Jacob DeShazer joins the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1940. He attends bombardier and mechanics school at Moffett Field, California and is later assigned to the airbase at Pendleton, Oregon. While there, DeShazer volunteers for a secret mission later known as the Doolittle Raid after its commanding officer, General Jimmy Doolittle. The mission of the raid is to bomb the Japanese home islands in retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor. DeShazer is the bombardier on the 16th (and last) plane of the group, which targets Nagoya, Japan, on April 18, 1942. After successfully dropping their payload, the crew of Plane 16 ditches their aircraft in China but are captured by Japanese troops. DeShazer and his comrades spend the rest of the war as prisoners of the Japanese. While in a Japanese prison, DeShazer is given a Bible, which he reads eagerly. The message of God's love and forgiveness in the Bible speaks to DeShazer, and he works to change his attitude towards his captors from one of hatred to love and forgiveness. He finds that the Japanese guards begin to treat him differently after his conversion experience. After being released from prison, DeShazer returns home to Oregon, declaring that he will train as a missionary and return to Japan to spread the message of God's love that had changed his life while he was in prison.
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