Unlike most of the men on board Dorchester, George L. Fox, a Methodist minister; Alexander D. Goode, a Jewish rabbi; Clark V. Poling, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and John P. Washington, a Roman Catholic priest, had heeded Captain Hans Danielsen's orders to sleep with life vests on because the area was believed to be infested with enemy submarines. When the torpedo hit, there was mass confusion on the ship, and many of the men could not find their life jackets in time. Rather than go into the lifeboats, which were overcrowded, the chaplains removed their own life jackets and gave them to other soldiers so that they could escape, even though this meant that they would go down with the ship.
According to the testimony of some of the survivors, the last thing they saw of the ship was the four chaplains, standing on deck with their arms linked, praying as the ship went down.
The chaplains were honored posthumously with a special Medal of Heroism and a stamp, issued in 1948. By an act of the United States Congress, 3 February was designated "Four Chaplains Day."