I publish this article every couple of years for several reasons. First, because few people are alive now who have personal memory of the scope and magnitude of World War II and the impact of those years on the lives of multiplied millions of people around the globe, from North Pole to South Pole, from Hawaii to Gibraltar.
Second, God's hand can be seen in many threads throughout the conflict, not the least of which is how scriptures would be placed into the hands of people in the military and the changed lives that would result. There is not space here to describe all of the personal stories that flowed from those times, but we will make the attempt in another series of articles dealing with the subject.
On November 7, 1948, the Gideons from Honolulu (formed in 1938) placed 1,500 Bibles at the new Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu. A local Gideon named Charlie Pietsch made the following remarks at the time: "We need constantly to be reminded of the value of the finished work of Christ, His shed blood as the only remedy for sin, repentance and faith toward God and our Lord Jesus Christ, to know He lives and is coming again . . . Truly He came and will give us every satisfaction, peace, joy and true rest if we will but trust Him, go all out for Him, unconditionally surrender to all His claims, to obey Him, to love Him."
Today, we don't recognize the name of a Sunday School Teacher named "Kimball" - but, we do recognize the name of his convert, evangelist "D. L. Moody." And today, most of us don't recognize the name of a Gideon named Charles J. Pietsch, but he dramatically changed and impacted the Gideon ministry, and we all benefit from his efforts.
He was just another common laborer in the field. Like the original Gideon, he was one of the least likely to be the catalyst for an amazing victory. God chose to use a common man in a far outpost to mobilize His program of placing scriptures throughout the world.
Pietsch was stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1918 as a civilian in the United States Public Works Department. He had a desire to present "the Word of God to the men in the United States Navy," but he could not gain permission to board the ships to do so, although he was able to give scriptures to soldiers stationed at the Army Posts. For 20 years his dream to reach the sailors lay dormant. Then, in October 1940 he was called to Washington D.C. to discuss housing matters. En route he stopped at Gideon Headquarters in Chicago and told of his desire to place white Testaments into the hands of our sailors (white because their uniforms were white).
While in Washington, Pietsch stopped at the Navy Department and solicited their "official permission" to give a special edition of the New Testament to the Pacific Fleet. Permission was granted, and the Naval Chief of Chaplains was assigned to help work out the program. Chaplain Workman thought it would be appropriate for letters from the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Commandant of the Marines to be placed in the front of the proposed Testament. He asked Pietsch to see the President of the United States. A phone call to the White House secured an appointment for Mr. Pietsch to see the President. President Roosevelt promised to write such a letter "if re-elected" in November, 1940.
After meeting with several publishers, Pietsch traveled to Philadelphia and met with National Bible Publishing Co. executives who were thrilled with the idea and printed up some dummy copies as samples.
After the November elections, Pietsch traveled back to Washington, checked into the Mayflower Hotel, and found an invitation to attend a reception in honor of President Roosevelt's third election as President of the United States. Standing in the long reception line he slowly made his way to the President and reminded him of his promise to write "the letter." President Roosevelt told him to see his assistant, Steve Early, the next day. Mr. Early suggested that Gideon Pietsch compose several samples of such a letter and mail them back for review.
Charlie Pietsch returned to the Gideon headquarters which was then located in Chicago to give a status report of his adventures and then enplaned for Honolulu. He composed several copies of the requested "Presidents Letter" and sent them to Mr. Early. A written reply arrived in several weeks. Mr. Early stated that the program is such a worthy one "he did not believe a letter from the President would add anything to its value." I quote a part of Pietsch's reply to Mr. Early: "I did not care if a man were a bootblack, a barber or President of the United States, I expected him to keep his word. I sent a copy of this letter to the President." In a few weeks the President's letter found in all copies of our World War II military testaments was issued.
The first shipment of 10,000 Testaments reached Charles Pietsch in Honolulu in March, 1941. A dedication service was held at the Army and Navy Y.M.C.A. attended by 35 Chaplains of the Pacific Fleet. On Mothers Day and Easter Sunday (1941) these scriptures were distributed on board the ships by the Chaplains. By October, 1941, another 40,000 Testaments had arrived and been distributed. The Pacific Fleet had been "bibled."
On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, bombs fell on the ships at anchor in Pearl Harbor (Monday morning, December 8 Philippines time). From the bodies of many sailors were taken water soaked white Testaments with names and dates signed on the last page. Another shipment of 5,000 testaments reached the Philippines at the military base at Corregidor on the Bataan Peninsula on Saturday, December 6. One pastor told me of his days as a soldier on Corregidor and as a prisoner on the Bataan Peninsula where pages of the New Testaments were circulated by the prisoners, and where dead soldiers Testaments were passed among their surviving buddies.
