Truth Really Matters

. . . . . by Bonnie . . . . .

On December 7, 1941, Mitsuo Fuchida, a commander in the Japanese army, led 360 airplanes toward Hawaii to surprise and cripple the American naval forces in the Pacific.  He did not think of the attack as opening a moral confrontation with the United States.  His main concern was victory.

Viewing the American fleet floating peacefully at anchor in the harbor below, he smiled as he reached for the mike and ordered, Sorochinsk “All squadrons, plunge in to attack!”  If you’ve seen the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, Fuchida is the man who spoke those famous words.

Like a hurricane out of nowhere, the torpedo planes, dive-bombers, and fighters struck suddenly with indescribable fury.  As smoke billowed and the proud battleships, one by one, began to list, Fuchida’s heart was ablaze with joy.  During the next three hours, he commanded the fifty bombers as they struck not only Pearl Harbor, but the airfields, barracks, and dry docks nearby.  He then assessed the damage to make a report to his superiors.

It was the most thrilling exploit of his career.  Fuchida had dreamed of becoming an admiral.  Because of his exemplary service in the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was invited to an audience with the emperor, a rare honor for a junior officer.

During the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Corporal Jacob DeShazer was on K. P. duty in a camp in California.  When the radio announced the sneak attack, he shouted, can you buy gabapentin online “Jap, just wait and see what we’ll do to you!”

On April 18, 1942,  Jacob DeShazer was a bombadier on the historic mission called the Doolittle Raid.  It was a bold plan to fly over Japan and bomb strategic military targets in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was aboard the last B-25 to take off from the aircraft carrier.  His airplane was called Bat Out of Hell.

DeShazer’s plane was forced to land in Japanese occupied territory and his entire crew were captured by the enemy.  Tortured and beaten for 40 months as a POW, 34 of those in solitary confinement, DeShazer was to meet his divine destiny within the narrow walls of a Japanese cell.  His heart was full of bitter hatred for the people of Japan.

Three of his buddies were executed by a Japanese firing squad 6 months after capture and another died slowly of starvation.  Soon after Meder’s death, Jacob began to ponder what caused such bitter hatred between members of the human race:  “My thoughts turned toward what I had heard about Christianity changing hatred between human beings into real brotherly love.  I begged my captors to get me a Bible, and when the emperor of Japan told them to treat us better, I got one.”

When he received his Bible in May of 1944, he eagerly read it from cover to cover.  The sentence that changed Jacob’s world was, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”   On June 8, 1944, the words in Romans 10:9 stood out boldly before his eyes:  “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”  DeShazer:  “In that very moment God gave me grace to confess my sins to Him, and He forgave me all my sins and saved me for Jesus’ sake.”  As he found later in 1 John 1:9, Jesus is faithful to forgive.

“I realized that these people did not know anything about my Saviour and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.”

God replaced the hatred in his heart with love for his torturers and he determined with Christ’s help to acquaint the Japanese with God’s message of salvation that they might become Christians.

Jacob’s faith was tested immediately.  Returning from exercise, a guard shut the door against Jacob’s foot and kicked it with his hob nail boots.  “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you,” were the words that came into his mind.  He managed to calm down, nursing his foot, and decided to try love.

The next morning he greeted the guard respectfully in Japanese.  The guard’s look was puzzled, but he said nothing.  Every morning Jacob did the same.  One day the guard spoke to Jacob through the door and smiled.  He asked DeShazer about his family.  Once he brought a boiled sweet potato, another time figs and candy.

In August 1945 Mitsuo Fuchida was in Hiroshima attending a week-long military conference with the Army.  Fortunately for him, a long distance call from his Navy headquarters asked him to return immediately to Tokyo, the day before the bomb was dropped.

A few days later, on August 20^th, freedom finally came for DeShazer when American parachutists dropped onto the prison grounds and released the prisoners from their cells.

Back in the U.S., Jacob DeShazer went to seminary to prepare for his life’s work.  God had commanded him to go and teach the Japanese people the way of salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ.  He was asked by Bible Literature International to write a tract of his story and his testimony to be distributed to the Japanese people.  It was called, “I Was a Prisoner of Japan.”  Over 1 million copies were distributed before he and his wife arrived by ship to begin their first missionary tour in 1948.

In the first 2 months of his ministry he spoke over 200 times.  During the first 6 year assignment, he spoke 2-5 times per day.

