Serving God and Country: United States Military Chaplains in World War II

Chaplain Lemons laid much of the blame for the “59 Americans killed, 97 wounded—in addition to [destruction of] boats, tents, big guns, food, fuel, ammunition, and much other equipment” on the people he labeled naïve American isolationists in the 1920s, and especially on the idealistic American politicians and journalists in the late 1930s and early 1940s who simply refused to prepare us for war. These leaders, said Lemons, argued that America had no duty to defend helpless nations overrun by Germany and Japan, and that America’s security would be best enhanced if the nation remained neutral and gave the world a peaceable example by not building up its military arsenal. To the mind of Lemons and plenty of his contemporaries, such “unrealistic dreamers” ultimately cost the United States a prolonged war and countless lives and casualties.4

It was not until his troop ship reached New Caledonia that the reality began to sink in that this war was not a festive adventure. Sobering reality dawned in the minds of sailors and marines when, for

Chaplains removed muddied dog tags and prayed over the dead, and they made notes of temporary grave locations in hopes that the men could be exhumed and reburied in proper graves—complete with wooden markers—once the island had been secured.