Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II

safe and warm and that he and his fellow crewmen had accomplished a difficult task under almost impossible conditions.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “Happiness is a byproduct of duty well performed.” Her point was that happiness is not found as an end in itself. It finds us when we do what we’re supposed to do. This was certainly the case with these sailors of the Kamsack. In Colossians Paul exhorts us to work at our duties with all our hearts, recognizing two things: first, that this kind of effort will be rewarded by the Lord, and second, that we are really serving Jesus Christ with our work (Colossians 3:23–24). If we can remember this as we diligently do our jobs, happiness will indeed be the wonderful byproduct of our work!

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

—Colossians 3:23–24

March 28 Was God There?

In 1943 George Hurley wrote a poetic description of the physical, mental, and spiritual hardships of shipboard life in the Arctic. There are seventy-eight verses in this work, and several touch on the issue of God’s presence in this remote corner of the world.

Rosary beads are my frozen tears / Will they thaw in future years?
Valor so common not recorded in history / Ships just vanish, a Russian mystery.
Dear friend, Jesus, to You I call / Help your lambs before we fall
I can’t promise I’ll be good tomorrow / But the Bible says you watch the sparrow.
No one is talking, I hear no voices / Am I spared? Has God made his choices?
Why did he leave me, I’ll never know / But it looks to me like the end of the show.
Drink a toast to the bastardly sons / Don’t mention the battle we surely won
God took a vacation, left us alone / Out in the ocean, so white with foam.
Oh we cursed you, old ship, you were so slow / But you took us there, where no one would go
Brought us back to the American shore / No one could ask for anything more.¹¹⁵

It’s ironic and very human that the seaman would credit his ship for a safe return home, but accuse God of abandoning him. As an unbeliever, I have done the same thing in times of stress. I wondered where God was, even while marveling at the selflessness of young Marines helping each other. Since becoming a Christian I have asked God to forgive this lack of faith and appreciation. One solid pillar of my faith is that God did indeed protect me many times in the past. I try to make amends for my blindness every day by thanking him for watching over me then and now.

Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

—Psalm 105:5

March 29 The Arctic Is Neutral

George Hurley, the young sailor-poet, wrote of his despair at the death that he witnessed:

No life boat for me, I die where I stand / Like an icicle, shiny and grand
The arctic is neutral, it takes no side / All dressed in white, waiting for its bride.
So much suffering, so many dying / So many shipmates died just for trying
All of their labor, all of the toil / all of the bodies covered with oil.¹¹⁶

In combat I have experienced my own despair in the midst of violence and death. I was unfortunately not a Christian at that time. I anguished at the apparent randomness that took some and not others, and felt that God could not be involved in any of what I was seeing on a daily basis. I am not qualified even now to comment on God’s attitude toward war or those involved in the fighting. There have obviously been good men and women on all sides in every war praying fervently for deliverance. Many believe that their prayers were answered. What about those whose prayers were not answered?

There is no definitive answer to such a question. We don’t know the spiritual condition of those who have fallen, and we don’t know God’s plan for their eternal futures. We do know that everyone must die eventually and that the span of our lives, whether twenty-five years or eighty-five, is nothing from God’s perspective. God never promised to shield us from hardship or harm. He only promises to be with us in every situation, if we faithfully turn to him. We also have the same dilemma as the apostle Paul, not knowing who gets the better deal: the person called to heaven or the person left to face the challenges of this world.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain… I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

—Philippians 1:21, 23 24

March 30 The Best Solvent

An unknown sailor was concerned that so many of his friends were wasting time worrying. He wrote an article that appeared in his ship’s weekly newsletter in June 1942 with timely advice for any era:

Have you ever stopped to realize that the best solvent for worry is work? Throw yourself into your job, master its details and in addition to serving your ship and country better, you will be rewarded by contentment.

Work is healthy! You can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction… many deaths are provoked chiefly by worry over matters which never repay the time wasted on them, and which breed a race of brooders prone to disease and death…

Be matter of fact: first get to the bridge, then cross it.

And meanwhile, don’t worry whether you get to the bridge or not.

What does your anxiety do? It does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; but it does empty today of its strength.¹¹⁷

Jesus proclaimed the same message during his Sermon on the Mount. He asked, “Who of you by worrying