Stories of Faith and Courage From World War II (37 page)

The beginning of this great buildup was slow and painful. In January 1942 Brig. Gen. Ira Eaker arrived in England to evaluate British bomber operations and to organize the American 8
^th
Bomber Command. In May a small contingent of personnel arrived to set up command headquarters as the actual aircraft were slowly being ferried across the Atlantic. During this time the British continued to fight and bleed almost alone, as no American bombers had yet gone into action against the enemy. In June General Eaker spoke to a group of British dignitaries at High Wycombe, the site of his new headquarters. His words were brief: “We won’t do much talking until we’ve done more fighting. We hope that when we leave you’ll be glad we came.”
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This American officer’s remarks were simple and appropriate. They were appreciated by his audience and received wide publicity at that time. His humility brought great credit to himself and to his nation. We find numerous biblical reminders of the importance of being careful in our speech:

“He who holds his tongue is wise” (Proverbs 10:19).

“The heart of the righteous weighs its answers” (Proverbs 15:28).

“A man of knowledge uses words with restraint” (Proverbs 17:27).

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent” (Proverbs 17:28).

“Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 29:20).

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

—James 1:19

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ULY 3

A View from a New Angle

Willard Richards was a B-17 waist-gunner on many missions over Europe. He had been in love with airplanes since he was a boy and had a clear recollection from age eleven of his first flight:

Taxiing for takeoff was really bumpy, but as we lifted off the ground it became unbelievably smooth. There I was, getting a view of my whole world from a new angle. The big shale pile by the abandoned coal mine, the outline of an old racetrack, the ponds where we skated and fished all came into view. There was the local cemetery and the steel mill where Father worked. The sandstone quarry and the new hospital on the edge of town all looked like blocks on a Monopoly board. My grandfather’s farm looked like a postage stamp and our house on the edge of the farm was so small. We descended over the high-tension wires and came in for a really rough landing. The whole flight took about ten minutes, but it changed my outlook on life.
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It is amazing to consider an experience that gives you an entirely new perspective. The birth of our first child was this kind of event, suddenly creating whole new priorities for my wife and myself. There is no change more dramatic, however, than our spiritual awakening. Jesus Christ came into my heart at the end of a long process. But in that one moment of acceptance, my life changed suddenly and completely. I saw other people with new eyes that held no judgment. The Bible came to life as a meaningful source of truth. My church changed from a building into the living body of Christ. It was truly life-changing to experience the perfection of God’s love as revealed by his Son. There is no greater change in perspective than the one that comes with a new heart.

This we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

—1 John 1:12

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ULY 4

A Fifty-Cent Item

Enemy fighters came in waves as copilot Vince Mazza wrestled with the controls of his B-24 bomber. The pilot had been killed moments before and the aircraft damaged by an attacking Messerschmitt-109. Crewmen were still trying to remove the dead pilot from the controls as Mazza fought to avoid colliding with other ships nearby. Somehow he kept the battered B-24 in formation, lumbering toward the target: Misburg, Germany.

Suddenly, a 20mm cannon shell exploded in the forward section of the aircraft, destroying the nose turret and blowing out the plexiglass around it. Through this gaping hole a 200 mile-per-hour wind whipped through the interior of the B-24 at minus sixty-seven degrees. Wounded and frostbitten crewmen moved back in the ship to get out of the blast. The pilot stayed at the controls but had increasing difficulty seeing. He felt like his eyes were freezing. He couldn’t go down to a warmer altitude because that would further expose his aircraft to fighter attack. Groping around the cockpit, his hand touched a pair of plastic goggles, which he put on over his eyes. He could finally see again to fly the airplane. Vince Mazza forever felt that this fifty-cent item saved his life and the lives of his crew.
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That pair of goggles was probably on someone’s checklist, and, even though such gear had little intrinsic value, someone had to make sure it was all there. This faithful attention to detail is what saved these men. A Marine 1
^st
sergeant once told me, “If you take care of the details, the big picture will take care of itself.” Some who pride themselves on being “big picture” people might disagree with this assertion. However, I believe it is valid in the sense that any big task can be broken down into detailed action steps. Success comes in faithfully attending to those small steps. Long ago a little boy took five barley loaves and two small fish with him on an outing to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee. This boy’s faithful attention to detail was glorified by Jesus in one of his greatest miracles.

Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.

