There are nine Chaplains who are recipients of the Medal of Honor.

I have previously profiled one of them, Korean War Veteran CPT Father Emil Kapaun (USA). More recently, I profiled “The Four Chaplains” who perished abroad the USAT Dorchester in World War II. Those Chaplains were posthumously awarded Distinguished Service Crosses, the Army’s second-highest military decoration below the Medal of Honor.

Join me in a salute to a World War II Chaplain, Navy MoH recipient CAPT Joseph T. O'Callahan.

“Father Joe” was a native of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb. After graduating from Boston College High School, he joined the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He would spend the next 13 years in Jesuit training at St. Andrew’s College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he would earn both a BA and an MA in mathematics and physics. He was then ordained a Priest in the Jesuit order and returned to Boston College, where he taught mathematics, philosophy, and physics.

He then served as director of the Mathematics Department at Holy Cross in Worcester. Among his students was another future Medal of Honor recipient, Marine 2ndLt John Vincent Power, who was killed in action in the Marshall Islands in 1944.

At the onset of World War II, well past the standard service age, Fr. O'Callahan volunteered for the Naval Reserve Chaplain Corps and was commissioned as an LTJG. One of his colleagues observed in jest: “Let someone younger help those boys. You can’t even open your umbrella.”

O'Callahan’s first sea deployment was aboard the USS Ranger in 1942 during Operation Torch off the coast of North Africa. The Ranger was then involved with Operation Leader off Norway in 1943.

He then reported for Pacific duty aboard the Carrier USS Franklin in 1945, to serve its 3,200-member Navy and Air Wing. The Franklin was part of Task Force 58, whose mission was to seek out and destroy the remnants of the Japanese fleet as they approached Japan.

On the morning of March 19, 1945, about 50 miles off the coast of Kobe, Japan, after launching a first wave of aircraft and preparing to launch a second, a Japanese Kamikaze bomber penetrated the fleet’s outer defenses and dropped two bombs on the Franklin. With its flight deck thick with fully fueled attack aircraft and loaded with munitions, the Japanese bombs turned the ship’s deck and hangar deck into a raging inferno.

Though wounded by one of the explosions, Chaplain O'Callahan exposed himself to imminent mortal threat in order to tend to the wounded and administer last rites. He led officers and crew into the flames to move bombs to the side of the deck where they could be dumped overboard.

The Franklin’s commanding officer, CAPT Leslie Gehres, later described then LCDR O'Callahan as “the bravest man I have ever seen.”

For his heroic actions, he was awarded the Navy’s second-highest decoration, the Navy Cross, which he publicly refused, becoming the only World War II recipient to do so. Despite his refusal, President Harry Truman intervened and upgraded his Navy Cross to a Medal of Honor, insisting that O'Callahan accept the award. He obliged his commander-in-chief.

According to Father Joe’s Medal of Honor citation:

A valiant and forceful leader, calmly braving the perilous barriers of flame and twisted metal to aid his men and his ship, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan groped his way through smoke-filled corridors to the open flight deck and into the midst of violently exploding bombs, shells, rockets, and other armament. With the ship rocked by incessant explosions, with debris and fragments raining down and fires raging in ever-increasing fury, he ministered to the wounded and dying, comforting and encouraging men of all faiths; he organized and led firefighting crews into the blazing inferno on the flight deck; he directed the jettisoning of live ammunition and the flooding of the magazine; he manned a hose to cool hot, armed bombs rolling dangerously on the listing deck, continuing his efforts, despite searing, suffocating smoke which forced men to fall back gasping and imperiled others who replaced them.

His citation concludes: “Serving with courage, fortitude, and deep spiritual strength, Lt. Comdr. O'Callahan inspired the gallant officers and men of the Franklin to fight heroically and with profound faith in the face of almost certain death and to return their stricken ship to port.”

Despite the fact that there were 724 men killed and 265 injured that fateful day, with the ship listing 13 degrees, the remaining crew would not give her up. The Franklin earned the nickname “The Ship That Wouldn’t Die,” which also became the title of a movie based on the events that day.

She made it back to Pearl Harbor and eventually back to Brooklyn, New York, for repairs and post-war service.

After recovering from his injuries, Father Joe returned to Holy Cross in the fall of 1948 to his old position as head of the Mathematics Department. He taught and served there until his death at age 58, and he is interred in the campus Jesuit cemetery.

CAPT Joseph O'Callahan: An ordinary man faced with extraordinary circumstances, he summoned the greatest measure of courage to place his life in imminent peril to save others. Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty — is eternal.

“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.

(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

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