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Overcast Local vet honors WWII chaplains
Self-funded monument at Eisenhower Park
A new monument has been added to the veterans memorial area at Eisenhower Park thanks to the efforts of a Valley Stream man. Salvatore Spinicchia, a Marine Corps veteran from World War II and the Korean War, funded the project.
The monument pays tribute to four chaplains who sacrificed their lives at the sinking of the USAT Dorchester during the second World War. The ship, part of a convoy of six vessels headed for Greenland, was attacked by enemy fire on Feb. 3, 1943. The four Army chaplains — Rev. George Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Rev. Clark Poling and Father John Washington — handed out life vests, even giving up their own, to save others on board. They stayed at the rail of the ship, helping the soldiers onto life rafts.
The ship sank in less than a half-hour and only 230 of the 904 Americans on board were rescued. The four chaplains were posthumously honored with the Distinguished Service Cross in 1944.
Spinicchia said he felt it was appropriate that a monument to the four chaplains be included with the many other stones at Eisenhower Park. “I was brought up in a religious home,” he said, “and my experience in the military, I saw what the chaplains do.”
He paid for the stone himself, but did not want to reveal the cost. “The money’s not the thing,” he said. “Being a man of faith, this is something I wanted to do.”
The dedication ceremony was held after the annual Veterans Day service at Eisenhower Park. Ernest Heaton, a Dorchester survivor, was the day’s keynote speaker.
Spinicchia said that planning for the monument took about 1 1/2 years. He was inspired to do it by a picture he saw of the four chaplains monument in Albany.
Unlike the upstate stone which is bronze, Spinicchia decided on a black granite monument for Eisenhower Park. He said that he went to Sprung Monuments in Elmont to have them make the stone and after seeing how a picture of Elvis translated onto the granite, it made his decision easy.
“They look exactly like a photograph,” he said of the engravings of the four chaplains’ faces on the black granite monument. “The etchings, you rub your hand on there, it’s so smooth.”
The 82-year-old veteran is a member of VFW Post 1790, former commandant of the Marine Corps League Western Long Island Detachment and was chief of the Valley Stream Fire Department from 1972-1973.
Spinicchia said he attends ceremonies at the Eisenhower Park memorial area on a regular basis with the Marine Corps League. He is very happy with the placement of the four chaplains stone. It is between two other religious monuments — one honoring Catholic war veterans and the other for Cardinal Francis Spellman. When facing the stone, one also looks out at the Sept. 11 memorial. “They couldn’t have given me a better spot,” Spinicchia said.
