During World War II the U.S. Marines made a surprise landing on the island of Tarawa. Among those who took part in the amphibious landing was a young man who wrote home as follows:
“We were in the first wave of troops landing on Tarawa. The enemy seemed to hold their fire until the amphibious tractors got in close. Then they let loose. For the last two hundred yards of our journey, we were under such heavy fire that about one half of our original number were killed or wounded before we ever reached shore.
“The driver of our tractor, which holds about 19 men and operates with a crew of three, drove in against a sea wall about five feet high, and we those of us who were left-piled out.
“The Japanese were only about 10 or 15 feet away on the other side of the sea wall, mostly in machine gun nests. We were fairly safe if close to the barrier, but the enemy could still fire at us from the flanks. We were just pinned down, standing in five or six inches of water. All we could do was hug that wall.
“Once I stood up straight, and I was struck with four machine gun bullets, three of them entering my left leg near the knee, and the fourth just breaking the skin on my right leg. Had I been still kneeling when the blast came, the bullets would have gone through my chest. I put a tourniquet on my leg shortly after I was wounded and didn’t lose much blood, but I was very weak.
“It was about 10 a.m. Saturday when I was hit. With three other fellows, two of whom were wounded, I stayed hugging that wall until 4 p.m. Sunday. Then some tanks came down from our beachhead up the shore and wiped out the machine gun nests. We surely were happy when those tanks came.
“We managed to crawl up the shore to our beachhead. By 5 p.m. Sunday I had been evacuated to a ship and was operated on.
“During the campaign in the Solomon’s I had not given much serious thought to God and eternity, until that Saturday morning when I was shot down on the beach in that terrible battle of Tarawa. As I crawled in near the sea wall, with the battle raging all around and with little hope of ever being picked up alive, my thoughts went to my home far away. I thought of my mother, then of mother’s God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, her Savior.
“Then, as never before, I realized my need of this Savior too. I cried to Him for mercy, and He heard my cry. And, lying there behind the sea wall, I experienced deep peace and joy in knowing I had received this Savior as mine! I could face death with a peace I had never known before.
“I began to think at once of my loved ones and longed for them to know, if I were not taken out alive, that my soul was saved. A wounded Italian boy lying near me promised that if he got out alive and I did not, he would try to get the word to my mother that I had Jesus in my heart, in answer to her prayers.
“Now, I thank God that, even though I had to lose my left leg above the knee, He saved my life as well as my soul.”
The words of the psalmist are true: “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth” (Psa. 145:1818The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. (Psalm 145:18)). Never has He refused to listen to a contrite cry.
“He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” Job 33:27-2827He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; 28He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. (Job 33:27‑28)