Jacob Daniel DeShazer
1912-2008
by Chaplain Jim Robinson

Last week I received an e-mail from a friend that prompted this article for the His Way News. It's not news about Buffalo Ridge, but rather news about a soldier who impacted my life and the lives of many others. His funeral will be held in Salem, Oregon, March 29, 2008. I would love to be there to add my appreciation to that of many others who will honor Jacob DeShazer on that day. Other responsibilities and the cost of airfare to Oregon will not allow me to be present.

You have probably been exposed to elements of this man's life, even if you don't know it, or even if you have never heard of him before. You have if you remember or have heard the story of the Doolittle Raiders who attacked Tokyo on April 18, 1942. You have if you have seen the movie, 30 Minutes Over Tokyo. You have if you have ever seen the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! You have if you ever saw the movie Pearl Harbor.

Where do I start such a sensational story as this? I think I will start it in the early 1970s. His Way Ministries had acquired two acres of property in Concord, California with five buildings on it. We were doing our best to reach out to our community with the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The staff at the time were praying about and discussing how we could put together an event to help carry the Gospel to our community of apartment dwellers located in proximity to our church building, which we affectionately called, "The Barn." As we were praying, I felt the Lord gave me a plan. It must have been of the Lord, for I was only vaguely familiar with various aspects of the plan.

A new Hollywood movie was being released which I had not seen. The name of the movie was Tora! Tora! Tora! The movie was made from the Japanese perspective concerning the World War II attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. When I heard about the film I thought it must have information about Mitsuo Fuchida. That came to my mind because years before while attending Asbury Seminary, I had become personally acquainted with, Jake DeShazer, who had been a missionary in Japan since World War II. He was at the seminary for some short-term additional education. He told me an intriguing story about Fuchida and the privilege he had in having a part in leading him to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Fuchida was the air group commander who led the Japanese air group in the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.

We had been looking through some Christian film catalogs earlier and I remembered seeing a film entitled One Came Back. The description of the film said it was about a Japanese air officer who had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and who later came back as a Christian evangelist preaching the Gospel. The idea all came together. We would combine the two films Tora! Tora! Tora! and One Came Back. We got really excited about the idea as we realized it had been from the Lord. We then decided we would invite Jake Deshazer and Fuchida to come from Japan and be a part of the occasion.

I called the headquarters of the Free Methodist denomination to ask for Jake's phone number in Japan. Jake was serving in Japan under their missionary board. To my surprise, Jake was in the states on furlough at the time. I phoned him and he readily agreed to come and participate. He also told me that Fuchida was too ill and frail to consider coming to the states for such an endeavor.

This is a good time to flash back to why Jake is involved in this story. Jake was a bombardier on one of the B-25's that General Doolittle took off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo. After the raid, Jake's plane crashed in Japanese occupied China and he spent forty months as a Japanese prisoner of war. He was considered a war criminal and was treated cruelly. He was beaten, tortured and starved. He came to hate the Japanese with a passion. However, while a prisoner, he gave his heart to Christ and focused on Christ's words, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." In his cell He came to love his captors and committed himself to coming back to Japan as a missionary if he got out alive. He did just that and spent the next thirty years sharing the wonderful Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of Japan. At one period, Jake felt his evangelistic ministry was noticeably slowing down. He went on a forty day fast. Near the end of the fast there was a knock on his door. It was Mitsuo Fuchida. Fuchida had found a Gospel tract entitled, I Was a Prisoner of Japan, on the floor of the subway. The result of that meeting was that Mitsuo Fuchida became a Christian. He had a number of changes to make in his lifestyle as the Lord changed his life. He went through personal transformation and in a few years he was the leading Japanese Christian evangelist.

Now, back to our little film project that we believed had significant potential (and it did!) I called the film distributor and told him I wanted to
rent Tora! Tora! Tora!, and asked what it would cost. The first question he wanted to know was, “Who are you?” I told him, and he nformed me that I couldn't rent the film for any price. I wasn't to be stopped so quickly, and finally contacted the head of the company in Hollywood. It was probably pretty unusual to get him on the phone. He also told me that we couldn’t rent the movie. After a long talk with him, he agreed to send the film to us at no charge, and gave us permission to cut and splice in the additional film as desired. The only requirement was that we return all the film after we were finished. God put together the whole thing and the results were significant.

Jake DeShazer was a man who had a lot of influence on me and thousands of others. I don't remember him for any great talents or abilities. I remember him as one who was sold out to God and His will. When he talked, you knew you were listening to one who walked in the presence of God.

Jake DeShazer, thank you for responding to Jesus Christ, for being faithful to Him and for influencing so many of us to want to live in utter abandonment to Jesus Christ, without any limitations!