Combat Rosary: History and Construction of the Soldier’s Rosary

A rosary that belongs in a field pack and survives rain, mud and cold: that is how people imagine the combat rosary. As the name suggests, what is meant is a soldier’s rosary whose beads sit on a metal ball chain. Many stories from the two World Wars surround its origin. This guide separates what books from 1920 and 1921 report from what collectors pass on, and shows how to pray with a combat rosary.

What is a combat rosary?

A combat rosary is a rosary whose beads sit on a metal ball chain instead of a knotted cord. The name means a rosary for combat: a soldier’s rosary modelled on the rosaries that Catholic soldiers carried with them in the World Wars.

In English several names are used side by side: pull chain rosary, after the pull chains of the lamps of that time, service rosary, and soldier’s rosary. What is meant is always the same construction: the beads sit individually on a ball chain, and there is no knot and no cord that could wear through.

In use, the combat rosary differs from no other rosary. It has a cross, a centrepiece and decades; a decade is the sequence of one Our Father, ten Hail Marys and one Glory Be. Besides the full length there are compact forms with only one decade, which fit in your trouser pocket as finger rosaries. You will find all the models in our range under Combat Rosaries.

Where does the soldier’s rosary come from?

The soldier’s rosary is first documented in the pastoral care of Catholic soldiers in the First World War. Relief organisations in the United States sent rosaries, scapulars and medals to the military chaplains, who distributed them to the men in the camps, on the ships and at the front.

Michael Williams described this work in 1921 in his history of the National Catholic War Council, the war council of the American bishops. The Chaplains’ Aid Association, founded in New York by Father John J. Burke under the patronage of Cardinal Farley, equipped the military chaplains: with more than 1,200 Mass kits, with a prayer book of its own for the army and navy, the Army and Navy Prayer Book, in more than 1.25 million copies, and with devotional articles.

“Of rosaries, scapulars and medals, more than half a million each were supplied.”

Michael Williams: American Catholics in the War, New York 1921, p. 294

How many rosaries were distributed in a single place is shown by a report from the priest Paul Bethel in Brest, dated 28 February 1919. For a single month he records 40 Sunday Masses, 3,800 Communions, 4,500 confessions and 2,000 rosaries distributed (Williams, p. 261). The Knights of Columbus sent their secretaries through the first, second and third lines of trenches with scapulars, prayer books and rosaries in their packs (Egan and Kennedy, 1920, vol. 1, p. 22). What these rosaries were made of, and whether they hung on a ball chain, neither book says.

Did the American army issue the combat rosary?

It is often said that the American army designed and issued the combat rosary in 1916, but this is not documented in the reliable sources. The reports of 1920 and 1921 name Catholic relief organisations and military chaplains as distributors, not an issue by the state.

Among collectors the accounts diverge. Gloria and Helen Hoffner write that the first pull chain rosaries were made in 1916 and went to military chaplains for distribution. A dealer in old rosaries calls them an official issue, but concedes that exact histories of such types of rosary are hard to find. A third collector’s article argues that families and parishes paid for the rosaries, that most of what is sold today as First World War pieces dates from the Second, and that the term combat rosary only arose much later as a sales name. None of the three sides offers evidence.

We record what can be shown: rosaries went to the front by the hundreds of thousands, and in the books of 1920 and 1921 they are simply called rosaries. We do not adopt a date for the ball-chain model. Nor does the year 1916 fit with the fact that Williams places the founding of the Chaplains’ Aid Association in the first month of the war for the United States, in April 1917.

How is a combat rosary made?

A combat rosary is made like any rosary: a cross with a short pendant, a centrepiece and five decades of ten Hail Mary beads and one Our Father bead each. Only the material is different. Beads and chain are made of metal, and the beads sit individually on a ball chain.

Five decades are a third of the full Rosary of tradition, which comprises fifteen decades for the fifteen mysteries. The compact form has only one decade and is prayed through five times for a rosary. Our two designs compared:

How do you pray with a combat rosary?

With a combat rosary you pray the Rosary as with any other: the Creed on the cross, the opening prayers on the pendant, then decade by decade one Our Father, ten Hail Marys and one Glory Be. Meanwhile you meditate on the Joyful, the Sorrowful or the Glorious Mysteries.

According to tradition, the Joyful Mysteries belong to Monday and Thursday, the Sorrowful to Tuesday and Friday, and the Glorious to Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. With the compact form you count the five decades by letting the ten beads pass through your fingers five times. You will find all the prayers in full and the mysteries for each day in our Rosary prayer companion.

That Christians reach for the Rosary in the distress of war has a long history in the Church. On the Feast of the Holy Rosary, 7 October, the Roman Breviary tells of the victory at Lepanto under the holy Pope Pius V. It fell on the day on which the Rosary confraternities everywhere were holding their prayers of supplication. The sixth lesson closes with a petition that turns the gaze from earthly to infernal enemies:

“… that she who, entreated by the prayers of the Rosary, has so often granted the faithful to overthrow and destroy their earthly enemies, may likewise grant them to overcome the enemies of hell.”

Breviarium Romanum, 7 October, Matins (the night office), 2nd Nocturn, 6th lesson (our translation)

Does a soldier’s rosary protect in combat?

A soldier’s rosary does not protect by its own power. Once blessed, it is a sacramental: through it the Church obtains, by virtue of her intercession, effects chiefly of a spiritual kind. Whoever carries it and prays it asks God for help and trusts in the intercession of Our Lady.

This is what the 1917 Code of Canon Law lays down for all sacramentals (can. 1144). Already in the First World War the chaplains saw the danger of misunderstanding. Egan and Kennedy report that non-Catholic soldiers also asked for rosaries, as a rule frankly as “souvenirs” or, in their words, as charms, that is, as pendants with supposed protective power. The authors suspect in this “something of superstition”, but on the whole “an ignorant but healthy faith inspired by the devotion which the Catholic lads exhibited at the front” (1920, vol. 1, p. 19).

St Thomas Aquinas drew the line: it is lawful to carry sacred words with you if you look solely to reverence for God, from whom the effect is expected. It becomes superstitious when one places one’s hope in the manner of writing or tying them on (Summa theologiae II-II, q. 96, a. 4 and ad 1).

The battle the Rosary is concerned with is the battle for eternal salvation. The 1955 Catechism of the German Dioceses puts it briefly: “The faithful on earth must still fight for their eternal salvation; they form the Church Militant” (p. 107, translated from the German). The prayer to St Michael the Archangel, which our prayer companion places at the end of the Rosary, asks for help in this battle.

Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur; tuque Princeps militiae coelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen.

St Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

Latin: Anselm Schott, Das Messbuch der heiligen Kirche, 1894, prayers after Holy Mass. English: traditional version of the Leonine prayer

Mentioned in this article Combat Rosary Soldiers Edition, bronze Full length, 6 mm bronze beads on a ball chain, choice of cross and medal, with storage box. View the rosary Mentioned in this article Combat Rosary Compact One decade on a ball chain, 6 mm silver-plated copper beads and Pardon Crucifix, for your pocket. View the finger rosary

Frequently asked questions about the combat rosary