Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II

Christ demonstrated a love even greater than this by giving up his very life for a world that did not deserve it. This is a love that flows from the nature of God and is fortunately not based on the merits of mankind.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

—Romans 3:23–24

September 27 Seventy-eight Degrees

A war correspondent wrote a graphic description of one of the Navy’s smallest ships:

A DE, my friend, is a Destroyer Escort. It’s a ship long and narrow, something like a destroyer but much smaller. They are rough and tumble little ships. Their decks are laden with depth charges. They can turn in half the space of a destroyer.

They roll and they plunge. They buck and they twist. They shudder and they fall through space. They are in the air half the time, under water half the time, their sailors say they should have flight pay and submarine pay both.⁴⁰¹

The men of USS Conklin (DE-439) experienced their share of rolling and plunging during antisubmarine duty in the Pacific. In June 1945, however, they were struck by a typhoon with seas of a magnitude seldom seen by any sailor. After a night of violent wind and waves, the storm reached its peak at about 5:00 a.m.

Suddenly the men on the bridge saw an incredibly huge wave building off the port bow. Seconds later they were thrown around like matchsticks as the little ship was knocked over on her side. Three sailors were killed as the ship lost all power and fuel oil flooded the decks.

The Conklin’s inclinometer measured a roll of seventy-eight degrees, past the point of no return for a ship of her type. After seventy-two degrees the laws of physics decreed that she should keep rolling. In the next instant, however, another wave struck the ship at just the right angle to knock her upright. The Conklin survived her ordeal thanks in part to the desperate efforts and superb seamanship of her crew. Most of them, however, ever after felt that they had experienced a miracle and the hand of God acting to save their little ship and their lives.⁴⁰² Human hands could not have brought the Conklin back from a seventy-eight degree roll.

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.

—Luke 8:24–25

September 28 Turn On the Lights

On June 19, 1944, Japan committed all its remaining carrier forces in an attack on the U.S. invasion fleet at Saipan. During an eight-hour air battle over the Philippine Sea the Japanese carriers were practically stripped of their aircraft as 375 were shot down by American flyers. The next day a U.S. carrier force under Adm. Marc Mitscher was released from its defensive role at the beachhead to seek out the enemy aircraft carriers.

After a long day of empty searching, a scout plane finally sighted the Japanese fleet late in the afternoon. Mitscher knew that a strike at that distance would mean a night recovery of his own aircraft, for which his pilots were not trained. He nevertheless felt the need to seize this fleeting opportunity to strike a decisive blow, and so launched his aircraft as darkness was approaching. At about sunset this strike found and successfully sank one Japanese aircraft carrier and damaged two others.

Now, in total darkness, more than two hundred American pilots found themselves low on fuel and looking for a place to land. The U.S. carriers were steaming toward them, but, as always, were under blackout conditions to protect against air and submarine attack. As some aircraft were starting to run out of fuel, Mitscher faced another crucial decision: to risk his ships or his aircrews. He finally turned to his chief of staff and said, “Turn on the lights.”⁴⁰³ Suddenly the fleet was illuminated with running lights, flight deck lights, and star shells exploding overhead. Landing signal officers with fluorescent batons waved in the aircraft. One naval officer on the scene called this, “One of the war’s supreme moments.”⁴⁰⁴

By dispelling the darkness, Mitscher recovered most of his pilots and won one of the greatest naval victories of the war. The darkness surrounding the U.S. fleet on that night is symbolic of the world that Christians find all around them. We have many opportunities to make decisions and to take risks of our own to shine the light of Jesus Christ into those dark places.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

—John 8:12

September 29 Yamamato

In 1939 Isoroku Yamamoto became commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. This promotion culminated a brilliant career of naval command at all levels, including two tours of duty in the United States. From his experience he knew more about America than most Japanese, and, consequently, did not favor going to war against America. In a speech before the war he said:

Most people think Americans love luxury and that their culture is shallow and meaningless. It is a mistake to regard the Americans as luxury-loving and weak. I can tell you Americans are full of the spirit of justice, fight, and adventure. Also their thinking is very advanced and scientific. Lindberg’s solo crossing of the Atlantic is the sort of valiant act which is normal for them. That is a typically American adventure based on science. Do not forget American industry is much more developed than ours and unlike us they have all the oil they want. Japan cannot beat America. Therefore we should not fight America.⁴⁰⁵

These views were not popular with the many pro-war factions in Japan, who were already angry over Yamamoto’s opposition to his country’s other military adventures. His rise to overall command against such heated opposition was an indication of his brilliance and his reputation among his peers.

This great admiral is seen as a tragic figure of history because he was ultimately drawn into fighting the war that he didn’t believe he could win. The choice he had to make was hard: whether to continue his opposition and step down, or to devote his keen intellect to making the best fight possible. It is difficult in retrospect to know what would have happened if he had done more to oppose the war.

As we live our own lives in an uncertain world, we also face difficult decisions. Fortunately, they are seldom of this magnitude, even though they can be extremely stressful from our perspective. We are blessed to know that