Men of Honor, in War and Peace...

The one constant I've observed throughout life is the certainty that people will continue to be people wherever they are, for whatever purpose, and their true character will rise to the surface at the most opportune time...Whichever qualities are dominant in a personality will make their presence known foremost in times of stress when every decision can mean the difference between life and death...

An attack, whether expected or not, may call up heroism or cowardice...Leadership and the trained instinct to follow orders may prevail, or panic and uncertainty may take command...

When the war's battles and the din of combat have ended, those who survived are left to explain their actions, or justify their inaction, to themselves if nobody else...Those who can put the horrors of battle behind them can continue a life interrupted by the heat and hatred of battle...Those who can't must suffer with their demons...

Following is a re-edited compilation of which I wrote in earlier years of the stories of a few men whose lives were intertwined by war, and who later met off the battlefield in times of peace to forever change each other's own destinies...

Mitsuo Fuchida, The famed Japanese fighter/bomber pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and was seriously wounded in the Battle of Midway, ending his flight career, was instrumental not only in launching the war, but ending it...If not for Fuchida's actions, the war might have been re-ignited after Hirohito issued his orders to cease hostilities...

Several diehard JIN officers were incensed over their perceived loss of honor from Hirohito's announcement, and vowed to continue the fight even against the wishes of their emperor-god...Their decision directly led to aerial attacks on the photo-recon B-32's flying over Tokyo on two consecutive days after Hirohito's public acceptance of the Potsdam accords...Many of them were able to be talked into surrendering the following day, but one of the leaders of the revolt, Commander Yasuna Kozono, who commanded the key Tokyo defensive unit, the 302nd Air Group, was not one of them...

Kozono was in a malaria-induced fever, and had been self-medicating on sake for several days...From his sickbed, he ordered his flyers to attack any Allied overflights in the name of the bushido code...One of these actions resulted in the death of B-32 crewman, Tony Marchione, who took a hit in the chest from a 20mm round while attending the wounds of another gunner, leading to his bleeding out within the hour, thus becoming the last American casualty of WWII...

Fuchida, who was assigned as a staff officer in Tokyo after his recovery from his wounds at the Battle of Midway, had just returned from a personal inspection of the Hiroshima blast site, and knew that the Allies had the means to reduce Japan to a pile of glowing gravel...Curiously all those who accompanied Fuchida died of radiation poisoning afterward, but Fuchida was unaffected...

When he learned Kozono had defied orders, and was continuing the fight, he went unarmed to the heavily defended Atsugi base, and using his rank and status as a decorated Japanese hero, bluffed his way into Kozono's room...With the help of another officer, he disarmed Kozono of his pistol, subdued and wrapped him in a blanket and hustled him off base in an ambulance...

He then assumed command of the base, and ordered all personnel to stand down...He ordered all aircraft to be parked outside with their propellers removed to show the Allies they were harmless...

Meanwhile General MacArthur was debating whether the new attacks were a signal that the Japanese forces would not surrender, or if they were an aberration from renegades defying their emperor...To his credit, he decided not to restart hostilities, thereby saving at least a million American and Japanese lives...

Fuchida became a Christian through the efforts of Jake DeShazer, a bombardier on the Doolittle Raid who was forced to parachute out over enemy territory after running out of fuel, and was a POW for the rest of the war...Most casual history buffs (like me) know that the bombing raid was conducted as retaliation by volunteer crews only four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, led by Mitsuo Fuchida...

They used land-based bombers (B-25's) launched on a one-way mission from the USS Hornet...The secrecy of the mission was broken when a Japanese trawler saw the task force and radioed its position back to Japan...The fishing boat was immediately sunk but since the mission had been compromised, all sixteen aircraft were forced to launch three hundred miles before intended...

The bombardier of Crew 16, Jake Deshazer, parachuted into captivity with his crew when his plane was forced down over Japan...Prior to the war, Deshazer was an avowed atheist...At one point during his forty months of captivity, Deshazer was given a small Bible for a few weeks (his only reading material during this time)...

The only source of light in his cell in solitary confinement was a small barred window high up the wall which only had light for a few hours a day...For this time he held himself up by the bars and read the Book in its entirety...At this time, he accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour...

Following his release after the war, he returned to Japan as a missionary...Over the next thirty years in Japan, he converted thousands to Christianity, among them former Japanese Commander Mitsuo Fuchida...That story, in Fuchida's own words, is told here...

After his conversion, Fuchida visited America...He learned to love the country he once hated and eventually became a U.S. resident alien, but could never bring himself to give up his citizenship of his native Japan...His Japanese roots were so deep that when he knew death was near, he returned to Japan to die and is buried there...

Jake Deshazer lived to the age of 95, and attended reunions of his compatriots of the famed raid whenever possible...As of this writing, only Col. Richard E. Cole, Col. Doolittle's co-pilot in the lead aircraft, is still alive at the age of 100...

A Texan who survived the Japanese attack at Ford Island on December 7 later became a Baptist preacher after a promise he made to God for allowing him to live that morning...However, Joe Morgan still carried a lot of hatred in his heart for the Japanese until he met Fuchida in person in Hawaii...That story here, and Morgan's obituary here...

It seems there were a lot of brave men who participated on both sides in that war, and their bravery allowed them to admit their mistakes and correct their course after the war...We could all do as well...

EDIT: The last living crewman of the Doolittle Raid, Richard E. Cole, was honored at the naming ceremony for the newest USAF bomber, the Northrop B-21 "Raider," on 9/19/2016...The retired warrior was 101 years old at that time...

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