Video: '75th Remembrance - The Four Chaplains & The Sinking of the USAT Dorchester'

(Wednesday, February 3, 1943, 12:55 a.m. West Greenland Time; during World War II)  — The U.S. troop transport Dorchester, with 904 men on board, was torpedoed today 150 miles off of the coast of Greenland by the German submarine U-233.

The ship was in convoy SG 19 from New York to Greenland transiting the Labrador Sea when it was torpedoed.

Among the 674 people who died were the “Four Chaplains” — Methodist minister George L. Fox, Reformed Church in America minister Clark V. Poling, Roman Catholic priest John P. Washington, and Rabbi Alexander D. Goode — who helped others evacuate into lifeboats, gave up their lifejackets, and then went down with the ship.

Video: 'THE FOUR CHAPLAINS: Sacrifice at Sea.'

Other victims died of hypothermia in the icy waters.

Another 300 were saved by the U.S. Coast Guard cutters Escanaba and Comanche.

The “retriever” method of rescue was used for the first time, as swimmers from the Escanaba donned wet suits to reach those victims who were too exhausted to climb aboard rescue lifeboats.