Pearl Harbor and Peace on Earth

It is the Christmas season – time to celebrate God’s indescribable gift of peace and reconciliation through Jesus Christ.  It is also December 7^th, the tragic anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  On this infamous day over 2,000 Americans were killed, and almost 1,200 wounded.  Countless thousands more would perish as a result of American atomic retaliation. What possible connection can this massacre have with the Christmas message, peace on earth and the reconciliation of God with men?

To understand this question, one must learn the story of beauty that rose from the ashes of the carnage.  Amazingly, it is the story of the “villain” of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Navy Captain, Mitsuo Fuchida. He idolized Adolf Hitler and considered it his finest achievement to lead the first wave of Japanese bombers. Later recalling the destruction he caused, he said, “As smoke began to billow and the proud battleships, one by one, started tilting, my heart was almost ablaze with joy. It was the most thrilling exploit of my career.”

Yet, after the war, Fuchida became sullen and bitter, besieged with memories of death.  This great warrior became plagued with guilt and obsessed with discovering the key to peace.  His answer was to be revealed in his book, No More Pearl Harbors.  Apart from God, however, true peace cannot be found and Fuchida struggled in vain to find the principle by which this peace could work. Ultimately, he could find no answers in himself, the philosophies of the world or in the religions of Japan.

Then, in the midst of darkness, destruction and disillusionment, God providentially began to unfold the Christmas message of true peace and reconciliation.  First, Fuchida learned of a young American girl named Peggy Covel who had lovingly ministered to the Japanese POWs. When asked what motivated her to serve them, she replied, “My parents were killed by the Japanese army.”  To the Japanese, this was incomprehensible.  Their society has no greater offense than the murder of one’s parents. Yet, Peggy, whose parents had been missionaries, knew that her faith demanded such a response of love and forgiveness.

Fuchida was touched; he realized that her story might hold the elusive answer to his question about peace. Perhaps it could be found through forgiving love.

God would then providentially allow Fuchida’s own horrific actions to come full circle in this lesson on peace.

On the day of Pearl Harbor, another soldier, American Jacob DeShazer, was an ocean away.  Hearing the news of Fuchida’s attack, he became enraged, threw a potato against the wall and shouted, “The Japs are going to have to pay for this!” Intense hatred toward the Japanese took root in his heart and it grew with every passing day.  His personal goal became to provide “payback” to the Japanese.

He soon volunteered for a secret mission as a bombardier in a squadron that became known as ‘The Doolittle Raiders.” After a surprise raid on Tokyo, his plane ran out of fuel and he and the crew were forced to parachute into enemy territory, where he was held in a Japanese POW camp for 40 months. Three of his buddies were executed by a firing squad, and another died of slow starvation. DeShazer lived, but his hatred for the Japanese began to consume him.

In despair, he too began to ponder the cause of hatred in the human race. God providentially drew his thoughts to what he had heard of Christianity changing hatred into brotherly love and he was gripped with a desire to read the Bible to understand this secret.  After begging his captors for the Scriptures, one was given to him to read for just three weeks.  He was totally changed. Though his body was suffering terribly from physical beatings and lack of food, God gave him new spiritual eyes and his bitter hatred toward the guards changed to loving pity. Echoing the words of his savior, he could now pray, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  From that day, he vowed to teach his tormentors the message of salvation.  After the war ended, he studied to be a missionary, preparing himself to return to Japan and make Christ known.

Years would pass and God, in His grace and mercy, would providentially bring the pieces of the puzzle together.

Fuchida would be summoned by General Douglas MacArthur to Tokyo to testify in War Trials.

Jacob DeShazer would return to Japan as a missionary and would write a Gospel tract, entitled “I Was a Prisoner of Japan.”

Then, amazingly, this man who once had been filled with hatred toward the Japanese because of Mitsuo Fuchida’s bombing of Pearl Harbor would lovingly stand on their street corner and hand out his tract….

And … Mitsuo Fuchida himself would come by and take one of those tracts straight from DeShazer’s hand!

By this tract, Fuchida’s heart would be changed. The peace that DeShazer had discovered on the heels of Fuchida’s sin was exactly the peace that Fuchida himself had been seeking. After reading the tract and the Bible, he would be saved, finding peace and reconciliation with God and man. Though he had killed in the name of patriotism, he would now bring life in the name of Christ throughout Asia.

God’s providence is not limited to happy, positive events. Scripture says that even the wrath of man will praise God (Psalm 76:10) and the oil of gladness can arise from the ashes of despair. To a world that is sin-sick and hopelessly separated from God, the Christmas message is a pronouncement of peace.  But it is not a peace discovered, created or achieved by man. Like Fuchida, we have plunged ourselves into a holocaust of darkness, death and despair and have no solutions in ourselves. It is God alone who provides the gift, the baby in the manger, and then sends the message in the midst of the darkness…

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, PEACE, goodwill toward men…