Each of us would have to agonize over this question. What would I do? Looking at our “WWJD” (What would Jesus do?) bracelets, we know what we should do. Jesus answered the question emphatically while explaining the phrase “love your neighbor” to a legal expert. He told the story of the man who was robbed and beaten beside the road. He was passed by a priest and a Levite, both “religious” men, who did not stop. A Samaritan, even though considered a foreigner, did stop to render assistance. Even though we know that we should follow the example of the Samaritan, few of us would find the courage within ourselves to do what the Belgian family did in this story. There is only one source of such strength, and that is Jesus Christ himself. When we prayerfully ask, “What would Jesus do?” we can also expect him to give us the resources to do it.
“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
—Luke 10:36–37
July 31
To Stay at Home
The great radio commentator Edward R. Murrow announced soberly, “Berlin last night wasn’t a pretty sight. In about thirty-five minutes it was hit with about three times the amount of stuff that ever came down on London in a night-long blitz. This is a calculated, remorseless campaign of destruction.”305 He was reporting what he actually saw while accompanying a Lancaster four-engine bomber on a nighttime raid over the German capital.
The citizens of Berlin lived in the middle of this remorseless campaign for two years. Anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and fighter aircraft provided a strong defense for the city, and, early on, inflicted heavy losses on the enemy formations daring to venture this deeply into Germany. Still, the bombers came, and the people of the city had to cope with the mounting destruction. After every raid, they did whatever they could to repair their homes and neighborhoods. One Berliner poignantly tried to explain what kept them going:
We repair because we must repair. Because we couldn’t live another day longer if one forbade us the repairing. If they destroy our living room, we move into the kitchen. If they knock the kitchen apart, we move over into the hallway. If only we can stay ‘at home.’ The smallest corner of ‘at home’ is better than any palace in some strange place.306
We can’t understand an “air war” or bombing campaign without considering the effects on all the human beings involved. Most of this month has been seen from the perspective of the airmen flying their hazardous missions. We must also remember that the destruction on the ground was even more horrendous. By understanding and remembering the suffering on both sides we are bound to more soberly consider how to resolve our present and future conflicts. War has always and will always exact a terrible price in human suffering.
David said to Solomon: “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.’”
—1 Chronicles 22:78
Shipbuilders at work. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)
August
WAR ON THE HOME FRONT
As America witnessed the disappointing aftermath of World War I and struggled through the Great Depression of the 1930s, a strong isolationism gripped the nation. Even into 1941 public sentiment remained strong against involvement in the wars spreading over Europe and the Far East. This attitude changed completely and irrevocably when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. After President Franklin Roosevelt gave his famous speech to a joint session of Congress declaring December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” Congress voted unanimously, except for one vote, to approve a declaration of war. America entered the war with a complete unity of purpose.
The war effort soon touched every strata of the nation’s economic and social life. The military draft had the most obvious and profound effect. By the end of the war more than ten million men were inducted into the armed forces. The absence of these men affected families and businesses in many ways. Women not only had to take care of their households, but they also had to take over many essential jobs. To attract women into the industrial workforce, a campaign was launched featuring “Rosie the Riveter,” an attractive, patriotic, and efficient assembly line worker. Eventually, more than three million women worked in war production plants.307
The war consumed vast amounts of the country’s agricultural and industrial output. Production of automobiles, houses, and appliances almost came to a halt, as assembly lines were turned over to tanks, trucks, ships, and ammunition. The Ford Motor Company created the world’s largest assembly line in Willow Run, Michigan, where the production of B-24 Liberator bombers reached 428 per month.
Ship construction was revolutionized under the leadership of Henry J. Kaiser. Abandoning the traditional keel-up procedure, Kaiser introduced a modular construction method where sections of a new ship were constructed away from the final assembly site. These large sections were then brought together and welded into finished ships. By the end of the war, sixteen U.S. shipyards had delivered 2,580 Liberty ships, the largest production run of a single ship in history.308 Overall, the United States increased its shipbuilding capacity by more than 1,200 percent, producing 5,200 naval and cargo vessels during the war.
By 1944 the War Department was consuming 40 percent of the gross national product, and many commodities such as meat, sugar, butter, coffee, gasoline, tires, and clothing were being rationed to the civilian populace. Ration books were issued with colored stamps worth different point values. Items were displayed on store shelves with labels indicating their cost in cash and ration points. A customer could make a purchase if he had enough stamps and cash, if there was something on the shelf. Gasoline was probably the most critical item with most people receiving coupons for three gallons per week. To supplement food supplies, Victory Gardens sprang up everywhere, as individual families joined the effort to feed the nation.
