Flat-Top Chaplain

A chubby, smiling U.S. Navy chaplain told a Manhattan audience last week about his precarious ministry aboard, the aircraft carrier Wasp, sunk in the Solomons (TIME, Nov. 2). In peacetime Chaplain Merritt F. Williams was a canon of Washington, D.C.'s great unfinished Episcopal Cathedral of SS. Peter & Paul. He had since learned what battle action was like. One afternoon last September, when the 14,700-ton Wasp was struck by three Jap torpedoes and twanged like the string of a bass viol, Chaplain Williams had pitched in to help move the wounded across surging decks, heat-pocked with six-inch blisters.

"We got the wounded off," said he, "then got the rest of the men off. I had to kick one man in the pants to get him to leave. The captain told us all to get off, and I went over into the water on a line. The water was covered with oil and was on fire forward. We were in the water about two and a half hours, collecting in little groups."

Chaplain Williams looked forward to returning to shipboard. Like any good chaplain, he had never closed his door except when a caller wished. Men came in at all hours to discuss personal or family problems--or perhaps just to chat. Chaplain Williams had, to follow up many of these visits by correspondence with families or relief agencies. He kept one yeoman typing all the time. The Chaplain's activities ranged from running the Wasp's athletics, film shows, library and newspaper, to defending men in court-martial.

But religion remained Chaplain Williams' prime function. He summed it up last week: "Religion, to be of importance to the soldier or sailor, must have something convincing to say to them about the meaning of God and the meaning of their own souls. . . . The chaplain who talks to his men about God will be respected and listened to. The chaplain who uses his few precious minutes talking about the wickedness of shooting craps will be largely ignored. When men are living cheek by jowl with death they rapidly get down to essentials. Religion at war, if it is to win its battles, must likewise get down to essentials."

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