William Thomas Cummings (1903-1944) was a chaplain in the U.S. Army at the beginning of World War II. He was eventually captured by the Japanese and died when his unmarked ship was sunk en route from the Philippines to Japan. In 1942, at Bataan, while serving with the American troops who were defending the Philippines, Father Cummings gave a stirring field sermon declaring:
<There are no atheists in the foxholes.> 1903WC001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
1903WC001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). William Thomas Cummings, 1942, in a field sermon at Bataan. Carlos P. Romulo, I Saw the Fall of the Philippines (1942). John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1855, 1980), p. 857.