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Charles “Chic” Quinn was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest military decoration for valor in combat.
When “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” came on around the holidays, everyone in my family knew to change the song.
No one wanted to see my grandmother cry.
Even decades later, Bing Crosby’s voice could still break her heart.
Her little brother — my great-uncle Charles “Chic” Quinn — had promised he would be home for Christmas during World War II. In one of his final letters home after nearly two years overseas, he told his sisters he was finally expected to get leave that December.
He never made it.
As a kid, that was all I really knew. There was a brother. A war. A promise. And a sadness so deep that time never seemed to touch it.
Years later, relatives uncovered old military paperwork, letters and faded records tucked away for generations. What emerged was the story of a young Marine from Queens who died a hero thousands of miles from home — and the heartbreaking final moments that stayed with the priest who held him as he passed away.
Charles “Chic” Diamond Quinn was a Long Island Rail Road machinist from St. Albans, Queens. He was 19 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
A week later, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
Military records describe him plainly: 5 feet, 7¾ inches tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a ruddy complexion.
Just a kid, really.
During nearly two years in the Pacific, Quinn fought in multiple campaigns against Japanese forces, including combat operations in Peleliu in 1944 as part of the famed 1st Marine Division.
During one reconnaissance mission, according to his Silver Star citation, Quinn spotted a Marine officer trapped under intense enemy rifle and machine-gun fire. Ignoring his own safety, he advanced through sniper fire and killed the enemy sniper threatening the officer’s life.
He was badly wounded during the mission.
But according to military records, Quinn refused medical treatment until he completed reconnaissance reports considered vital to the mission.
Five days later, he died aboard the USS Samaritan, a Navy hospital ship.
He was 22 years old.
The military later awarded Quinn the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest military decoration for valor in combat.
But it was not the medal or military paperwork that stayed with me most, upon first learning all this.
It was the letter.
Months after Quinn’s death, a Catholic chaplain aboard the USS Samaritan wrote to one of his surviving sisters living in Toledo, a nun at the time.
The priest, Father Joseph S. McCauley, remembered my great-uncle not as a hardened war hero, but as a gentle young man whose faith moved even him.
“He was such an innocent child,” the chaplain wrote, “and his faith so deeply rooted that I really loved him.”
The priest recalled how Quinn proudly told him his sister was a nun. He wrote that Quinn remained conscious until the very end, attentively following along with prayers for the dying.
Then came the part of the letter that drew me to tears, reading it for the first time decades later:
“When he breathed his last, I actually broke down myself before the doctor and nurse, as I continued to say prayers. Our dearest Lord wanted another little angel for His heavenly choir. Please continue to pray for me, Sister; and may I ask that you have the children pray for me also. We priests of the service have so much need for prayers than before.”
Imagine that for a moment.
A wartime chaplain surrounded by death — a man whose duty was to comfort the dying — so moved by this young Marine that even he could not hold back tears, and feeling so desperate that he asked for spiritual help from a stranger living so afar. (The full letter appears below.)
My grandmother and her sisters carried that grief for the rest of their lives.
And every Christmas, one song brought it all rushing back.
Quinn was buried at sea after his death aboard the USS Samaritan.
Today, his name is etched onto the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines — thousands of miles from the streets of Queens where he grew up and the Long Island Rail Road shops where he once worked as a machinist.
And in Fredericksburg, Texas, at the National Museum of the Pacific War — located in the hometown of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz — another memorial plaque bearing his name still stands among fellow Marines of the 1st Marine Division, a cousin I never met (and Valley Stream native) recently informed me via email.
In one photo on the plaque, Chic is shown reading a letter from home.
The plaque also includes a line from his three sisters:
“Taken into the Hands of God Too Soon.”
And underneath:
“Presented with Love.”
This Memorial Day, as beaches fill, grills fire up and another summer unofficially begins, maybe that’s worth remembering too:
For some soldiers who made it home, there was another family left waiting by the door.
The letter to Toledo, dated Jan. 4, 1945, reads as follows:
My dear Sister Coronata: May our dearest Lord bless you and your work abundantly during this New Year.
I was very pleased to receive your letter concerning our dear little “CHIC.” This is just what he was. During the few days that he was with us I visited him often. He was always so pleased to see a priest. He was such an innocent child and his faith so deeply rooted that I really loved him. When he first came aboard I told him that someone’s good prayers had been heard. I meant that he had not been called on the field, as so many other poor boys. He immediately responded, “Yes Father, my sister, she is a nun.” Having a sister of my own a Dominican, we had something more in common. I could not help but feel for you; for I know how my good sister would feel.
Chic was conscious till the very last moment. He was so attentive to the prayers for the dying; which was the greatest edification to me. When he breathed his last, I actually broke down myself before the doctor and nurse, as I continued to say prayers. Our dearest Lord wanted another little angel for His heavenly choir.
Please continue to pray for me, Sister; and may I ask that you have the children pray for me also. We priests of the service have so much need for prayers than before.
Sincerely in Christ,
Joseph S. McCauley
Catholic Chaplain
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