Jacob Daniel DeShazer
How an American World War II Prisoner of War Turned Hate into Love
Feb 13, 2009
Corporal Jacob Daniel DeShazer was peeling potatoes in a mess hall on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when he heard about the Japanese surprise attack against Pearl Harbor. Hurtling a potato against the wall he shouted, "The Japs are going to have to pay for this!"
DeShazer in the Doolittle Raid
Four months later, DeShazer was flying over the Pacific Ocean on a secret mission to bomb Japan. According to DoolittleRaider.com, DeShazer, the bombardier, and his four crewmates were the last of sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers flying under the command of Lt. Colonel James Doolittle. It was April 18, 1942, and Doolittle's team was taking the war to the Japanese homeland.
DeShazer's plane bombed oil storage tanks and an aircraft factory in Nagoya then headed toward China. Dense fog and low fuel hampered them but they managed to fly 200 miles inland before the pilot ordered the crew to bail out. Landing near Japanese-controlled Nanchang, they were all captured by noon of the following day.
DeShazer as a Prisoner of War
DeShazer, his crew members and three survivors of Plane Six suffered terribly at the hands of their Japanese captors. DeShazer later wrote, "we were imprisoned and beaten, half-starved, terribly tortured, and denied by solitary confinement even the comfort of association with one another" and that "My hatred for the enemy nearly drove me crazy."
Three of the prisoners were executed on October 15, 1942,and another died of malnutrition in December, 1943. That is when, DeShazer writes, that "I began to ponder the cause of such hatred between members of the human race. I wondered what it was that made one people hate another people and what made me hate them."
He remembered hearing once that Christianity could change hatred into real brotherly love and he began begging his captors for a Bible. In May, 1944, a guard brought him a Bible but told him he could only have it for three weeks.
DeShazer read the Bible constantly. He was so fascinated by the Old Testament prophets that he "read them again and again until I had earnestly studied them six times." As he read, he became aware of a new attitude toward his captors: "I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity."
He decided that his captors were cruel because they did not know Jesus so he started praying for God to forgive his captors and then determined that he would "do my best to acquaint these people with the message of salvation."
On August 20, 1945, Allied forces parachuted in and freed the prison camp. Of his 40 months of captivity, DeShazer served 34 in solitary confinement. The emaciated prisoners were flown back to the United States and hospitalized where they slowly regained their strength.
For his service, DeShazer received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Purple Heart and Chinese Breast Order of Yung Hui.
DeShazer Returns to Japan as a Missionary
Less than a month after being freed, Jacob DeShazer started classes at Seattle Pacific, a Christian college in Seattle, Washington. There, he met Florence Matheny, whom he married, and eventually became a father to five children. Graduating in just three years, DeShazer returned to Japan, arriving in Yokohama on December 28, 1948.
DeShazer wrote a pamphlet that he handed out to the Japanese entitled "I Was a Prisoner of Japan." The document detailed his change from hate to love and he recalls that the Japanese were quite curious why he would return to a country which had caused him to suffer so much. He writes that, when they asked, "I started to tell them about Jesus." In his first year, there were an estimated 30,000 conversions with one of those being the prison guard who had given DeShazer the Bible. The following year, DeShazer met Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese pilot who had lead the attack on Pearl Harbor and Fuchida himself converted to Christianity.
In 1959, the DeShazers moved to Nagoya which he had bombed on the Doolittle raid. Jacob DeShazer lived in Japan for nearly 30 years, establishing several Free Methodist churches, traveling extensively and holding countless revivals. He finally retired in 1977 and moved back to Oregon with his wife.
He died in his sleep on March 15, 2008.
The story of Jacob Daniel DeShazer is truly a unique story and demonstrates how hate can turn to love, even in the most brutal of environments, and ultimately prevail.
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