“Valor is a gift,” Carl Sandburg once said. “Those having it never know for sure whether they have it until the test comes.”

The four chaplains on the SS Dorchester displayed extraordinary valor on February 3, 1943 when a German submarine sank the converted luxury coastal liner, which was carrying about 900 servicemen, merchant seamen and civilian workers from New York to an American military base in Greenland. The chaplains, who died that day, are pictured on today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued in 1948.

The torpedo’s initial blast killed and wounded scores of men and knocked out the ship’s electrical and mechanical systems. Panicked men were groping in the darkness trying to get to lifeboats on the rapidly listing ship.

In the midst of the panic and pandemonium, the four chaplains – Reverend George L. Fox; Rabbi Alexander D. Goode; Father John P. Washington, and Reverend Clark V. Poling – tried to calm the frightened, tend the wounded and guide the disoriented toward safety. Once most of the men were topside, and they began distributing life jackets. When there were no more lifejackets, the chaplains gave the ones they were wearing to four soldiers who needed them. “It was” said John Ladd, who survived the attack, “the finest thing I have seen or hope to see this side of heaven.”

“I could hear men crying, pleading, praying and swearing,” recalled William Bednar, another survivor, who had been in a lifeboat that capsized in near-freezing water full of debris and bodies. “I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage to the men. Their voices were probably the only things that kept me sane.”

Grady Clark, who also survived, later recalled:. “As I swam away from the ship, I looked back,” at the ship where the chaplains had linked arms and were saying prayers and singing hymns. “The flares had lighted everything. The bow came up high and she slid under. The last thing I saw, the Four Chaplains were up there praying for the safety of the men. They had done everything they could. I did not see them again. They themselves did not have a chance without their life jackets.”

By the time rescue ships arrived, hundreds of dead bodies wearing life vests were floating in the water and those still alive were so stiff from cold they could not grasp the rescue boats’ cargo nets. In the end, only 230 men survived. No convoy lost more American personnel in the war.

For a time, few people knew about the chaplains and the lost lives. The first reference to the sinking in The New York Times’ online archives, for example, is a December 1944 article reporting that the War Department had posthumously honored each of the chaplains with a Distinguished Service Cross.

As became known, their story resonated with the public and over the next several years, they were honored in a variety of ways, including a chapel, memorials, foundations, annual commemorative events, particularly at military facilities, and a postage stamp.

That stamp has an interesting history, according to on a webpage created by the son of Louis Schwimmer, who designed it. New York City Postmaster Arthur Goldman was running late for a meeting with Claire Wolff, who handled PR for New York’s “Interfaith in Action Committee,” which was having a testimonial dinner that would honor Goldman, the first Jew to serve as the city’s postmaster.

While she waited, Wolff tried to think of a new way to “express the work of my interfaith friends in terms the public would understand.” As she mulled this over, she remembered hearing a wealthy philanthropist friend talk about an organization helped paraplegics that was named after the Four Chaplains.

In the account printed by Schwimmer’s son she recalled: “Suddenly Postmaster Goldman was looking down at me and smiling. ‘I’ve got it,’ I said excitedly, ‘an idea for a new postage stamp. A real symbol of Interfaith in Action that people will understand.'”

According to Wolff, Goldman replied, “Yes, indeed. Putting the Four Martyred Chaplains on a postage stamp should serve to inspire every man, woman, and child to practice inter-religious and inter-racial cooperation.”

Goldman asked Schwimmer, a talented artist he had tapped in the 1930s to create and head an art department at the Post Office’s NYC branch, to design the stamp. “My father was a practicing Orthodox Jew,” Schwimmer’s son wrote. “Although it was part of his job description to create this stamp, my father took great pleasure in the opportunity to commemorate a fellow Jew.” In fact, as Schwimmer’s son noted, this appears to have been “the first stamp commemorating a Jew” and almost certainly was “the first US postage stamp designed by a Jew that commemorates a Jew

The actual stamp differs a bit from the initial design. Schwimmer proposed a stamp that pictured four men, probably in their 40s, with a sinking battleship in the foreground. The words “These IMMORTAL CHAPLAINS…Catholic, Protestant, Jewish” would be on the top, to be augmented by “Died to Save MEN OF ALL FAITHS” on the bottom. And the phrase “Interfaith in action,” would appear on the right side.

The Post Office Department – which waived a rule that stamps couldn’t portray people until a decade after their death – suggested several changes before settling on a design that retained the basic design but changed several details. The battleship became an ocean liner. The men look like they are in their 20s. (In fact, three were in their early 30s and one was 42.) The top of the stamp only says “These IMMORTAL CHAPLAINS” while “INTERFAITH IN ACTION” still appears on the side.

“These four men…gave all they had, that somebody else might live,” President Harry S. Truman said at a ceremony when the stamps were released. I hope all of you will profit by that. The greatest sermon that ever was preached is right here on this stamp.”

There really is nothing more to say.

Be well, stay safe, “practice inter-religious and inter-racial cooperation,” fight for justice, and work for peace.