What is considered as of one of the most extraordinary acts of compassion during World War II will be remembered in a ceremony this Sunday.

This is the story of the four Army chaplains who gave up their life preservers to save others after their transport ship was hit by a torpedo from a German U Boat on Feb. 3 1943.

The Four Chaplains’ Memorial Service will be held at 9:30 a.m. at the Cornerstone of Faith United Methodist Church. The church is located at 1081 Main Street in Coventry across from the Police Station and parking will be available across the street. Brunch will also be served following the service.

This will be the seventh consecutive year of the service according to Cornerstone of Faith Church member and service organizer, Jane Deptula. Deptula is a Marine Corps veteran, serving from 1957-1959. She achieved the rank of Corporal and served her entire duty at Parris Island, South Carolina as a switchboard operator.

The service was initially held for the church’s parishioners but has since grown each year.

“The participants coming to this service has grown each year,” Deptula said. “Last year we had 143 people from all over the state.” The service also features the Rhode Island Young Marines, an organization dedicated to positively impacting America’s youth by providing quality youth development programs for boys and girls. This is also the only service for these four army chaplains in Rhode Island.

A candle will be lit and a short biography will be read for each of the four chaplains, who gave their lives on Feb. 3, 1943 in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The four chaplains that gave their lives are, Lt. George L. Fox, Methodist; Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Jewish; Lt. John P. Washington, Roman Catholic; and Lt. Clark V. Polling, Dutch Reformed.

All proceeds from the event will go to the Chapel of Four Chaplains Foundation to aid in continuing the work that they do to educate the public of this heroic act.

“I was amazed at how many people didn’t know about it,” Deptula said. “It is too amazing of a story to let it be forgotten and on a personal level, as a veteran, it’s special.”

The story of the Four Chaplains began 77 years ago on the evening of Feb. 2, 1943. A 5,649-ton luxury coastal liner turned Army Transport ship, the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, was carrying 902 service men, merchant seamen and civilian workers from Newfoundland to an American base located in Greenland.

The Dorchester was part of the SG-19 convoy along with two other ships. Three Coast Guard cutter ships, the Tampa, Comanche and Escanaba, were guiding the convoy.

Earlier in the evening the Coast Guard cutter, Tampa detected a submarine with its sonar. German U-boats constantly patrolled these waters and they had sunk other ships previously.

Now just 150 miles from their destination, Captain Hans J. Danielsen, who was already proceeding with caution, ordered the men aboard to sleep with their clothes and life jackets on. Then, just before 1 a.m. on Feb. 3 the German U-boat, U-223 approached the convoy and fired five torpedoes.

One torpedo hit the Dorchester on the starboard side of the ship. Twenty minutes later the Dorchester sank beneath the surface of the Atlantic. The Comanche and Escanaba began to rescue survivors. The Escanaba was able to rescue 132 people while the Comanche rescued 96 people.

The third cutter, the Tampa, continued to guide the two remaining ships that the torpedoes missed, to their destination.

As the chaos ensued, the four chaplains for which this memorial service is dedicated to, spread out to help in anyway they could, tending to the wounded and disoriented and trying to calm down the frightened.

Lt. Goode gave his only pair of gloves to a fellow soldier who had forgotten his. Lt. Goode told this soldier that he had two pairs so that he wouldn’t run back to his cabin and possibly not return safely.

Engineer Grady Clark witnessed the most amazing moment of all. Clark saw all four chaplains remove their life jackets and give them to four scared young men, as there were no life jackets left in the storage room. The four chaplains went down with the ship.

Of the 902 passengers onboard the Dorchester there were 230 survivors. The other two ships in the convoy reached their destination and the survivors from the attack were transported to Narsarsuaq, Greenland. U-233 was sunk on March 30, 1944 in the Mediterranean.

This act of heroism is what led to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to issue all four chaplains the one time only, posthumous Special Medal for Heroism on Jan. 18, 1961 along with the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross.

The Cornerstone of Faith United Methodist Church is hosting another service on Sunday, Feb. 23, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the flag raising on Iwo Jima.