DeShazer, Jacob Daniel “Jake”.

DeShazer, Jacob Daniel “Jake”, born 15-11-1912, into a family of wheat farmers in Salem, Marion County, Oregon, United States, to Jacob DeShazer (1873–1915) and his wife Hulda Marie, born Arensmeier Andrus (1883–1973).   The couple had one daughter and one son, Julia Marie DeShazer Griffith (1909–1988) and Glen Golden DeShazer (1914–1999) and four half sisters and two half brothers: Carrie May DeShazer Peik (1897–1988), Paul Joseph DeShazer Sr (1899–1986), Dorothy Jane DeShazer Fernald (1901–1977), Jennie Rachel DeShazer Grebe (1903–1987), Helen Amanda Andrus Hindman (1918–2010) and William Andrus (1923–1923). Jacob was married with Florence Fay, born Matheny DeShazer (1921–2017).

 Daniel “Jake” was raised in Central Oregon, and graduated from Madras Middle School in Madras, Oregon in 1931. On 07-12-1941, while peeling potatoes, DeShazer heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio. He became enraged, shouting: “Japan is going to pay for this!” He was raised Christian, but was an atheist at the time.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, DeShazer enlisted, becoming a Corporal stationed at Pendleton Field in Eastern Oregon. DeShazer, along with other members of the 17th Bomb Group, volunteered to join a special unit that was formed to attack Japan. The 24 crews selected from the 17th Bomb Group received intensive training at Eglin Field, Florida, for three weeks beginning on 01-03-1942.

The crews undertook practice carrier deck takeoffs along with extensive flying exercises involving low-level and night flying, low-altitude bombing, and over-water navigation. Their mission would be to fly modified B-25 Mitchell bombers launched from an aircraft carrier to attack Japan.

The unit formed to carry out the raid on Japan soon acquired the name, “Doolittle’s Raiders”, after their commander, Lieutenant Colonel James Harold “Jimmy” Doolittle.

Staff Sergeant DeShazer was the bombardier of B-25 #16, the “Bat (Out of Hell)”, commanded by Lieutenant William Glover “Bill” Farrow, the last of the 16 B-25s to launch from the USS Hornet. The raid was a success despite the task force being sighted and forced to launch the bombers earlier than planned, but part of the plan included flying the airplanes to bases in China, where they were to be refueled and made part of the Tenth Air Force.

After bombing Nagoya, Japan, the “Bat” attempted to reach safe haven in China. DeShazer and the rest of the B-25 crew were forced to parachute into enemy territory over Ningbo, China when their B-25 ran out of fuel because of the extra distance it was forced to fly by early launch of the raid. DeShazer was injured in his fall into a cemetery and along with the rest of his crew, he was captured the next day by Japanese soldiers. During his captivity, DeShazer was sent to Tokyo with the survivors of another Doolittle crew, including Robert Lowell Hite, and was held in a series of Prisoner-of-war camps both in Japan and China for 40 months – 34 of them in solitary confinement. He was severely beaten and malnourished while three of the crew were executed by a firing squad, and another died of slow starvation. DeShazer’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Emperor Showa Hirohito.

As the war came to an end, on 20-08-1945, DeShazer and the others in the camp at Beijing (Peiping), China were finally released when American soldiers parachuted into the camp.On his return to the United States, Staff Sergeant Jake DeShazer was awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart for his part in the Doolittle Raid.

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. He was baptized in the cell, using rainwater that was dripping through a high window in his cell. 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. After his release, DeShazer used benefits from the G.I. Bill to begin studies at Seattle Pacific College, a Christian college associated with the Free Methodist denomination. There, he met fellow student Florence Matheny, and the two were married in August 1946. They had their first child, Paul, in 1947. Jake and Florence both graduated in 1948, and in December of that year they moved to Japan to become missionaries. They later moved back to the U.S. so that DeShazer could earn his Masters of Divinity degree at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, then returned to Japan to continue missionary work.

DeShazer, the Doolittle Raider who bombed Nagoya, met Captain Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the two became close friends. Mitsuo passed away 30-05-1976 (age 73) Osaka, Osaka-shi, Osaka, Japan Fuchida, no butislplscr known. Fuchida who became a Christian in 1949 due to shared testimony of a Christian woman, read 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. DeShazer became superintendent of the Eastern Conference of Independent Free Methodist Churches in 1971.

Death and burial grond of DeShazer, Jacob Daniel “Jake”.

  Left to right : DeShazer, Hite and Chase Jay Nielsen one of the four surviving prisoners of war from that raid, as P.O.W.

DeShazer and his wife retired in 1977 after 30 years of missionary service in Japan, and went back to DeShazer’s home town in Salem, Oregon, where they both spent the last years of his life in an assisted living home. On 15-03-2008, DeShazer died in his sleep at the age of 95. He was survived by his wife, Florence; his sister, Helen Hindman; and five children: Paul, John, Mark, Carol, and Ruth. Florence moved to Shoreline, Washington in 2012 and died in 2017.

DeShazer, Jacob Daniel “Jake” is buried at Restlawn Memory Gardens, West Salem, Polk County, Oregon, United States. Section: Garden of Protection.

 

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