In the fall of 1948, Fuchida was passing by the bronze statue of Hachikō at the Shibuya Station when he was handed a pamphlet about the life of Jacob DeShazer, a member of the Doolittle Raid who was captured by the Japanese after his B-25 bomber ran out of fuel over occupied China. In the pamphlet, "I Was a Prisoner of Japan"[12] DeShazer, a former U.S. Army Air Forces staff sergeant and bombardier, told his story of imprisonment, torture and his account of an "awakening to God."[13] This experience increased Fuchida's curiosity of the Christian faith. In September 1949, after reading the Bible for himself, he became a Christian. In May 1950, Fuchida and DeShazer met for the first time.[14] Fuchida created the Captain Fuchida Evangelistical Association based in Seattle, Washington and spoke full-time of his conversion to the Christian faith in presentations titled "From Pearl Harbor To Calvary".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida


Japanese Pilot who lead raid, Christian after war

My father enlisted in 1937 and was at Hickam when the Japanese Attacked Hickam and Pearl Harbor. The things they Americans and Allies experienced and the cruel treatment by the Japanese would almost lead one to wonder if there was a kind or caring Japanese Soldier. Then I read this story a Japanese Diplomat wrote THOUSANDS OF VISAS AND MAY HAVE SAVED AS MANY AS 10,000 Jews from the death Camps. He was called back to Japan and wrote signed MORE at the train station. It confirms there are good and bad folks in all our cultures and nations. Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara (杉原 千畝 Sugihara Chiune, 1 January 1900 – 31 July 1986) was a Japanese diplomat who served as Vice-Consul for the Empire of Japan in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped between 3,000 and 6,000 Jews leave the country by issuing transit visas so that they could travel to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family's lives. The Jews who escaped were refugees from German-occupied Western Poland or Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland, as well as residents of Lithuania. In 1985, Israel named him to the Righteous Among the Nations for his actions, the only Japanese national to be so honored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

Chiune Sugihara

Missionary in Japan[edit]

During his captivity, DeShazer persuaded one of his guards to loan him a copy of the Bible. Although he only had possession of the Bible for three weeks, he saw its messages as the reason for his survival and resolved to become a devout Christian. His conversion included learning a few words of Japanese and treating his captors with respect, which resulted in the guards reacting in a similar fashion.[2] After his release, DeShazer entered Seattle Pacific College, a Christian college associated with the Free Methodist denomination, and began studying to be a missionary, eventually to return to Japan with his wife, Florence, in 1948.

DeShazer, the Doolittle Raider who bombed Nagoya, met Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, becoming close friends. (For That One Day: The Memoirs of Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, translated by Douglas T. Shinsato and Tadanori Urabe.) [3] Fuchida became a Christian in 1950 after reading a tract written about DeShazer titled, I Was a Prisoner of Japan, and spent the rest of his life as a missionary in Asia and the United States. On occasion, DeShazer and Fuchida preached together as Christian missionaries in Japan. In 1959, DeShazer moved to Nagoya to establish a Christian church in the city he had bombed.[2]
