“Eventually, the woman confessed—her fiancé had been killed during the war, and she’d first gone to the rally for revenge. She was going to assassinate him. His words, remarkably, had touched her deeply, and… now she was a Christian.”
The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid by Craig Nelson (New York: Penguin Group, 2003).
Most authors I meet decide they want to write a novel and then go looking for a story. For me, it was the opposite. I felt a calling to tell this story. The story sucked me into this crazy roller-coaster ride called creating a novel.
It was my husband’s fault. He was reading a history book about the Doolittle Raid. And since today is the Raid’s 76th anniversary, it seems like a good day to share that story with you.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, we as a nation felt whipped. And angry. An order came down from the highest level—President Roosevelt himself: find a way to bomb Tokyo. So the military brass came up with a mission plan that was very out-of-the-box. Borderline crazy.
It came to be known as the Doolittle Raid.
Less than six months after Pearl Harbor, eighty volunteers took flight from the deck of the carrier U.S.S. Hornet, in sixteen medium-weight B-25 bombers. This feat had never been attempted before—or since.
Caption: B-25s crowd the U.S.S. Hornet’s flight deck
They deployed their payloads on Tokyo and other key targets on the Japanese main island. The planes were too big to land on the carrier, so the plan called for them to fly on to China. Unfortunately, not one of those planes found its landing strip. The sortie left most of the airmen stranded in enemy-occupied China.
Eight airmen were captured. Prisoners of the Japanese, they endured systematic torture, starvation rations, and thirty-six months of solitary confinement. Tragically, three of the prisoners were executed and a fourth died from malnutrition.
Lieutenant Robert Hite, copilot of the Bat Out of Hell, captive. Tokyo, April 1942.
After Lieutenant Meder’s death, the Japanese gave the remaining prisoners a few books, including a Bible. And that Bible transformed them all. One of those men felt led to show the love of Christ to the nation that tortured and nearly starved him. In 1948, he returned to Japan as a missionary.
The Lord used Jacob DeShazer and his new bride, Florence, to work miracles in many hearts. Here’s the one that tugged at mine—the subject of the three sentences in my husband’s book that made me a writer.
Convinced that DeShazer dropped the bomb that stole the life of a man she loved, a young woman showed up at one of his meetings—with a knife in her purse. Determined to exact her revenge, even if it cost her everything. But she was so moved by Jake’s example of forgiveness that she decided to follow Jesus instead.
Caption: The intended target. Corporal Jacob DeShazer, after the war.
That anecdote haunted me. Aren’t Japanese women supposed to be gentle? Compliant? You know, haiku and flower-arranging?
The rest of her story is lost. Which was a gift, in a way. I was left to research the time period—fascinating and harrowing—and create the fictional tale of a deeply wounded, but committed and courageous heroine. A woman I named Miyako.
About midway through writing the novel, someone asked why I felt it had to be written. Why dredge up such excruciating memories?
I doubted the calling myself many times. Why did I let this story take over my life for six years? But the Lord kept reaffirming it to me.
“Where the world sees failure, God sees future.” – Jon Acuff
The way God interwove these two lives is a powerful illustration of a timeless truth, which both characters ultimately discover. His grace pierces even to the darkest places our lost world can devise.
I’m hosting a drawing for a copy of Sarah Sundin’s latest WWII novel, The Sea Before Us, for new subscribers to my newsletter. You’ll also receive updates on my novel—including an opportunity to gain pre-launch access. Please enter HERE by Thursday, December 19.
About Linda Thompson: I stepped away from a marketing career that spanned continents to write what I love: stories of reckless faith that showcase God’s hand in history. I’m so excited to work with the all-star team at Mountain Brook Ink to launch my debut novel, The Plum Blooms in Winter, this October! The Plum Blooms in Winter is an American Christian Fiction Writers’ Genesis Contest winner. The novel follows a captured American pilot and a bereaved Japanese prostitute who targets him for ritual revenge. Please also feel free to check out my blog, Five Stones and a Sling, which hovers in the region where history meets Bible prophecy meets current events. It’s rich ground–we live in a day when prophecies are leaping from the Bible’s pages into the headlines!
I live outside Phoenix with my husband, a third-generation airline pilot who doubles as my Chief Military Research Officer. We share our home with two mostly-grown-up kids and a small platoon of housecats.
Linda