75th Anniversary - Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941!

It was December 7, 1941 in a farm house in Clarion County, Pennsylvania. The radio was on in the evening with dial set to the scheduled program of Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy. His program always began with theme song, “Back in the Saddle Again.” After the song his latest western adventure began. The action began to unfold and then a few minutes along the program was interrupted with an announcement that the Japanese had initiated a sneak attack on military targets at Pearl Harbor!

I had just turned 8 years old the preceding August. We had moved a few months earlier in the year to a home owned by my dad’s first cousin, Ellis Harriger. They had worked out an arrangement for us to live there while Ellis and his wife moved to the home of his wife’s parents. It was a new world for us because we now had electricity which we did not have before. Ellis and wife, Dorothy, left their floor model radio with us. Up to that time we did not have one. And so we quickly assessed the programs available and one of my slots was on Sunday evening when I listened to Gene Autry. As mentioned, the program on December 7, 1941 was interrupted with news about the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. I was extremely mad because of the interruption and not the least bit interested as to what had happened at a far off place by the name of Pearl Harbor. I never did find out what happened to Gene Autry in his latest adventure in dealing with bad guys!

The war got underway and went on for some time until the Germans surrendered in spring of 1945 and the Japanese surrendered in August of 1945 after 2 atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Negasaki. By the way it was the last conflict in which the enemy had nothing to say as they met the terms of unconditional surrender. Starting with Korea it was an issue of “negotiating” with no-win situations taking place in the decades since! But a very significant event happened a few years after WW II. It did not make world headlines and media people did not provide intense coverage when it happened.

Mitsuo Fuchida was the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor and who is the one reported to have shouted the war cry, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” He was very excited to be involved in this effort and rose in the ranks to become a very influential leader in later military operations. He provides graphic details of the attack from his point of view before moving along later in time to the moment a transforming miracle happened in his life's journey. In the spring of 1950 that miracle took place when he received Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of his life and eventually became an evangelist! His personal testimony is given at From Pearl Harbor to Calvary Along the way he came into contact with Jake DeShazer who had been one of the Doolittle Raiders over Tokyo and had become a prisoner of the Japanese until the end of the war. DeShazer became a Christian and later a missionary to Japan. A photo of the two together is shown in the article detailing Fuchida’s conversion to Christianity.

I encourage you to read this testimony. It is a reminder that God works mighty miracles in the lives of human beings when at times we are prone to think there is no hope for persons such as Mitsuo Fuchida!

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. [2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)]

The World War II Memorial Controversy!

DECEMBER 7, 1941, A DATE WHICH WILL LIVE IN INFAMY... --- opening statement of Franklin D. Roosevelt's address following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

On this Memorial Day it seems fitting to give some consideration to a bit of controversy swirling about the WW II Memorial in Washington DC. Emails have been circulating drawing attention to an alleged intentional omission of Franklin Roosevelt’s statement near the close of his speech that he gave following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Perhaps some assume that the entire speech was engraved on the WW II Memorial in Washington DC.

The actual statements taken from FDR’s addess as appearing on the memorial are:

The accusation is that the phrase, “So help us God,” was intentionally omitted. Since most of us were not in on any discussion concerning what would be used or not used from FDR’s address, we don’t know for sure how the selected phrases which appear were chosen and why.

Certainly the last phrase before asking Congress to declare a state of war would have been most meaningful and appropriate -- and it should have appeared on the monument in light of the president's reference to the armed forces -- after all, it is a memorial to those who served in WW II, is it not? FDR said, “With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

If the preceding phrase would have received any consideration at all as to possibly being engraved on the monument, it likely would have been rejected instantly. A lot of us have a growing suspicion about government in all its facets and how it operates, especially as we see with alarm its intrusion into private organizations and recent efforts to control corporations!

The growing anti-God and anti-Christ spirit is spreading like a vicious malignant out-of-control cancer. So if FDR’s phrase, “So help us God,” had been given a brief consideration, it would have been rejected on the basis of being “offensive” according to warped and idiotic reasoning we hear today in those arenas where God may be mentioned! And we wouldn’t want to risk offending some people who may view the WW II Memorial and see the name of God engraved on it would we?

Anyone out there want to speculate a bit as to how God is going to respond when in an unprecedented crisis in the future the president, along with political and church leaders, issues an appeal to pray and call on God for help? And remember, the nation can be plunged into such a crisis that suddenly masses of people who never gave it a thought previously now decide that praying to God is “the thing to do!”

Take a little walk through Jeremiah 2 and see how one nation of people fared when it was decided that maybe the time had come when they should call out to God for help in a moment of crisis!

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, and the people whom He has chosen as His own inheritance. The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. --- Psalm 33:12-19