Keep Buggering On S2-E1: Keep Buggering On: Navy — Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

"Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" — USS New Orleans, December 7, 1941

On the morning of December 7, 1941, as Japanese aircraft attacked the fleet at Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant (junior grade) Howell M. Forgy was serving as a chaplain aboard the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans. The ship was in dry dock for an overhaul and had lost shore power, so her anti-aircraft ammunition had to be passed hand to hand, sailor to sailor, up a human chain to the gun mounts. Forgy moved along that line of men, and by multiple postwar accounts, called out something very close to "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" to keep the chain moving and spirits from cracking. The exact wording in the moment was never officially recorded. For a time the phrase circulated through the fleet and the press attributed only to an anonymous "sky pilot," before writer Jack S. McDowell and others traced it back to Forgy by name. Songwriter Frank Loesser heard the story and, within weeks of the attack, turned it into a patriotic song of the same title, published as sheet music in 1942 by Famous Music Corp. It became one of the most popular songs of the war, recorded by Kay Kyser's orchestra and Bing Crosby among others. Forgy himself later confirmed the substance of the line but downplayed his own role, insisting the credit belonged to every man on that ammunition line, not to him alone. The story endures because it is one of the rare wartime one-liners that is genuinely, verifiably close to what was actually said — an unarmed chaplain, a ship without power, sailors passing live shells by hand, and someone finding the nerve to crack a joke while the sky was on fire.

Wear The Mindset- Praise the Lord

Sources

●        Wikipedia, "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (song history, Frank Loesser, 1942 publication)

●        National WWII Museum, "The WWII Origin of 'Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition'"

●        Fallout Wiki entry citing the song's 1942 origin and 1962 re-recording (background verification only)