To become a member, visit kofc13220.org and click the "Want to Join or Get Info?" button. ABOUT OUR NAMESAKE, FR. ALOYSIUS H. SCHMITT
Father Aloysius H. Schmitt was born Dec. 4, 1909 in St. Lucas, Iowa. At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he had just finished celebrating his morning Mass. This Mass was supposed to have been Chaplain Schmitt’s last service on board the ship. The fo
llowing week, he was transferring to shore duty. He had gone three decks down for the service and to hear confessions. As the assault on the Navy’s fleet raged, Chaplain Schmitt went to the ship’s sickbay to minister to the injured and dying. When the Oklahoma was struck and water poured into her hold, the ship began to list and roll over. Many men were trapped. Schmitt found his way—with other crew members—to a compartment where only a small porthole provided enough space to escape. Chaplain Schmitt helped other men, one by one, to crawl to safety. When it became his turn, the chaplain tried to get through the small opening. As he struggled to exit through the porthole, he became aware that others had come into the compartment from which he was trying to escape. As he realized that the water was rising rapidly and that escape would soon be impossible, he insisted on being pushed back through the hole so that he could help others who could get through the opening more easily. Accounts from eyewitnesses that have been published in the Arizona Memorial newsletter relate that the men protested, saying that he would never get out alive, but he insisted, “Please let go of me, and may God bless you all.”
Within 20 minutes after the first torpedo hit, the USS Oklahoma rolled over and settled into the mud in the harbor. There were 448 crew members who died with the ship. It is believed that Father Schmitt was buried at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawai in a grave with about 400 other unidentified bodies recovered from the Oklahoma. His name is engraved there in the Courts of the Missing. In October 2016, Fr. Schmitt's remains were positively identified by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. His earthly remains were transported to his home in Iowa where he was interred in Dubuque at Loras College's Christ the King Chapel. The Navy posthumously honored Chaplain Schmitt with the Silver Star Medal for “distinguished heroism and sublime devotion to his fellow man. His magnanimous courage and self-sacrifice were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service,” the citation said. “He gallantly gave up his life for his country.”
