Finally, completing our initial training, we received our first assignments as rookie chaplains — our own preferences not part of the equation. With my fluency in Italian and knowledge of Europe, I expressed my desire to be assigned to a combat group, but the Army had other ideas, sending me instead to a basic training center of the Army Air Corps in Florida. “Well,” I thought ruefully, “at least my parents will like the appointment.” My older brother Frank, a doctor, who had no children, and my younger brother Denis were both in tough combat groups, so my safety was naturally of deep concern to my parents and family.
Basic Training Center, Miami Beach
My assignment was Basic Training Center No. 7 of the Army Air Corps in Miami Beach. At that time, Miami Beach was an exotic amalgam of humanity that only the frenetic haste of a world war could create, with at least one hundred thousand recruits packed into hotels built for winter snowbirds from the North. Moreover, there were no billets for chaplains. Fortunately, the senior Catholic chaplain, Father John Green from Philadelphia, invited me to move into the house that he and two other officers had rented at 5786 Pine Tree Drive. I gladly accepted and met the two other tenants, Captain Ed Hartung and Captain John Farrell. Their advice proved to be even more valuable than the living quarters.
Father Green informed me that forty-two thousand of the one hundred thousand recruits were Catholics, most drawn from large Eastern cities with substantial Catholic populations. Besides me, there was only one other Catholic chaplain, a brawny, athletic priest of Lithuanian descent who had his own apartment at the end of the beach. Since all accommodations were “war-time crowded,” my office was the former “ladies room” in the Shelburne Hotel, where my first two visitors turned out to be the embarrassed female secretaries to a couple of high ranking officers. Except for a desk, the furniture had been removed, leaving me to scavenge for chairs and a typewriter not in use by other offices. Eventually, I got an assistant, a man in his thirties from Boston whose principal asset was that, being Catholic, he could serve Mass.
Meanwhile, Chaplain William H. Howell, a Methodist from Texas and the Protestant chaplain of Training Center No. 7, informed me that my first duty the next day would be to give an orientation talk, following his opening remarks, to a thousand new recruits gathered in a large hall. Sitting in the back of the room the following morning, I watched Chaplain Howell quickly enter the stage, salute smartly to the sergeant in charge and begin. Near the end of his talk, he said, “I wish you to remember this rule of sexual morality: Whatever I do not wish anyone to do to my mother or sister, I shall not do to any woman.” In front of me, a recruit whispered to his neighbor, “I’m lucky. I don’t have a sister or mother.”
My speech emphasized the Ten Commandments for both Christians and Jews. Catholic soldiers were obligated to attend Mass on Sunday, confess their sins, and receive Holy Communion. For those with no religion, I stressed the voice of conscience as their rule, quoting St. Paul’s famous instructions on this matter in 2 Corinthians 3:3 that the law of conscience is “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” Ending with the advice to “be honest in writing your letters back home. Don’t tell them that everything in the Army is wonderful. They’ll know that you’re lying and won’t believe anything you write”; I also admonished the soldiers “not even to consider marriage until the war is over.” Talk about an unpopular remark!
My chief duty and problem was how to properly celebrate Mass for the thousands of Catholics in my training center. Fortunately, there was a Catholic Center, located on Collins Avenue within my territory, where daily Mass, confessions, and small events could be held. Also within our territory was an imposing Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Patrick and pastored by Monsignor William Barry, who also had a filial chapel dedicated to St. Joseph.
In the final analysis, however, the beach, though less than ideal due to the relentless trade winds constantly blowing sand, was the only location large enough to accommodate several thousand Catholics for Mass. Besides having sand blown in their faces, the recruits had difficulty concentrating on their devotions thanks to the distraction of an endless parade of beachcombers and female sunbathers. Though able to secure a wooden altar with a cover, I had no public address system. Since there were no “extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion,” later made possible by the Second Vatican Council, giving Holy Communion to two thousand men with sand blowing in their faces was challenging indeed.
On Sundays, there was an early morning Mass in St. Joseph’s Chapel, a 10:00 a.m. Mass on the beach, and a noon Mass inside a theater. At the beginning of every beach Mass, I cautioned the relatively informal congregation to try not to ogle the girls in their swimsuits. Despite my former practice of shouting in the woods behind the Sulpician seminary to strengthen my vocal cords, no voice was strong enough to convey a sermon to a congregation that size on a beach. Finally, an industrious sergeant came to my rescue. Though lacking public address systems, the Army did have copy machines. As a result, printing my sermons in huge numbers, I distributed them on the beach, which paid off. Some soldiers even mailed them home, prompting nice notes from their appreciative folks.
If I was overwhelmed by anything, it was the ambition of the officers and recruits. Determined to succeed, especially those who wanted to become pilots, their spiritual development was considered an essential element of their preparation. When they flunked a critical test, they turned to me as their sounding board, claiming they “deserved another chance. I was sick and nervous when I took the test, so worn out from physical training that I couldn’t concentrate.”
Among the officers was a large number of West Pointers who, setting a strict code of conduct, insisted on a high moral code. When an officer was found guilty of sexually abusing a young boy, they printed the story on the front page of the local newspaper and dismissed him from the service.
Although many questioned our alliance with Communist Russia, none questioned the morality of a war against Nazism — a sentiment I used to prod recruits who had slipped in their Mass attendance to return to church. “Hitler at least was honest when admitting that he disregarded the Church,” I told the absentees, “but what excuse do you have for not attending Mass?”
Though officers generally cooperated with chaplains in setting aside reasonable time for recruits to attend church, there were exceptions. One former National Guard colonel ordered training marches on Sunday mornings, with the peculiar explanation that, “If you were on Guadalcanal, you wouldn’t have a chance to go to church.” “If you were on Guadalcanal,” I answered, “you wouldn’t be wearing that shirt or pants,” which got me nowhere. So I turned to Army regulations, namely AR210-10, December 20, 1940, which stated: “Commanders will reduce military labor and duty on Sunday to the measure of strict necessity. Such duties will, if practicable, be so scheduled as not to interfere with attendance at services of worship.” It got his attention.
One day in the officer’s mess, an “old Army” officer wanted to know how the men were doing. “Chaplain, how is the morale of the men?” I answered honestly, “Great. They can’t wait to get out of here to go where the action is.” No more conversation.
Occasionally, we chaplains got together socially. Arriving early at one gathering, I found the only Jewish chaplain, Chaplain Harold Gordon, already there. “I have an extra bottle of Jewish wine, Manischewitz,” he said. “Would you like it?” Thanking him, I put the bottle into a box. When everyone else arrived, a Protestant chaplain showed a short movie demonstrating the evils of even a tiny amount of alcohol. On screen, a scientist poured the amount of alcohol contained in a 3.2-percent bottle of beer into a goldfish bowl. At first swimming furiously, the fish suddenly turned belly up. As he did so, Chaplain Gordon flashed me a smile.
Challenges on the Beach
Of course, given the immense number of soldiers and officers on the beach, I knew as a chaplain I would have to deal with men involved in sinful sexual relations. In one case, a splendid lawyer, Herbert J. Kenarik of Newark, New Jersey, spent a long time at his expense searching for a soldier who had convinced a nineteen-year-old woman to back out of her wedding and then subsequently had gotten her pregnant. The soldier had used an assumed name, but Mr. Kenarik somehow traced him to Miami Beach. I was delighted