M. A. Henderson, former Executive Director of Gideons International, recently provided the following information: "In February 1955, just five months after I joined the Chicago headquarters staff as a field representative, the mid-winter Cabinet meeting was held in Washington D.C. I learned that a Chaplain Borneman had survived the infamous Bataan 'death march' as well as three years as a prisoner in the Cabanatuan Prison. I personally contacted Chaplain Borneman (who was retired as a full colonel) in Washington D.C. in February 1995 and had an interesting 30 to 40 minute conversation with him. He verified that the Testaments arrived on that Saturday afternoon before the attack on Clark Field in the Philippines on Monday (Philippines time) and he personally was one of the ones who stood on the docks at Corregidor and passed out the Testaments to the soldiers as they were transferred to the Bataan Peninsula. He also told me that when the Americans were put in the prison following the death march, the Japanese would search them for such valuables as watches, pens, etc., but because most of them were Buddhist, they had no interest in the Gideon Testaments which a good many of these soldiers had in their possession. Chaplain Borneman then went on to tell me that he saw with his own eyes American soldiers fighting over the dead bodies of other soldiers to obtain one of the Testaments. Beyond that, he said that he knew of at least fifteen men who survived the three years in prison in the Philippines and who had been converted, but beyond that, had been called to the Gospel ministry."
Does God intervene and control history? Well, remember - it is "His Story" isn't it!
And now, as Paul Harvey tells it, for the rest of the story. One soldier floundering in the backwaters of the Philippines before 1941, General Douglas MacArthur, also found himself on Corregidor when the invasion of the Philippines began. He escaped from Corregidor and became a hero of World War II leading the war effort in the Pacific. After the armistice was signed, MacArthur was appointed peace time administrator of the country of Japan.
One of General MacArthur's early requests was for the Gideons to do in Japan what we were doing in the United States. And so, began the strange journey that would take a young Gideon named R. J. "Dick" Holzwarth and let him pick up the torch carried for a while by Charlie Pietsch.
On June 22, 1950 Charles R. Carpenter, Chief of Air Force Chaplains, wrote W. W. Gothard, Executive Director of Gideons International, as follows: "I was very happy to have the opportunity of talking with Mr. Holzwarth . . . prior to his departure for his extended ministry in Japan."
On August 17, 1950, Brother Holzwarth wrote, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift, the Lord Jesus Christ. Today is 'G' day in Japan (G for Gideon). From 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., we gave out the Word of God to 250 students of English at the YMCA . . . Mr. Igarashi, the man who has just become president of the Tokyo Gideons, gave the Gideon story in Japanese.
Then he and two others who will become members of this Camp presented the Testaments. Tonight we are presenting 350 more. . . . Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. I am leaving for Yokkaichi and then for Hokkaido."
This was the first distribution of scriptures by Gideons in Japan and the beginning of a world wide advance that now includes 175 countries. Time and space do not allow me to tell about the converts from Japan, such as Toshioki Kageyama (The Gideon Magazine, November, 1974) or Mike Kumai (The Gideon Magazine, June, 1985 and November, 1996), the churches that were built, the pastors who were ordained, or the missionaries who were sent - all because scriptures came to Japan.
In 1959 Dick celebrated as the One Millionth Bilingual Testament was placed in Japan and stated, "the Japanese must study English in junior high school. This is the Gideons opportunity to place bilingual testaments. Are school doors open in Buddhist Japan? There is no door! Christ took it off the hinges 14 years ago and the devil has never found it!"
In 1950, the Korean conflict erupted and again military Testaments were distributed. Other languages and other countries were soon added to the Gideon ministry and the march forward has never ended as the Gospel of Jesus Christ continues to reach the world.
There have been many unknown and unsung hero's in our ranks during the past 100 years. They include men and women who labored in the Lord's harvest field, often at great sacrifice and peril, whose toil has been only for the Master's "well done, thou good and faithful servant." Charles Pietsch was one of those men whose burden to reach lost sailors was pivotal in spreading the scriptures around the world.
The question before all of us today is not about what was done in the past, but what will be done in the future, and whether we will "submit our bodies a living sacrifice" so that God can use any one of us to do the task at hand. There are still spiritual battles to fight and a war to be won. Countries such as India and China are populated by 2 billion people, most of whom will never hear the name of Jesus as Savior. We cannot avoid and evade the responsibility (and opportunity) to reach such people with the Word of God. Today, let us take up the challenge and ask God to help each of us to be faithful in fulfilling our Lord's calling.
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