Ordie
03-23-2008, 11:35 PM
RIP
Jacob DeShazer, bombardier in Doolittle raid, dies at 95
By Richard Goldstein
Sunday, 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 March 15 at his home in Salem, Oregon. 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 Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, flew from the carrier Hornet on a daylight bombing raid that brought the war to Japanese shores for the first time.
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 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 and the engineer-gunner.
DeShazer and the other surviving crewmen from his plane were starved, beaten and tortured at prisons in Japan and China until their liberation a few days after Japan's surrender in August 1945.
Amid his misery, 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."
After returning home, DeShazer earned a bachelor's degree in biblical literature, and he returned to Japan in 1948. A few days later, he preached his first sermon there.
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," 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.
DeShazer spent 30 years in Japan doing missionary work.
Source:http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=11340002
Jacob DeShazer, bombardier in Doolittle raid, dies at 95
By Richard Goldstein
Sunday, 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 March 15 at his home in Salem, Oregon. 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 Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, flew from the carrier Hornet on a daylight bombing raid that brought the war to Japanese shores for the first time.
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 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 and the engineer-gunner.
DeShazer and the other surviving crewmen from his plane were starved, beaten and tortured at prisons in Japan and China until their liberation a few days after Japan's surrender in August 1945.
Amid his misery, 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."
After returning home, DeShazer earned a bachelor's degree in biblical literature, and he returned to Japan in 1948. A few days later, he preached his first sermon there.
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," 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.
DeShazer spent 30 years in Japan doing missionary work.
Source:http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=11340002