—Matthew 25:21

B-24 Liberator bomber. (U.S. Dept. of Defense)

B-17 Flying Fortress bomber. (U.S. Dept. of Defense

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ULY 5

A Triumphant Conscience

In September 1943 more than four hundred B-17 bombers flew more than five hundred miles against heavy opposition to reach targets near Stuttgart, Germany. On the way, the flight crew of

The Old Squaw
knew that they were in trouble. An attacking enemy fighter had put holes in their right wing tank, which was trailing a mist of leaking fuel. With a slim chance of making it home, the crew faced a fateful decision.

Less than one hundred miles to the south lay neutral Switzerland. Under international law combat crews landing there were interned for the duration of the war. It was well known that living conditions were excellent, not to mention a guaranteed safe return after the war. The navigator of
The Old Squaw
called over the intercom for a vote. He was startled by the response: “By the time it was my turn to vote, the other nine had all voted to go to England.”
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After a harrowing flight and crash landing in the English Channel, one of the crewmen later explained his vote:

The only thought in my mind was of returning to England and our base. The idea of going to Switzerland and being interned for the war’s duration did not take root at all. I had a simplicity of thought and purpose in those days which stood me well. For 45 years I have lived with a triumphant conscience because we made it back to fight again, which was the duty and purpose for which we were pledged.
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This is an inspiring testimony to the long-range benefit of making a good, but difficult, choice. We especially need a perspective like this when we wrestle with the problems of family and marriage. Our decisions today can have everlasting consequences to our spouses, children, and ourselves. Doing the right thing may be difficult now, but think of the countless blessings of a “triumphant conscience” in the years ahead.

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

—1 Timothy 1:5

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ULY 6

A Different View of the War

Jim Goodson was taken prisoner when his P-51 was shot down over Germany. On the way to a Luftwaffe interrogation center in Frankfurt he was taken off the train in Berlin to change to another line. He learned from a guard that he was at the Friederichstrasse Bahnhof. He was shocked to realize that he was at the site of a major raid scheduled for that day he had helped plan. He also remembered that the Bahnhof was the main aiming point for one thousand bombers. When the air raid warnings sounded at noon he knew what was coming.

We took refuge in bomb shelters. Because I had taken part in planning the raid, I knew who would be leading the different boxes of bombers and my own fighters would be escorting. It’s a very different view of the war, when you’re up there at 30,000 feet and you see only little flashes and puffs of smoke. You don’t think of people. Sitting in an air raid shelter with Germans all around you, and the crashing, deafening noise above you is something else…It brought home a war pilots very seldom see. Digging women and children out of the rubble we had caused was profoundly affecting.
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Few of us ever have an epiphany of this magnitude. We continue through life without realizing how our actions are affecting others. This can be an especially acute problem for men. We often spend years dedicated to careers and causes before looking closely at the effect on our families. Too often it takes a crisis to wake us up to important things we’re neglecting. It would be far better to hone our listening skills every day with wives, children, and friends, making sure we know as we go along what our bombs are doing at ground level.

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

—Proverbs 12:18

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ULY 7

A Greater Hand Than Mine

After surviving a crash landing at sea, several crewmembers of
The Old Squaw
reminisced about their harrowing experience and expressed a belief that something more profound than “luck” was involved:

I cannot help but feel that there was something bigger than luck riding with us that day. The fact that we were able to stay with the formation until there were no enemy fighters around, and the fact that our escort arrived shortly afterward might be explained by luck, but when that rescue boat appeared on our course, at just the right moment, I was sure that the Omnipotent was guiding us that day especially. I cannot help but feel, too, that a greater hand than mine or Bob’s was on the controls when The Old Squaw sat down in the Channel. The captain of the rescue boat told us one last thing which made us thank God for our safety. If we had landed a few miles to the south, we would have been caught in dangerous rip tides. If we had landed a few miles to the north, we would have been in the minefields… that particular area was the only place where we could have done so safely.
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Many things had to go right for this crew to survive such a disastrous mission. Even though each detail had a logical explanation in itself, these men saw a miraculous pattern in these details and experienced a deepening of their faith as a result. We always have the same choice. We can accept the logical explanations and even the role of luck in our lives, or we can look more deeply for evidence of God’s guiding hand. We know that God created an intricately designed and beautiful universe that we can rightly consider miraculous. Sometimes it takes a child’s eyes and sense of wonder to see the miraculous in our own lives.