Sky Pilots: The Yankee Division Chaplains in World War I

Preface

Preface Living in the Boston suburb of Framingham, Massachusetts, my family was no stranger to priests. They were guests at our dinner table. We saw them in formal and informal settings, and they engendered our respect. Rev. Michael J. O’Connor (“Father Mike”) was my parents’ pastor at St. Bridget’s, and he was counted among my maternal grandfather’s many close friends. In fact, he celebrated the marriage of my parents. My mother regularly corresponded with a high school chum, Rev. Francis McGauley, S.J., who, as a missionary, remained in India for decades, knowing that if he left, even briefly, it was unlikely he would be allowed to return. Years later, when he was back in the States, I met Frank for the first time when he was a guest of my parents, but it was like I had always known him. Monsignor Edward F. Sweeney, Director of the Propagation of the Faith, and, for a short time, Pastor at St. Bridget’s, frequently dined with us. Then there was Rev. John H. Chevalier, S.S.E., diminutive and slightly walleyed, who had known my Uncle Paul at St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vermont. He labored at St. Martin de Porres Parish, a small mission church in Gadsden, Alabama, that served the African-American community. My family had recently moved there from suburban Chicago when we first met. “Just call me Father Chevy,” he would say, “I’m not a Cadillac.” This humble man, comfortable in his own skin, did God’s work under difficult circumstances in Gadsden, and later in Selma, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish. He died there on November 11, 1987. Like Fr. Chevy, Army chaplains worked under difficult circumstances. During the First World War, more than 2,300 men served as chaplains in the United States Army, although initially, only a fraction of them served overseas in the AEF. As there was no organized chaplain corps, the job was largely what they and their commanding officers made of it. They were often referred to as “handymen” and at times assigned to other minor duties . For some, their primary duty was to see that the soldiers’ conduct was pure and exemplary. As one soldier put it: “The chaplains . . . dwelt considerably upon maintaining the moral standard of the army. . . .” However , that was just one aspect of their duties. The war was a very difficult time xiii xiv Preface for the young soldiers, many of them overseas and away from home for the first time. Army chaplains were affectionately dubbed “Sky Pilots” and “Holy Joes,” and sometimes simply “Padre,” by the men they served.1 Most chaplains were there to lend an ear. The chaplains in the First World War did not officially bear arms of any kind, at least those serving in the British and American forces.2 The faith and courage of these men of the cloth under the most trying and terrible circumstances carried them through. They were incredibly brave men who risked life and limb to minister to the dead and dying as the shells flew overhead, unafraid to rush ammunition toward the front or to drive an ambulance hell-bent away from the front, carrying the wounded to safety. When the need arose, some pulled the lanyard on an artillery piece, while others tossed grenades. They suffered the same terrors and privations as the doughboys that they served; they dug the graves; they wrote the letters of condolence home. Just how a chaplain acted in the front lines was more important to the troops than a church service conducted in the rear. “A chaplain’s conduct at the front counts heavily with them; there, the chaplain proves his faith that there is an after world by his behavior under fire and in the face of war’s strain . . . [and he can] . . . win all the influence [he] may desire by an exhibition of calm and unflinching courage. . . .” This sentiment was echoed by long-time Chaplain Leslie Groves, who said that the ideal chaplain “is the one who lives with the men, enduring the same hardships and encountering the same dangers, who is ruled not by selfishness but by love for all men . . . who can speak when the time comes the words that will be listened to.”3 In his excellent memoir, Good-bye to All That, Robert Graves compares the Anglican chaplains to the Catholic ones in the British Army. According to Graves, who served as an officer in the...