In spite of the hardships of the war, and perhaps to some extent because of them, there was a remarkable unity across the country. The entertainment industry vigorously supported the troops and the government’s War Bond campaigns. Churches rallied behind the war effort, as nearly every American was convinced of the moral rightness of the Allied cause. More than ten thousand chaplains were provided to the armed forces and countless ministries were initiated to support the troops at home and overseas. The nation’s leaders and citizens prayed for the safety of their loved ones and for victory in the greatest struggle in history. Never before or after has America been so united.
August 1
Face to the Coal
During the darkest days of the war there was trouble in England’s coal mines. Workers were leaving the mines to enlist in the army. Many young men wanted to be fighting in the front lines, not digging coal out of the ground, and coal production was in jeopardy when the nation needed it most. Winston Churchill went to the mines to deliver a speech and to give the miners a vision of the future:
He pictured for them what would take place when the Nazis were beaten and the war was over. He said there would be a great parade honoring all who sacrificed for victory. First, there would be the Royal Navy sailors who had battled Hitler at sea. Then would come the Royal Air Force pilots who had fought the Luftwaffe in the skies. Then would come the Royal Army soldiers who had fought at Dunkirk. Last of all would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner’s caps. Someone would cry from the crowd, “Where were you during the dark days of our struggle?” And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, “We were deep in the earth, with our faces to the coal.”309
Churchill’s vision was powerful. With tear-streaked faces the miners went back to work with the firm belief that every piece of coal they brought out of the earth was vital to the survival of their nation. They knew that their work might
be mundane and seem unglamorous, but that it was necessary to the larger cause. This story has been used many times to inspire others in addition to these miners. We know that, as Christians, our service to God can often take mundane forms. It was Jesus himself who washed the feet of his disciples. He did this to focus their attention, and ours, on service to other people. He might be telling us to keep “our faces to the needs of others,” and to rest in the knowledge that there is no such thing as mundane service in his name.
Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
—John 13:14–15
August 2
Prayer and Sacrifice
Mary Alice Pinney was twelve years old when the Second World War began. She vividly recalled President Roosevelt’s radio address declaring that December 7th would forever be “a date that will live in infamy.” Her most vivid recollection of the war was the united effort that she saw on the home front:
One of the most important things I have ever seen in the world it was something I saw then that I haven’t seen in any war since. Any church, any synagogue, any place that held any religious practice, what-so-ever, sent prayers, and I mean, everywhere for the people fighting in the war. And it never stopped until long after the war. I have never seen any kind of support the way our town supported the troops in World War II. The home front sent food, supplies, and clothes, anything we had on hand to help them. We were rationed painfully, it didn’t matter how rich or poor you were, everyone was sharing in the loss.310
In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis masterfully presents letters from a senior devil to his younger nephew instructing him on the fine points of winning humans away from the “Enemy” (God). He had some startling insights about why war might not be as good for the devil’s cause as might be expected:
I must warn you not to hope too much from a war. Of course war is entertaining. The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for our myriads of toiling workers. We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self.311
Mary Alice Pinney has illuminated C. S. Lewis’ point. During the trials of wartime, many Americans did come closer to God and to each other through mutual prayer and sacrifice. Fortunately, war isn’t necessary to bring us to this condition. Whenever we put our individual concerns aside in support of a worthy goal, we have the potential of drawing closer to others and to God.
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
—Philippians 3:8
August 3
Stockings
With a “War Ration Book” families were allowed to buy limited amounts of food, clothing, shoes, coffee, tires, gasoline, and other essentials, based on the size of the family. People learned to use everything sparingly and to waste nothing. Even razor blades were re-sharpened. Butter was so scarce that a vegetable-oil substitute was invented, called margarine. Posters appeared in the stores saying, “Do with less so they’ll have enough.” The shortage of consumer goods was severe in all areas, but in one case affected women particularly. Lourelei Prior was a female defense worker in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She explained:
We couldn’t get stockings either all the silk was used for parachutes and nylon hadn’t been invented yet. Now, stockings didn’t matter at the plant. There, all the gals wore tight clothing and pants and a hat and safety glasses and no jewelry because of the heavy machinery. But no gal or new bride wants to be seen in a skirt without stockings! So when I would go out with Herb, sometimes to make it look like I had on stockings, I would draw a black line up the back of my legs with an eyebrow pencil to make it look like I was wearing silk stockings.312
Like most Americans this woman took the shortages caused by the war with good humor and ingenuity, and made the best of what she had. She expressed the attitude of most civilians toward these hardships and gave us good advice for the present day:
In our house we didn’t grumble about the shortages… I had four brothers-in-law who were in the service. If giving up a little bit helped the boys “over there” and would bring them back sooner, it was fine with us… We just thanked God for what we did have.313
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.
