A former flier is God's co-pilot: WWII veteran has devoted post-war life to spreading gospel

[unhappycamper]

Dub and Doris Jackson listen while Christain Wanner, a 55-year-old accountant from Geneva, Switzerland, reads Matthew 7:7-11 at the Garden Chapel New Otani Hotel in Asakasa, Tokyo.


A former flier is God's co-pilot: WWII veteran has devoted post-war life to spreading gospel
By Paul Newell, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, November 16, 2008

On a fall evening in 1950, the Rev. William "Dub" Jackson lay awake on his futon, unable to get over the irony.

As a World War II P-38 fighter pilot, Jackson had logged more than 100 combat hours bombing and strafing Japanese positions while dodging deadly flak.

However, the only thing separating him that evening from Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida — the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor and radioed the notorious go-ahead "Tora! Tora! Tora!" transmission — was a thin screen of shoji paper. Fuchida, a recent convert to Christianity, had accompanied Jackson to Nagoya to share the gospel with other Japanese.

"At the time, it was startling," Jackson said 58 years later in an interview last week with Stars and Stripes. "But now I just think it was God showing how his love could bring any two people together. The Japan that was once my sworn enemy has brought me many of my greatest joys."

Growing up in a sleepy town south of the Texas panhandle, Jackson�fs first joys were his parents, flying and God. The son of a pastor, he said he didn�ft have a lot of material comforts growing up, but for his 12th birthday "my parents paid $2.50 so I could have a plane ride," Jackson said. "From that day, I was hooked on flying."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=NTg4MzE

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