As Mitsuo Fuchida got off the train in Tokyo one day, he saw an American distributing literature.  When he passed by, a man handed him a pamphlet entitled, “I Was a Prisoner of Japan.”  He put it in his pocket, determined to read it later.

What he read fascinated him.  The compassion and peace suffusing DeShazer’s tract was exactly what he was seeking.  Since the American had found it in the Bible, Fuchida purchased one despite his traditional Buddhist heritage.  He began reading it eagerly.

When he came to the Crucifixion, he read Luke 23:34, the prayer of Jesus Christ at his death:  “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”  He had the distinct impression that he was certainly one of those for whom Jesus had prayed.  The many men he had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, but this message was diametrically opposed . . . that Christ wishes to implant His love in every heart that yields to Him.  The warrior’s eyes and heart were opened for the first time in his life.

At that moment he met Jesus for the very first time.  He understood the meaning of Jesus’ death as a substitute for his wickedness.  In prayer, he requested Him to forgive his sins and change him from a bitter, disillusioned, defeated warrior into a loving Christian with a purpose for living.

That date, April 14, was the second, yet most notable day of his life.  On that day he became a new person.  His worldview was changed by the intervention of the Christ he had previously ignored and despised.  Soon other friends beyond his close family learned of his decision to be a follower of Christ and could hardly understand it.

One remarkable aspect of Fuchida’s conversion is that his background included no Biblical history or Christian perspective, unlike the typical American who is confronted with the Gospel.  The Biblical truths of creation, the Fall, sin, judgment, the promised Messiah, the Cross, the Resurrection, and the necessity of personal repentance and faith . . . these were all new concepts.

Consider what it would be like to witness to someone from an entirely pagan culture.  I would necessarily start in the beginning.  God designed a perfect world and created a man and a woman, Adam and Eve, in His own image.  They had complete freedom and intimate fellowship with their Creator until, one day, Eve was tempted to do wrong.  God had said not to eat the fruit from one particular tree in the middle of the garden.  Satan in the guise of a beautiful creature deceived her, and in a weak moment she took the fruit of the tree.  Adam, eyes wide open, chose rebellion over obedience, they both ate it, and their lives were forever changed.

Now they knew about sin – disobedience to God.  The result was spiritual and physical death, separation from the beautiful fellowship they had enjoyed with God.   Life on planet Earth was cursed in many ways and now man would have to toil for his daily subsistence.

Later, the law was given to man, summarized in the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God and given to Moses on tablets of clay.  This law is what speaks to the conscience of each individual, convicting them of their own disobedience to a moral and righteous God.

“But I’m a good person!” you cry.  I know.  I thought that for over 20 years.  Okay, then let’s measure your life against the standard.

Have you ever told a lie?  It doesn’t matter what color or how small.  Then you are a liar.  Have you ever stolen anything, a  paper clip, some time from your boss?  It doesn’t matter how small.  Then you are a thief.  Have you ever murdered anyone?  No, of course of not, what kind of person do you think I am?  Well, Jesus said that if you have anger in your heart toward someone without just cause it is as if you have actually murdered him.  So let’s see where you are.  We have just established that according to God’s law, you are guilty of lying, stealing, and murdering.

What hope is there?  When you stand before God and are judged according to this standard, how will you plead?  Guilty, guilty, guilty.  He who does the crime must pay the time.  A righteous God cannot overlook the payment for sin.  Even if I would willingly give myself in your place it would not be enough.  Sin requires a perfect sacrifice, one without blemish.  Only One qualifies for that, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  It’s amazing that even without this background, Fuchida turned his life over to Christ, repenting, trusting.

As an evangelist, Fuchida traveled across Japan and the Orient introducing others to the One who changed his life.   1970 – “I would give anything to retract my actions of 29 years ago at Pearl Harbor, but it is impossible.  Instead, I now work at striking the death-blow to the basic hatred that infests the human heart and causes such tragedies.  And that hatred cannot be uprooted without assistance from Jesus Christ.”

“He is the only One who was powerful  enough to change my life and inspire it with His thoughts.  He was the only answer to Jake DeShazer’s tormented life.  He is the only answer for young people today.”

DeShazer served faithfully in Japan.  His plane had bombed the city of Nagoya during the Doolittle Raid, but in 1959, he established a church there.  DeShazer and Fuchida did much traveling together and spoke to people about the transforming power of Jesus Christ.  In May of 1950, they spoke to an audience of 5,000 people in Osaka with another 3,000 standing outside.  There were 600 who responded openly that day to turn to Christ.

