Stories of Faith and Courage From World War II (30 page)

After sinking with the aircraft, tangled in severed control cables and seemingly trapped, Zamperini lost consciousness. He woke suddenly to find himself free of the aircraft and swimming more than seventy feet back to the surface. He and two others survived the crash to begin a separate ordeal adrift in a life raft. He was convinced that God was looking out for him throughout this experience.

There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.

—Deuteronomy 32:39

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AY 26

I Looked Up

Louis Zamperini and two other crewmen amazingly survived the crash of their B-24 in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. With two small life rafts, six bars of chocolate, and eight half-pints of water, they started one of the longest survival ordeals ever recorded.

For forty-seven days they faced hunger, thirst, storms, and attack by an enemy aircraft. Sharks were with them constantly, often bumping the raft. A constant lack of water seemed to be the most trying part of their ordeal. They were often tantalized by showers that passed by just too far away, as they exhausted themselves trying to row toward them. Trying to fight dehydration, one would tread water beside the raft while the other two fought off the sharks with paddles. They came to a point of crisis after seven days without water. They were ready to try anything, as Zamperini related:

In the end, we resorted to prayer.

When I prayed, I meant it. I didn’t understand it, but I meant it. I knew from church that there was a God and that he’d made the heavens and the earth, but beyond that I wasn’t familiar with the Bible because in those days we Catholics, unlike Protestants, weren’t encouraged to read it carefully at least in my church we weren’t. Yet on the raft, I was like anybody else, from the native who lived thousands of years ago on a remote island to the atheist in a foxhole: when I got to the end of my rope, I looked up.
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The three men prayed specifically for water. Within an hour a squall was heading for them, and this time did not veer away. They drank until they could drink no more. They didn’t know if they had received a miracle or not, but they decided not to take any chances. Their prayers became a daily and serious matter.

I lift up my eyes to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the L
ORD
, the Maker of heaven and earth.

—Psalm 121:12

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AY 27

Another Kind of Race

Lou Zamperini was “saved” from his liferaft ordeal by a Japanese patrol boat. He spent the rest of the war in prison camps where he endured even worse deprivations, losing the faith that he had found on the life raft. As he put it, “ I believed that my date with death was set. ”
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He lived, but without hope. His day-to-day existence was filled with fear and hatred.

Zamperini returned home after the war to a welcoming family and a certain amount of fame. He was soon married and seemed on his way back to a normal life, at least on the surface. All the while, however, he had recurring nightmares of his prison experiences. He tried to drown his bitterness in alcohol. Excessive drinking, business failures, and marital problems led to an inevitable downward spiral. He occasionally thought of God in his hopelessness, but he now blamed God for deserting him.

On a September day in 1949, Zamperini’s wife insisted he go with her to a meeting in a tent on the corner of Washington and Hill Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The speaker was a little-known preacher named Billy Graham. Under great protest, he went, and, with great antipathy, listened. Little by little, he was convicted by Graham’s patient and persistent presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Earlier in his life he had been an Olympic runner. He now realized that he was in another kind of race, a race for his life:

I dropped to my knees and for the first time in my life truly humbled myself before the Lord. I asked Him to forgive me for not having kept the promises I’d made during the war, and for my sinful life. I made no excuses. I did not rationalize, I did not blame. He had said, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” so I took Him at His word, begged for His pardon, and asked Jesus to come into my life.
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Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

—Hebrews 12:12

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AY 28

Patsy Li

One night three natives came through the Marine lines on Guadalcanal, asking for the ”priest-man.” They were taken to Father Frederic Gehring’s tent, where they presented the chaplain with a badly wounded child. He was horrified to see a five- or six-year-old girl who had been bayoneted, smashed in the head with a rifle butt, and consumed now with fever. A corpsman applied bandages to stop the bleeding. A doctor arrived later and was even more shocked at the state of the young girl. She had yet to respond in any way and seemed to be very close to death. The doctor told the chaplain to, “ Pray hard for her. She needs the Great Physician. Only a miracle can keep her alive.”
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Through the next day and night the chaplain and a group of Marines maintained a vigil, praying for the girl as her life hung in the balance. Finally, on the second day, the girl began to whimper, as her fever seemed to subside ever so slightly. The doctor was called again. After another examination, he proclaimed, “ I’m either a genius doctor, or you’re a genius priest, but in any case, by golly, I think our girl is going to make it.”
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Since evacuation was impossible at the time, Father Gehring became the girl’s unofficial guardian. Thinking that she was probably of Chinese origin, he made up a suitably Chinese name: Patsy Li. News spread quickly through the ten thousand Marines on Guadalcanal that they had a “miracle girl” in their midst. They began to come in droves to see the girl and to bring gifts. They brought fruit, flowers, chocolate, handmade dolls, and parachute silk sarongs. Patsy Li seemed to become a symbol of love and hope in an otherwise God-forsaken place.
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He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us.

