Chaplains in PG

[thomaso827]

Thanks. That counter looks great. The best example I have of chaplains in the combat zone would be Chaplain Samson, with the 101st Airborne. The image of the padre in The Longest Day, having jumped and lost his chaplain kit and searching for it under fire in the flooded area is probably based on Samson, or is very close to his situation there. He lost his way and was captured by German troops, and was soon rescued by other members of his battalion. He jumped in again during Market Garden, and was captured again when he landed in water, a castle moat if the story is to be believed. He was again rescued by members of his unit. At the Bulge, he was told that a platoon out on the perimeter had taken a lot of casualties and he and his assistant took off in a jeep. A short time later, his assistant told him that the vehicles they were passing through were not friendlies. He was once again captured, but this time he finished the war in the POW camps. He went on to become the chief of chaplains during the Korean War. He is apparently the image seen in Band of Brothers as troops are preparing to load onto the C-47s as the chaplain was conducting services. Chaplains have been free to stay either with a forward unit or with the casualty clearing station/battalion aid station, depending on how their ministry called them. Close to 2/3rds tend to do forward ministry to be with the troops. Chaplains serve in a similar capacity to the kommisar [except for the re-education step reductions ] and also redistribute ammunition and water between troops under fire [good for an optional rule when using Ammo Shortage rules - the chaplain scrounges extra ammo and gets it to the weapon that has run out on a 1 or 2 or something like that]. Always seems one part of the line is firing more ammo than the other, and somebody out there still has a full canteen when others have run out of water. They have some very basic first aid skill, probably not much more than most troops, but since they are not firing a weapon, have a little more time to use it. The chaplain counter might include his enlisted assistant, but I would think the combat value of one man would be accounted for among the unit he is with. While not directly a WW2 thing, 3 chaplains were awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, 2 Navy serving with Marines, and 1 Army serving with the 173rd Airborne. All 3 were serving under fire, and 2 of the 3 died in action [Waters and Capodono - the only combat ship ever named for a clergyman was the USS Capodono]. Another chaplain of the Korean War was recently awarded the MoH for his actions in that war. In some countries that have larger specific faith group populations, chaplains may be assigned where a majority of the troops are of his faith. That seems to have been very popular in British units, most of which were predominately either Catholic or Church of England. US units tend to assign within a Brigade so that there are 3 protestant and 1 Catholic chaplain within the brigade area and 1 Jewish chaplain within the division - this is based more on the constant shortage of those faith group chaplains than on anything else. There are some stories of Catholic chaplains serving opposite Italian forces that went forward and used their Latin to talk Italian troops into surrender, but I have no confirmation on it. Several of the battalion level or multi-battalion level scenarios in Beyond Normandy would be very good places to insert one or more padres.

I'll have to tinker a bit and see what I can come up with for an article. I'm sure I have enough material with me even this many years since I retired. I have the 4-book set on the history of the Army Chaplaincy that has a lot of good stuff. Thanks for the ideas.

Tom