The one-time Japanese fighter pilot, Mitsuo Fuchida, went home to be with the Lord in May 1976.  Jacob DeShazer retired to Oregon before his Heavenly homegoing in 2008.  Even out of the tremendous hatred people can have for each other, and the dire circumstances of war, God was still working to advance His kingdom.  Out of great evil, came great good.

References:

Return of the Raider, Jacob DeShazer’s autobiography

God’s Samurai, by Gordon W. Prange

• bonnie@truthreallymatters.com

Supplementary Material:

DeShazer’s rescue:  Dick Hamada who was in his bunk in Pearl Harbor during the attack, became an OSS (Office of Strategic Services) member and part of a 6 man team to negotiate the return of DeShazer. At the end of the war, his group had learned from sources in Beijing that four Doolittle Raiders were still alive and held secretly.  “The Japanese were obviously stunned.  Apparently they had believed that no one but themselves knew the Raiders  were in Peking.”  Minutes later came the order to release DeShazer, Robert Hite, Chase Nielsen, and George Barr.

Until their rescue no one had known what had happened to the 8 man crew.  Doolittle had accounted for every member of the Raid except these.  The men had been sentenced to life in prison never to be released.  The Japanese considered them war criminals and not POW’s.  When Doolittle’s men bombed the homeland of Japan it proved they were not invincible.  They lost face and were vulnerable to attack on their own homeland.

Jacob DeShazer, Bombardier on Doolittle Raid, Dies at 95

By Richard Goldstein

Published: March 23, 2008

Jacob DeShazer, a bombardier in the storied Doolittle raid over  Japan in World War II who endured 40 months of brutality as a prisoner of the Japanese, then became a missionary in Japan spreading a message of Christian love and forgiveness, died on March 15 at his home in Salem, Ore. He was 95.

His death was announced by his wife, Florence.

On April 18, 1942, crewmen in 16 Army Air Forces B-25 bombers, commanded by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle, flew from the carrier Hornet on a daylight bombing raid that brought the war home to Japan for the first time since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid resulted in only light damage to military and industrial targets, but it buoyed an American home front stunned by Japanese advances during the war’s first four months.

Corporal DeShazer, a native of Oregon and the son of a Church of God minister, was among the five-member crew of Bat Out of Hell, the last bomber to depart the Hornet. His plane dropped incendiary bombs on an oil installation and a factory in Nagoya but it ran out of fuel before the pilot could try a landing at an airfield held by America’s Chinese allies.

The five crewmen bailed out over Japanese-occupied territory in China and all were quickly captured. In October 1942, a Japanese firing squad executed the pilot, Lt. William G. Farrow, and the engineer-gunner, Sgt. Harold A. Spatz, along with a captured crewman from another Doolittle raid plane. Corporal DeShazer and the other surviving crewmen from his plane, Lt. George Barr, the navigator, and Lt. Robert L. Hite, the co-pilot, were starved, beaten and tortured at prisons in Japan and China — spending most of their time in solitary confinement — until their liberation a few days after Japan’s surrender in August 1945.

Amid his misery, Corporal DeShazer had one source of solace.

“I begged my captors to get a Bible for me,” he recalled in “I Was a Prisoner of Japan,” a religious tract he wrote in 1950. “At last, in the month of May 1944, a guard brought me the book, but told me I could have it only for three weeks. I eagerly began to read its pages. I discovered that God had given me new spiritual eyes and that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized that these people did not know anything about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.”

Corporal DeShazer gained the strength to survive, and he became determined to spread Christian teachings to his enemy.

Upon returning home, he enrolled at Seattle Pacific College (now Seattle Pacific University) and received a bachelor’s degree in biblical literature in 1948. He arrived in Japan with Florence, also a graduate of Seattle Pacific and a fellow missionary in the Free Methodist Church, in late December 1948. A few days later, he preached his first sermon there, speaking to about 180 people at a Free Methodist church in a Tokyo suburb.

In 1950, he gained a remarkable convert.

Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese naval flier who had led the Pearl Harbor attack and had become a rice farmer after the war, came upon the DeShazer tract.

“It was then that I met Jesus, and accepted him as my personal savior,” Mr. Fuchida recalled when he attended a memorial service in Hawaii in observance of the 25th anniversary of the attack. He had become an evangelist and had made several trips to the United States to meet with Japanese-speaking immigrants.

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