—Ecclesiastes 7:14
August 4
North Platte Canteen
By December 1941 the east-west rail lines across the United States were filled with troop trains. A small group of citizens in the little village of North Platte, Nebraska, took note of this fact and decided to try to do something for all these servicemen passing through their town. On Christmas Day the first team of five volunteers waited at the depot with baskets of sandwiches and little bottles of cold milk. During the ten-minute stop, they moved along the train passing out these treats to the hungry and appreciative men crowded into the cars. Soon the whole town and surrounding region were involved in supporting the North Platte Canteen, which became famous for this unusual and unexpected hospitality. For the duration of the war, the little town of twelve thousand fed hundreds of thousands of troops passing through without the benefit of government aid and in spite of food shortages and rationing.
One of the women who worked in the Canteen from the beginning was Elaine Wright. Her husband was a railroad employee, and her son was in the Navy. One day word spread throughout North Platte that Elaine had received the dreaded telegram informing her and her husband that their son had been killed in action. No one saw her for several days, until one morning she walked into the Canteen. There was a long and uncomfortable silence, as no one knew what to say to her. She finally said to them: “I can’t help my son, but I can help someone else’s son.”314
Some wise person once said, “You can be bitter, or you can be better.” Elaine Wright epitomized the “better” approach to dealing with grief. There is no more effective way to soothe your own pain than doing something for someone else. Seeking a higher purpose in service to others is the surest way to move beyond yourself and your grief.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.
—Philippians 2:57
August 5
Patience with Humanity
Early in the war Ernie Pyle went to North Africa as a correspondent. Already famous for his human-interest stories, he spent most of his time with troops in the front line, writing about the war from their perspective. He was able to report on the transition of these young Americans from civilians to warriors, and he conveyed his belief that they were adapting to the demands of combat and were measuring up well as soldiers. Speaking for them and himself, he wrote,
“The new war finally became the normal life to us.”315 In one poignant article he focused on a profound change within himself, which he considered a “personal redemption”:
[There is] a new patience with humanity that I’ve never known before. When you’ve lived with the unnatural mass cruelty that mankind is capable of inflicting upon itself, you find yourself dispossessed of the faculty for blaming one poor man for the triviality of his faults. I don’t see how any survivor of war can ever be cruel to anything, ever again.316
The reporter’s inclination toward forgiveness of human faults and patience with others are healthy sentiments, and his message is a positive one. Those who have witnessed cruelty on a large scale should be especially averse to inflicting it on a personal level. However, I believe it would be a mistake to
consider our own faults trivial when compared with the larger evils of war. War is a product of human weakness and reflects these “trivial” faults on a larger scale. In other words, we are all sinners, and our sin is what causes human conflict at the personal and the international level. Only when we fully accept this fact about ourselves can we understand our desperate need for a savior and redeemer.
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
—1 Timothy 1:15
August 6
Comforting a Mother
Usually the folks at home did their best to cheer up their sons and daughters overseas. Occasionally, however, a soldier had to encourage a loved one back home. Chaplain Walter Hanley was serving in New Guinea when he learned that his mother in Ohio was extremely ill with little hope of recovery. He also had little hope of getting home on leave. He did his best to comfort her with a letter:
You have been a good mother to us all, and all that we children have we owe to you. With Clarence’s and Papa’s deaths, your ill-health for years and the depression, your life has been a hard one and yet your faith & your prayers have given you the strength to go on. When the train pulled out of the station I think you knew you would never see me again, and your strength has encouraged me all of these months. If God asks of you this sacrifice for my work was needed here for these boys, I know you will have the strength to make it. The other priests here said their masses, as I did, this morning for you, and I know Almighty God will care for you… Whatever good I may be able to do in the priesthood will be a testimony of your prayers and your struggles to bring me there… I know that Papa and Clarence are waiting for you and that our prayers will be for you every day until you join them in heaven.317
Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II Page 26
