This is a post I should have written days earlier to commemorate the Doolittle Raid that occurred on April 18, 1942. You would think this was forever burned in the American memory, but I was surprised to find so many not knowing the story, even in the Baby Boom generation.

The Doolittle Raid was America’s first retaliation for Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor. Sixteen B-25 two engine bombers took off form the deck of the USS Hornet and bombed the Japanese mainland, giving a much need moral boost to the American people. However, things did not go as planned. Doolittle and his Raiders were forced to take off earlier than planned due to fear of detection. This meant that none of the sixteen plans made it to the planned air bases. One landed in Russia and the crew interned by the Soviets; the rest crashed in China.  Two died while bailing out and eight others were taken prisoner.

Among the eight prisoners was Corporal Jake DeShazer of Madras, Oregan. Upon hearing of the Pearl Harbor attack he swore, “Japan is gong to pay for this!” And immediately enlisted. He was the bombardier on the sixteenth B-25 to launch from the Honet’s flight deck.

As a Japanese prisoner he and the other seven were tried and convicted of war crimes by a Japanese tribunal for their part in the raid. They were sentenced to death of which three were executed. DeShazer and the others had their sentences reduced to life in prison by Emperor Hirohito. All the prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for thirty-four months.

During that time, one of the guards gave a DeShazer a Bible for three weeks. Although he had no religious training and at the time considered himself an atheist, out of sheer boredom DeShazer took the Bible. During those three weeks he read it from cover-to-cover multiple times and memorized the Gospel of John. It was during this time that DeShazer became a Christian. He came to the conclusion that the cycle of vengeance had to be broken. He chose to forgive the Japanese and to love them. He then swore to God that after the war he would return to Japan as missionary.

After his liberation he attend Seattle Pacific College and then Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. In 1948 he returned to Nagoya, Japan – the very city he had bombed – as a missionary. Two of his prison guards were among his converts.

But the story doesn’t end there. While a missionary, Jake wrote several religious pamphlets in Japanese. Among them was I was a prisoner of Japan. A copy of which had made its way to an aviator of the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was from this tract that he became a Christian and would often preach with Jake DeShazer. They became such close friends that this aviator gave DeShazer’s eulogy. And the aviator? He was Commander Mitsuo Fuchida the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.

#Forgiveness, #PearlHarbor, #DoolittleRaiders, #JakeDeShazer #MitsuoFuchida