordained men of the major denominations were commissioned into the various branches of the services. During that war, more than 20 percent of the 3 million U.S. servicemen and women were Catholic; more than 6,000 priests were in uniform. What follows are brief stories of chaplains from the three major conflicts of the past 50 years. NCR asked the chaplains to reflect on the worst and the best of those years.

WORLD WAR II

Chaplain Walter Sullivan

"I was a kind of peacenik," said Paulist Fr. Walter Sullivan. "I saw the war (in Europe) coming and was not sympathetic to it. But when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I volunteered."

He was working in a San Francisco mission and figured he was so valuable to the Paulist community that they wouldn't let him go. Three months later he was at March Field, Calif., 35 years old, uncertain how to put on a uniform and unaware of the niceties of military chains of command. He had gone through no chaplaincy program. Once in uniform, if he wanted something for the men, he would just go to the commanding officer -- not through intermediaries -- and ask for it.

"You took care of the men as best you could," said Sullivan, now 89 and living in the Boston Paulist community, "and let the chips fall as they may." Within a year he was in England with the 379th Bomber Group that was flying B- 17s. He remained there for the duration.

"We lost 1,000 men. I used to go to the gunners' briefings," he recalled in a telephone interview, "and I'd say to myself, `Oh my God, flying into battle they're under a sentence of death.' In life, we're all on death row -- but those kids were about 17 or 18 years of age. That stays with you." He would take care of the gunners first. If there wasn't time for confessions, he'd give general absolution. Then he'd go to see the flight crews. As a chaplain, did he ever consciously have to stop himself from crying.

"You kind of stopped yourself from being very sad and disturbed," said Sullivan. "We lost 60 men on the Scheinfurt (Germany) raid, and some of my best friends went down. We might have 60 different crews and you couldn't know them all, but you would know some. I was reading T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, with a friend, Jerome Bowers from Birmingham, Ala., a pilot. We read it through, and the next day over Leipzig he was hit by enemy fire. They brought back his body. I buried him. I cried, yes."

Sullivan remains in contact with those from the squadrons who remain or their families. The week before the interview, he had gone to the Cathedral of the Pines, in Newbridge, N.H., for the cathedral's 50th anniversary. It was built by the family of Sandy Sloan, one of the 379th pilots who had gone down in flames.

"I was talking to the people there," said Sullivan, "and I quoted Henry Bullock:

From humble homes and small beginnings, To undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winnings Save laughter and the love of friends."

KOREA

Chaplain John D. Benson

MASH -- the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital -- was never like its laughter-filled television portrayal. Fr. John Benson was there. "Casualties coming in every day. The carnage was ever-present, In a MASH unit there would be no getting away from it."

How did he cope with it?

"In Korea," he said, "we had something that you couldn't have in Vietnam (where Benson later served) -- a lot of priest support. We got together very often. I think that probably was the way we coped with it. Of course in those days we weren't thinking about coping, that word was not invented yet. We figured we were all priests and were there for a purpose and we did what we felt was best."

Benson's military life began with a summons in 1950. The Korean War had just begun when Washington Archbishop Patrick O'Boyle called Benson and said he had a request from Cardinal Francis Spellman for another chaplain. O'Boyle asked Benson if he wanted to go. "After consideration, I decided I would and asked him why he didn't select somebody from among those who really wanted to be chaplains."

O'Boyle told him, "That's really not your business. I run the diocese." Benson left for temporary chaplaincy duty and didn't return to the archdiocese for 28 years.

"Korea, for me, I think was the most interesting time of my life as far as association with young men was concerned," said the priest. "They were denied everything that you would think young Men would want and yet their character -- they had spiritual character -- was just great. We had the draft (for the Korean war). Many of (the draftees) were college graduates. Some were just nice farm boys that came from the farm to serve their country and went back home again. They'd had a more stabilized life and they weren't taken in by the world around them, you might say. Drugs had no place over there at all. We had problems, as you always have, with sex, but not very great. Not as great as many people would think."