—2 Corinthians 1:10

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Miracle Child

By late November 1942, Chaplain Gehring was finally able to arrange for the evacuation of Patsy Li from Guadalcanal. Through a French priest on Espiritu Santo he had her admitted to an orphanage run by French Sisters on the little island of Efate. He delivered her there himself and, while on this mission, met Foster Hailey, a correspondent for the New York Times. Hailey took an immediate interest in the fantastic story of the girl, and sent a series of articles home about Patsy Li and the “Padre of Guadalcanal.”

Years later, Frederic Gehring began receiving letters from a Chinese woman in Singapore named Ruth Li. The
New York Times
articles had finally come to her attention, and Mrs. Li felt strongly that this must be her daughter (also named Patsy Li), who had been lost at sea in February 1942. The only problem was, she was lost in waters off the coast of Malaysia, four thousand miles from Guadalcanal, when the Lis’ ship was bombed fleeing the Japanese invasion of Singapore. Gehring also knew that his Patsy’s name was a pure fabrication on his part.

Even though Chaplain Gehring discouraged her, Mrs. Li felt compelled to make the costly journey to Efate, via Australia, to see for herself. She finally reached the orphanage in July 1946 to find an awkward, ten-year-old child that she did not recognize at first. Due to the psychological trauma of her early life, young Patsy could remember practically nothing before her years on Efate. Her mother found a scar on her eye and peculiarities of her handwriting that convinced her that this was her child. Within days, Gehring received a telegram: “You have been the architect of a miracle, for I have found my Patsy Li.”
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The priest went to the altar and prayed:

Thank you… for having given Ruth Li the strength to ignore the words of fools like me who would have stopped her from completing her mission of faith. Thank you for teaching me that there is no power greater than mother love that mother love can still flatten mountains, turn the earth upside down, and make the wildest dreams of mortals come true.
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Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the L
ORD
your God is giving you.

—Exodus 20:12

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AY 30

An Act of Love

Patsy Li’s life with her newfound mother did not go well. Ruth Li had been raised in a strict household where much was expected of the children. She felt it her duty to impose the same kind of discipline on her daughter. Since Patsy had only spoken French for years, there was also a language barrier that made intimate conversations impossible. Back in Singapore, Mrs. Li became estranged and then divorced from her husband, causing more tension and insecurity for Patsy. The young girl became increasingly rebellious.

In 1949 a desperate Ruth Li turned again for help to Father Frederic Gehring, now living in Pennsylvania. At her and Patsy’s request, Father Gehring arranged for a guardian and admission to a private school in Williamsburg, Virginia. Patsy seemed to flourish in America, making friends and excelling in academics. She successfully graduated from Catholic University and entered training to become a nurse.

Throughout these years Father Gehring tried unsuccessfully to bridge the gulf between Patsy and her mother. Patsy, however, could not get past her feelings of abandonment. After a lot of prayer and conversation focused on this problem, the story of Moses’ mother finally occurred to the priest. This Hebrew woman had also been forced to abandon her baby to save it. He told Patsy:

You see, there can be times when a mother deserts a child or seems to desert it for very good reason. Moses’ mother left her youngster in an act of love. Your mother’s ‘desertion’ of you was an act of love, too. Your mother has never lost her love for you, Patsy. She has told me that many times, and even though she finds it hard to get this across to you, I have never doubted her.
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Father Gehring’s patient and biblically based counseling led to the final miracle in Patsy Li’s story, reconciliation between a long-estranged mother and daughter.

When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

—Exodus 2:10

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AY 31

Moral Power

In war moral power is to physical as three parts out of four (Napoleon).
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Mao Tse-Tung was a founding member and leader of the Chinese Communist Party from 1921 until his death in 1976. During World War II he interrupted a bitter civil war against the ruling Chinese government to fight their common and external enemy, the Japanese. He ultimately resumed the civil war and established the Communist People’s Republic of China in 1949. Mao was not only a politician and soldier, but a philosopher as well. More than 900 million copies of his Little Red Book were printed as required reading for every citizen of China. Concerning what is important in war, he wrote:

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military and economic power is necessarily wielded by the people.
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Mao Tse-Tung focused on simple principles. He was a great revolutionary leader because he devoted himself to educating and motivating his followers. He knew that great achievements spring from great ideas, not things.

This principle is important in our own lives and, I believe, especially applicable to children. My wife, Lani, made sure our children were never “spoiled” with possessions. She concluded early in our marriage that our kids’ experiences and education were more important than things. As late-coming Christians, we came to realize the even greater importance of experiences contributing to spiritual growth. With children, as in all else, we need to keep our priorities straight. There is no possession that equals the importance of one life or the status of that life in the eternal future.

Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

—Proverbs 4:7