Savior, may I love my brother

As I know thou lovest me,

Find in thee my strength, my beacon,

For thy servant I would be.

—Susan Evans McCloud, “Lord, I Would Follow Thee”

After the war, these Latter-day Saint POWs would often say that it was their faith and love for their family at home that helped sustain them through their ordeal. Faith and love are, however, not the only powerful and sustaining emotions. Hate is also powerful and, in the view of some, even more powerful than love. One POW, referring to his time in the holds of a hell ship, concluded, “The ones that got out were the ones that hated. Love never kept anyone alive, . . . but if you hated, . . . it seems strange but those that did—I mean hated real hard—they lived.”[1]

That many POWs would harbor a deep hatred for the Japanese, their tormentors in captivity, is not surprising, and for many that hatred carried over after the war. One POW said of the Japanese, “I will neither forgive nor forget. I will hate them until I die.”[2] Another tersely wrote, “Americans have short memories and forgive too easily.”[3]

In contrast, these Latter-day Saint POWs, or at least those who wrote of their Japanese POW experience, had a different reaction. In a talk to Church members after the war, Davey said, “I never had a feeling of hatred that so many others did and I think that this was a good thing for me, not to hate them.”[4] Christensen, who later in life served a mission in Japan with his wife, wrote in an Ensign article, “I was grateful I had never harbored hard feelings toward my captors, but I knew I would never forget my experiences as a POW.”[5] And it was clear to Rohlfing’s children that he felt love toward the Japanese people and never held any animosity toward them during the remainder of his life.[6]

After the war, Hamblin wrote of an experience he had while a POW in Japan, shortly after one of the Allied bombings. Some sparks from the fires caused by the bombs had landed on the roof of their barracks, and Hamblin was sent up to the roof to put them out. From that roof he had a clear view of the damage from the bombing. He wrote,

In every direction there was fire and confusion. Even the birds were stunned and confused. While sitting up there witnessing this awful destruction, a pigeon lit near me, and I reached over and picked him up. Here, at last, was the retribution that we had often wished to come to our captors, but somehow, the screams of terror I heard from women and children were no different than I would have heard if this had been an American city. Suddenly I realized that I didn’t have it in my heart to be glad or feel vengeance. For this I was thankful.[7]

With remarkable prescience, these POWs recognized that the absence of hate was not a weakness, but a gift from God and one for which they were thankful; it was a gift that would allow them to go forward in life unencumbered by the burden and corrosive effect of hate.[8]

Some POWs went beyond forgiveness of the Japanese and found opportunities to serve and save. Staff Sergeant Nels Hansen, the man who had provided spiritual leadership to these POWs in captivity, had had his first experience with the Japanese in a Sunday School in Hawaii on his way to the Philippines before the war. That experience made a deep impression on him.[9]

Shortly after his discharge, and although he was able to walk only with great difficulty, Hansen accepted a call to serve a mission in Hawaii among the Japanese-Americans and later in Japan. In accepting this call, Hansen explained,

Yes, I have seen the inhuman treatment by the Japanese in their prison camps. It was torturing all right. But, fundamentally, the Japanese people are not bad. . . . They need Christianity. They need the restored gospel of the Master as revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Then they will be all right. A great work lies ahead. I have no hate in my heart toward the Japanese. My desire is to help them. I want to lift them up to the heights I found in that little Japanese Sunday School I visited in Hawaii before the war.[10]

Hansen’s hope for a great gospel work among his former Japanese enemies was realized beyond what he could have foreseen, and the gospel has come to Japan in ways these POWs could not have imagined. Temples may be a useful indication of the number, strength, and faithfulness of Church members. There are three temples in Japan, and another temple in Okinawa was announced in April 2019. The Philippines has seven temples announced or completed, including a temple announced in Davao City.

