DeShazer died on March 15 at his home in Salem, Oregon, at age 95. It is one of life's safer bets that he is resting in peace.
Posted on 03/24/2008 9:46:45 PM PDT by Zakeet
The veterans of World War II are now at that age where they are dying ever more frequently, and their deaths should be an occasion to remember their achievement and sacrifice. Take the heroism and remarkable forgiveness of Jacob DeShazer, a bombardier on the famous Doolittle raid over Japan of April 18, 1942.
The Doolittle bombing raid was close to a suicide mission, a one-way trip to bring the war to the Japanese homeland for the first time. Coming not long after Pearl Harbor and before the Pacific island victories to come, the raid was a huge boost to domestic morale. Corporal DeShazer was one of five crewmen on Bat Out of Hell, a B-25 aircraft that took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, dropped incendiary bombs over Nagoya, and then flew on to Japanese-occupied China, where the crew was forced to bail out.
DeShazer was taken prisoner, and was starved, beaten and tortured by his Japanese captors. For 34 of his 40 months in captivity, he was kept in solitary confinement.
[Snip]
In 1948, he returned as a Christian missionary to the country that had nearly killed him, and he would continue his ministry in Japan for 30 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
DeShazer died on March 15 at his home in Salem, Oregon, at age 95. It is one of life's safer bets that he is resting in peace.
God bless this amazing war hero; a true American patriot. He now walks with God and all those that sacrificed to protect and defend our country including my father, a veteran of China/Burma/India and the Korean War.
God Bless him and his family.
(I am not questioning God's ability to create such wonderful men, it just seems like He may be cutting back on production these last 30-40 years....)
Mistreatment was constant. On one occasion, DeShazer was forced to kneel and was beaten severely during an inquisition. Nielsen was handcuffed and hung for about eight hours from a peg on the wall with his toes barely touching the floor. Others were stretched out on boards with towels over their faces. Water was poured over them repeatedly, nearly suffocating them.
“Others were stretched out on boards with towels over their faces. Water was poured over them repeatedly, nearly suffocating them.”
Wait a minute....
It is sad that our World War Two veterans are leaving us in such great numbers.
I just read in the local paper that a local man, who'd served on the submarine Darter when she and her sister-sub Dace ambushed Admiral Kurita's Central Fleet, sinking two heavy cruisers and crippling a third, has just passed away.
Of the one hundred ninety-eight World War Two Medal of Honor Recipients who survived the war, only thirty are still alive. There are only fourteen of the thirty-eight Korean Medal of Honor (non-posthumous) recipients still alive and sixty-one of the ninety-two non-posthumous Vietnam MOH recipients are still with us.
Of the one hundred five Medal of Honor recipients still alive, seven are between the ages of 50-59, thirty-nine are between 60-69, twenty-one are between 70-71, thirty-four are 80-89, and four are 90+.
Water boarding!! Done repeatedly by Jap army for sadistic reasons. We do it quick and to get useful information from terrorists
I’ve never questioned that our use of this technique is done judiciously, but that description would certainly provide more material for the “Hate America” crowd.
Everything the Japs did was sadistic. I still don’t like them nor do I trust them.
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