Fr. Cyclone, “God’s Gift to the United States Army”

In the annals of our military chaplaincy, many priests have distinguished themselves with high honor. But few lived and died as memorably as Fr. Lawrence Edward Lynch—a man so like a force of nature, they called him “Fr. Cyclone.”  

Lynch was born in Brooklyn, one of twelve children. His mother and father had brought their devout faith with them from Ireland. When he wasn’t serving as an altar boy, Lynch earned a reputation as a tough street kid. He began to discern a priestly vocation through his admiration for the Redemptorists, an order of missionary priests known for their work in the slums. He joined the order in 1932 and took on various assignments in North and South America. In September 1941, Lynch felt the call to enlist as a chaplain. Even before Pearl Harbor, he sensed he might soon be needed. As it would prove throughout his life, his instinct was unerring.

His first overseas assignment was in New Caledonia, a group of islands in the Southwest Pacific. There he quickly established himself as a flamboyant, larger-than-life fixture in the lives of his new flock. A man not particularly inclined to modesty, he announced himself as “God’s gift to the United States Army.” He earned his nickname by applying his numerous talents in a perpetual whirlwind of activities: missions, retreats, Masses, radio broadcasts, and side excursions to learn about the needs of local civilians. Like his fireman father before him, he acted first and deliberated later. Memorably, his men discovered that he was cleaning up at poker just to spend his winnings for the care of a nearby leper colony. (They began setting aside some of the pot for the lepers ahead of time so he wouldn’t feel the need to win it all.)

A strict disciplinarian, he was known to tear down the boys’ pinup posters and replace them with pictures of the Virgin Mary (“my girlfriend”). He saw to it that they never missed a Mass, which often doubled as an instructional lecture on the symbolism of the vestments he put on in preparation. He would hold up the amice and explain that it represented the blindfold they put on Jesus during his trial. He donned the alb and explained how “Herod placed a garment on Jesus to make a fool of him. You remember that.” To prepare the men’s spirits for Communion, he would say, “You wouldn’t hesitate to talk to your brother. Would you? Of course not. Okay, then. Let’s get going all together in this business of talking to God.” 

Meanwhile, anyone who mocked their piety quickly learned there would be hell to pay. One day, on hearing that a major was bullying his soldiers for going to afternoon confession, Lynch stormed into the mess hall during lunch and knocked him out cold, to a standing ovation.

For all this, he showed uncommon generosity to his Protestant colleagues, long before Vatican II made such ecumenism commonplace. “They’re good guys,” he fired back to an assistant who disapproved of his plans to throw them a picnic. “Just because a man wasn’t born a Catholic is no sign that he’s going to hell; a man who goes regularly to his own church, lives up to its rules, obeys the letter and sense of the law—he’s got a fair chance of heaven too.” He was also a fierce champion for Jewish soldiers, putting up a fight when he believed a man was unjustly passed over for promotion. Though naturally, he would prod Jewish staff officers to attend Christmas Mass.

One of those officers, Lt. Col. Julius Klein, recalls an especially poignant incident when they were rescuing some men from a sinking ship. As the survivors were carried away, Lynch leapt aboard to assist and pray over the dying. (No one had ordered this—indeed, he was ordered off, to no effect.) The last man Lynch carried down the ladder was a Jewish soldier with no rabbi to pray for him. Klein watched in astonishment as the priest took the boy’s hand and prayed the Mourner’s Kaddish in flawless Hebrew.

Lynch also demonstrated this universal tenderness during the court-martial of an unlettered black soldier who had confessed to murder under duress. Convinced of the soldier’s innocence, Lynch urged the defense to test the alleged weapon, which proved vital in clearing him. The boy had been stubbornly non-religious, but Lynch had encouraged him to call on the Virgin Mary. (This story is told at length in Daisy Amoury’s popular biography, Father Cyclone. While elements of the book feel fictionalized, Amoury drew heavily on oral testimony from his colleagues, including an officer closely involved with this case.)

In April 1945, Lynch was reassigned to the division known as “The Fighting 69th” for the invasion of Okinawa, the bitter last battle of the Pacific Theater. Each night, he would check where the next day’s fiercest action was going to be, then ensure that he was in the thick of it. He became a familiar sight on the front lines, greeting the men with the sign of the cross before handing out whatever chocolate, candy, and cigarettes he had “liberated” from supplies that day.

On the evening of April 24, the regiment came under intense shelling. All night, casualties poured into the bunker where Lynch worked alongside the corpsmen. When he recognized the scream of an especially close friend, Lynch demanded the colonel’s permission to leave. The officer refused, but the minute his back was turned, Fr. Cyclone was in motion. He knew he had precisely two minutes while the enemy was reloading. By the time he’d located his friend and begun to administer Communion, the fire had resumed. Both men were killed instantly. 

Moments later, the colonel rushed out to retrieve Lynch’s body, pausing to consume the rest of the hosts in the chaplain’s kit. For he, too, was a Catholic.

In his memory, the Jewish officer who had watched him pray in Hebrew offered these words: “It never mattered to him whether a soul was white or black, Jew or Christian, or unbeliever. To him, each human being was simply a child of God.”