December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked. Mitsuo Fuchida, was the Japanese Commander of the air squadron that devastated Pearl Harbor. He later said: “I must admit I was more than excited than usual as I awoke that morning at 3:00 a.m., Hawaii time, four days past my thirty-ninth birthday. Our six aircraft carriers were positioned 230 miles north of Oahu Island. I made last minute checks on the intelligence information reports in the operations room before going to warm up my single-engine three-seater ’97 type’ plane used for level bombing and torpedo flying.”

Later Commander Fuchida sent the radio message code-words “Tora! Tora! Tora!” to his superiors thus letting them know the success of the mission. The Americans had been taken by complete surprise. Battleships Oklahoma, California, and West Virginia were sunk. Only the ships Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee were able to be repaired. There were many other damages, but the most irreparable was 3,077 Navy personnel killed or missing, 876 wounded; 226 Army personnel killed and 396 wounded.

Interestingly enough, this same commander was in Hiroshima the day before the atomic bomb was dropped. The only thing that saved him was a long distance call from Tokyo asking him to return there to Navy Headquarters.

When Commander Fuchida was over Pearl Harbor, an American soldier, Jake DeShazer was on KP (Kitchen Police) duty at an army camp in California. When he heard about the Pearl Harbor raid he yelled something about the “Japs just waiting to see what the Americans were going to do to them.” One month later DeShazer volunteered for a secret mission with the Jimmy Doolittle Squadron. The mission turned out to be a surprise bombing raid on Tokyo and, being one of the bombardiers, DeShazer was filled with elated revenge.

While returning to its base, DeShazer’s plane ran out of fuel and he was forced to parachute into Japanese-held territory. One day later, he became a Japanese prisoner of war. DeShazer was imprisoned for forty months. During that time he was so mistreated by his captors he formed an intense hatred for them. There were times when he thought he would literally go insane.

About two years later the U.S. prisoners were given Bibles to read. When it finally came his turn to read, he read so intently he met Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. His life became so changed that he began to view his captors with love and concern instead of vehement hatred. He vowed that if America eventually won the war, and he was liberated, he would one day return to Japan – possibly as a missionary.

Jake DeShazer, after some training at Seattle Pacific College, did return to Japan in 1948, as a missionary, to preach to the nation. He published his testimony entitled, “I Was a Prisoner of Japan”, in tract form.

In 1950 former Commander Mitsuo Fuchida was given this tract while exiting a train in Tokyo. Fuchida wrote after reading DeShazer’s tract: “The peaceful invitation I had read about was exactly what I was seeking. Since the American had found it in the Bible, I decided to purchase one myself despite my traditionally Buddhist heritage. In the ensuing weeks, I read this book eagerly. I came to the climactic drama – the Crucifixion. I read in Luke 23:34 the prayer of Jesus at His death: ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ I was impressed that I was one of those for whom He had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love which Christ wishes to implant within every heart.”

DeShazer’s tract led Fuchida to God’s Word which changed his life forever. He became a Christian missionary and evangelist in 1952 and also wrote many tracts. In addition he met Jacob DeShazer in person and fellowshipped with him.

Isaiah 55:11 reminds us: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. When was the last time you handed a tract to someone?

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