Returning soldiers and POWs weren’t the only ones to confront the problem of hate and the challenge of forgiveness. Before the war, an element of racial prejudice toward the Japanese prevailed among many Americans, and during the war that prejudice grew into a mean and enduring hatred for many. This hatred did not simply vanish with the end of the war but continued, and many Americans had to deal with a virulent hatred festering in their hearts. This included those who lost family members and loved ones in the war. Such was the case for George and Ruby Brown. As recounted in the book Miracle of Forgiveness, by President Spencer W. Kimball, George and Ruby carried the burden of a hatred toward the Japanese for many years. However, through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the wise counsel of a stake president, they were finally able to forgive and free themselves of that burden.[11]

The effect of Bobby’s death was not limited to George and Ruby but rippled on to others in the family. Apart from George and Ruby, Bobby’s older sister, Nelle, had the clearest understanding of these events and the keenest view of the sadness and despair felt by her parents. She also was very close to her brother, missed him greatly, and deeply mourned his death.

Although hidden in the deepest corners of her heart, she had harbored for many years a repressed hatred toward the Japanese. While contained, this was nevertheless something that even after all these years still troubled her. In 1992 she wrote to her family of two events that caused her to confront what she termed her “problem.” First, her daughter Dorothy and son-in-law Gene Furniss invited her to dinner with a Japanese couple. The couple was attending Brigham Young University in preparation for an assignment in Japan. She accepted the invitation. She found them to be delightful people.

Second, Sister Chieko Okazaki, of Japanese ancestry and then a member of the Church’s Relief Society General Presidency, spoke at a general women’s conference of the Church.[12] Nelle described her talk as an “excellent presentation” and wrote that she “was so impressed by her.” She wrote of recalling the Japanese officer on the Shinyo Maru who Bobby begged to stop the shooting of the POWs following the torpedo attack. The officer rejected Bobby’s pleas, and he was likely the officer responsible for giving the orders to shoot, including the shots that killed Bobby. Nelle then concluded her letter to her family with this: “And I got to thinking about Bobby and a thought came to me. I wonder if he might even have the privilege of teaching the gospel to that Japanese Officer. . . . Now I find great comfort in the assumption that he is doing just that.”[13] Nelle passed away a few years later in December 2000.

There is a message in the lives of these POWs and their families. Humility, patience, an open mind, and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the antidote to hate and the prescription for personal peace.

Notes

[1] Michno, Death on the Hellships, 306 (quoting former POW Forrest Knox).

[2] Michno, Death on the Hellships, 307 (quoting former POW Cliff Farlow).

[3] Michno, Death on the Hellships, 307 (quoting former POW Bob Martindale).

[4] Davey, “Last Talk,” 8. Hamblin also wrote: “I have never felt any hatred or revenge for the Japanese people.” Hamblin, “My Experience,” 29.

[5] Christensen, “Two Pieces of Paper.”

[6] Dennis Autry, email message to author, February 20, 2017.

[7] Hamblin, “My Experience,” 25; see also Cave, Beyond Courage, 365 (another account of this experience).

[8] For example, Rex Bray’s son wrote that his father “did not harbor any post-war ill will toward the Japanese as a people, preferring to blame the specific individuals for his suffering rather than to condemn an entire race or nationality.” Kurtis R. Bray, email message to author, January 27, 2016.

[9] Ashton, “Spirit of Love,” 174.

[10] Ashton, 176. This article in the Instructor, then an important publication of the Church, was published in April 1947, a time when the hateful emotions of the war toward the Japanese were still raw; it was a time when healing was needed. It was likely not coincidental that Hansen’s story was selected to be featured at that time.

[11] Kimball, Miracle of Forgiveness, 287–89.

[12] Nelle Zundel was likely referring to the October 1991 general women’s meeting where Sister Okazaki gave a talk entitled “Rejoice in Every Good Thing.” Chieko N. Okazaki, “Rejoice in Every Good Thing,” Ensign, November 1991.

[13] Zundel, “Problem Solved,” 2. Rachel, George and Ruby’s fifth child, was born on March 15, 1922, but died shortly after birth. When Nelle wrote this, all her siblings except Bobby and Rachel were still living.