Stories of Faith and Courage From World War II (61 page)

Seek the L
ORD
while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

—Isaiah 55:6

N
OVEMBER 10

Prayer for Clear Weather

On December 8, 1944, General George Patton directed that every man in the 3
^rd
Army pray for cessation of the rains that had bogged down the Allied advance. A chaplain drafted the prayer that was then printed on two hundred fifty thousand three-by-five-inch cards and distributed to the troops:

Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously harken to us as soldiers who call Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.
⁴⁶⁸

I had always considered this prayer a little bit of semi-sacrilegious theater on Patton’s part, until I read the story of the man who wrote it. Col. James H. O’Neill was chaplain of the 3
^rd
Army and knew General Patton well. He vouched for the sincerity of Patton’s religious belief and of this appeal for God’s help. He considered the general to be a man who, “had all the traits of military leadership, fortified by genuine trust in God, intense love of country, and high faith in the American soldier.”
⁴⁶⁹

Two days after the prayer cards were distributed, the German 6
^th
Panzer Army took advantage of the bad weather and poor visibility, launching their great last-ditch offensive through the Ardennes Forest. After stunning successes in the first few days, the fate of the German advance was sealed on December 20 when the weather cleared, allowing Allied air attacks to turn the tide of the battle. George Patton prayed for clear weather, and he got it at one of the most crucial moments of the war.

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

American troops advancing into Germany. (National Archives)

Crossing the Rhine in assault boats. (National Archives)

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OVEMBER 11

A Hymn Book in One Hand

On December 27, 1944, the 551
^st
Parachute Infantry Battalion launched a night raid on Noirefontaine signaling the first Allied offensive of the Battle of the Bulge. The moon was full and the night so cold that enemy land mines failed to detonate in the frozen ground. Charles Fairlamb was a radio operator with the battalion and found himself in the middle of a hard-fought battle lasting through the night.

The next morning the 551
^st
assembled for a long-overdue Christmas service. Still close to the front lines and exhausted, they gathered in a wooded area with faces still painted black and weapons ready. Fairlamb described the scene:

It was cold and snowing, and nearly half the men had lost their voices because of bad weather. The trees, mostly pine, were beautifully covered with snow and decorated with tinsel which the Germans had been dropping to make our radar ineffective. It was the most impressive Christmas service I’ve ever attended. I don’t believe that anyone could be any closer to the real Christmas than we were that day. But it made you feel kind of funny standing there worshipping God while you had a helmet on your head, a hymn book in one hand, and a rifle in the other.
⁴⁷⁰

The contrast is stark. The peace of Christmas in the middle of combat. A hymn book and a rifle. This story could serve a useful purpose in reminding us to be thankful for the relative tranquility of our daily lives and worship. Or, in some cases, this story might mirror our daily lives. Sometimes our time in church is only a brief interlude to prolonged conflict, anger, or anxiety. When we find ourselves in such a state, it is time to take stock of our relationship with the Savior. It takes a certain amount of spiritual discipline, including regular prayer, study, and service, to keep Jesus at the center of our lives when we’re not in church. Only then will the rest of our lives take on that same sense of order and tranquility that we find in the sanctuary.

Be joyous always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

—1 Thessalonians 5:16 18

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OVEMBER 12

Guardian Angel

As his company was fighting to take the German town of Dillingen, Arnold Brown saw a building that offered good observation of the enemy occupied area of the city. He climbed two flights of stairs and found a two-man forward observation team using the same vantage point to call in artillery fire. As soon as he arrived, the strangest phenomenon of his life occurred. He called it his “vision.”

His mind suddenly became like a movie screen and he could see German soldiers with their distinctive helmets. The soldiers had a radio and were beaming in on his position. They were transmitting this information to an artillery battery where the guns were being aimed and prepared to fire. As this picture filled his mind he became confused:

I hesitated. I thought, “What should I do? Should I tell these men to move? If I tell them to move and nothing would happen, they’d think I was cracking up…”

When I hesitated, I felt something pushing me toward the stairway, just like wings, pushing me. When that occurred, I didn’t hesitate. When I got down off the last step, an artillery shell exploded in that room and killed both of those men.

