On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the United States military bases in Hawaii were attacked without warning by two waves of Japanese bombers, fighters, and torpedo bombers, totaling 355 aircraft. For two hours the attackers roared and shot their way over the island of Oahu, destroying ships, planes and buildings.
One ship, the 32,000-ton battleship Arizona, blew up and sank, taking over 1000 men with her to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Three other battleships were sunk, many other ships were heavily damaged, and most of the airplanes were destroyed before the American crews could get them into the air.
The surprise attack resulted in an almost total crippling of the American Pacific fleet, but as the last Japanese plane turned away from the scene of burning wreckage, the most tragic statistics of that fateful Sunday were the grim casualty figures: 2403 Americans dead and 1179 wounded.
The Japanese attack was led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, a navel aviator of many years' experience. Fuchida remained above Pearl Harbor for the duration of the attack, directing his planes from his torpedo bomber.
When the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor was broken to him, the wrath of revenge started to burn with intensity in the heart of one young American airman whose name was Jacob DeShazer.
The United States responded in April of 1942 with a surprise of its own. Sixteen B-25 medium bombers, led by Major James H. Doolittle, were launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet about 600 miles from the Japanese coast; their target Tokyo. One of the planes, number sixteen, had not originally been scheduled to fly in the attack, but Doolittle noticed space on the Hornet's deck for one more bomber and ordered number sixteen to be hoisted aboard. Jacob DeShazer was in that crew.
After DeShazer's plane had dropped its bombs on Tokyo, it ran out of fuel. The crew bailed out and was captured by the Japanese. DeShazer and his buddies were to spend 40 months in a Japanese prison camp. DeShazer remembers that his hatred for the Japanese nearly drove him crazy.
Somehow, however, God was working in his heart; he kept remembering that someone had once told him that Christ could turn hatred into love. He pleaded with his captors, and he finally was allowed to have a Bible. As Jacob DeShazer read the Word of God, he realized that he, too, was a sinner in the eyes of God. He found that he was no better than the Japanese guards. He read of how the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, shedding His blood for the sins of men. So there in a Japanese prison camp Jacob DeShazer accepted Christ as his personal Savior and found his hatred swallowed up in the love of Christ.
On August 20, 1945, the prisoners were rescued by American troops. After the war, Jacob DeShazer returned to Japan as a Christian missionary, preaching the gospel of God's love to the people whom he had once hated. One day, Mr. DeShazer gave a tract to a Japanese man who was coming out of the building in Tokyo where the war crimes trials were being held. The man read about how DeShazer's hatred had been turned around by the love of Christ, and he knew that he needed the same thing. The man purchased a Bible, read it, and found the same Savior that Jacob DeShazer had found. The man's name? Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, leader of the Pearl Harbor raid.
In Psa. 76:1010Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. (Psalm 76:10), the Bible says this about God: "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee." Who else but God could take a man burning with hatred and revenge and turn him into a man filled with love, a man who would eventually be the instrument of salvation for the very man upon whom he had sought revenge? Dear friend, the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of all who will believe in Him (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)). 2 Cor. 5:1717Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."