This was my evidence that I was going to survive this war, and that I did have a guardian angel.
⁴⁷¹

We know that there are many biblical references to angels. This soldier’s amazing witness seems to confirm that these heavenly beings continue to do God’s work in the modern age as well. The Bible tells us that angels were created by God to act as his servants, to relay messages from God, give encouragement and guidance, and provide protection. Arnold Brown’s confidence that a guardian angel was looking over him is a powerful witness to the continued existence of this special way that God can directly touch our lives.

He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and… When they walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches.”

—Acts 12:9–11

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OVEMBER 13

Malice toward None

After days of vicious fighting the American paratroopers brought in a wounded German soldier to their company commander. He had lain out all night in subzero weather with a severe wound in his leg from a .50 caliber bullet. Both of his arms and legs were frozen, and he was begging to be shot. The company commander later recalled:

I couldn’t do it. I asked for a volunteer. Even if he survived, he’d have to have both arms and legs amputated, and this could have been a mercy killing. But these battle hardened soldiers that had been fighting Germans a few minutes before would not volunteer. One soldier, out of sympathy for the suffering and bravery of this soldier, lit a cigarette and held it to his lips. Another soldier brought him a hot cup of coffee and held it so he could get coffee until we got the litter jeep up there and sent him to the rear.
⁴⁷²

On another battlefield a British lieutenant described the attitude of his men toward enemy prisoners immediately after an intense battle: “We treated them very kindly, bringing in their wounded and giving them cigarettes. It is strange, but we are very poor haters.”
⁴⁷³

These Allied soldiers exemplified the Christian moral code for the merciful treatment of a defeated enemy articulated eighty years earlier by a great American president: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right…”
⁴⁷⁴
Fortunately for us, mercy is an attribute of God himself, and he fully expects us to show this quality toward others, even in the heat of conflict.

My judgments flashed like lightning upon you. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

—Hosea 6:56

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OVEMBER 14

The Only Clean Thing

The German attacks were almost continuous. The remnants of a British airborne unit was holding on to its tenuous position in a battered school building as casualties mounted and ammunition dwindled. Their mission was to defend the eastern side of the Rhine River bridge at Arnhem until relieved. Hours of waiting had turned into days, as the relief column was hopelessly delayed in heavy fighting. Meanwhile, an officer in the school building described the scene:

By morning I had to issue more Bensedrine to face the dawn attack. No one had now had any sleep for seventy-two hours. The water had given out twelve hours ago and food twenty-four hours ago… The men themselves were the grimmest sight of all: eyes red-rimmed for want of sleep, their faces, blackened by fire-fighting, wore three days’ growth of beard. Many of them had minor wounds, and their clothes were cut away to expose a roughly fixed, blood-soaked field dressing. They were huddled in twos and threes, each little group manning positions that required twice that number. The only clean things in the school were the weapons. These shone brightly in the morning sun, with their gleaming clips of ammunition beside them.
⁴⁷⁵

Clean weapons shining in the midst of a dirty and chaotic battle scene presents a powerful image. It reminds us of God’s armor, designed to protect us from the evils of the world. Although mostly defensive in nature, it also includes one powerful offensive weapon: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”(Ephesians 6:17). When this weapon is kept burnished through constant study and application, we are prepared for the spiritual battles and chaos of this world.

The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

—Romans 13:12

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OVEMBER 15

Your Cross

Jim Koerner saw too much. In fighting with the 10
^th
Armored Division he saw buddies wounded and killed by small arms fire, artillery, mines, and booby traps. In December 1944 he was separated from his unit and captured by the Germans, suffering constantly from exposure, hunger, and Allied bombing attacks. After the war he continued to suffer nervous depression and had to take tranquilizers to function. His father had committed suicide before him, and twice, in his confused state, he held a gun to his own head. He declared that his salvation came in a prayer that he found in the wallet of a deceased friend: