AMAZING STORY
Centenarian Remembers the Trauma and Triumph of WWII
By Cheryl Wilcox
The 700 Club
CBN.com -The date was August 14th, 1945. “I went and drove around the White House to see what the reaction was there. And as soon as the word got out, it was like a celebration in the streets,” recalled Jim Dowling.
U.S. President Harry Truman announced from the White House on August 14th, 1945 … Victory over Japan. WWII was over!
Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary when Americans celebrated in the streets from San Francisco to New York’s Times Square. Retired Navy Lieutenant Jim Downing remembers the tremendous relief he felt that first VJ day. At 101 years old, Jim is the oldest surviving WWII veteran of the 1st battle in the Pacific; the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
“I'd just been married for five months. We were having breakfast when the first bombs dropped. We turned on the radio after hearing a noise,” recalls Jim.
200 miles off Hawaii, six Japanese aircraft carriers under Admiral Yamamoto had launched 353 aircraft led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida in a surprise attack against the Pacific fleet. Jim scrambled from his house toward his ship, the USS West Virginia, berthed on “battleship row”.
“The first airplane that came my direction was olive drab. I thought it was an Army plane. Then he came in flying low and slow. He had machine guns. The bullets went right over my head! That's when war became very personal,” he stated.
Simultaneous air attacks were underway at 6 U.S. airfields. The first wave of attack along “battleship row” crippled or sunk the might of the U.S. Pacific fleet. Jim remembers, “We were tied up with the Oklahoma in front of us and the Arizona behind. The Oklahoma capsized and turned over, so here we were with the Oklahoma upside down in front of us and the Arizona burning like a volcano behind.”
Jim first boarded the flaming deck of the USS Tennessee and slid down its five inch gun barrel onto the West Virginia. Massive torpedo strikes had already sunk the West Virginia into the shallow waters.
“I could see the fire spreading toward the ammunition. I took a fire hose from the Tennessee and tried to cool the ammunition so it wouldn't explode, because the fire was spreading to everything above the water line.”
The USS West Virginia during the Pearl Harbor attack.
Millions of gallons of crude oil from the USS Arizona, Oklahoma, California and four other damaged or sinking battleships ignited the water in flames. “Oil is lighter than water, so it stayed at the top. To see sailors being blown over the side into that oily water, sink underneath, come up and the oil was on fire, and to see their bodies just burn like a human torch… that was the worst experience I could imagine… seeing those human torches burning. I ran the whole gamut of-of emotions. The first was surprise. And then there was fear. And it turned to anger that our leadership had let us down. And then there was pride to see our men, without leadership, instinctively doing the right thing.”
As the second wave of attack swooped in on the USS Nevada, Jim says he felt peace while fighting the inferno. “So I felt like, ‘Lord, I’ll be with You in a minute.’ And I fully expected to be. So I had the deepest peace I've ever felt in my life, and I think that was it. ‘I'm going to be with You in a minute.’"
Jim’s faith in God didn’t begin the in the heat of battle either. Years earlier, on the West Virginia, Jim lived and worked along a group of Christian shipmates. “I was very unhappy. But Virgil was one of this group; sang a tune, face shining, [and] looked like he was the happiest person in the world. I knew it was Christ in him. I was attracted to Christ because of the quality of life the guys I saw who were Christians. It was aboard the Battleship West Virginia and I gave my life to Christ because I wanted what these other people had.”
Then, in that crucial hour, when lives were at stake and later when his shipmates needed comfort in death, God’s peace led Jim. “I knew many of them that I saw killed, we lost 108 that morning. They went down fighting. They went down trying to protect the ship and each other. I felt like that everybody was a hero that morning.”
After all the fires were out, Jim rushed to the hospital. Over three and a half thousand American were dead or wounded. “My friends were burned, so I took a notebook and went down the line of these guys in suspension and said, "if you'll give me your parents' address and dictate a note, I'll see that they get it.” The main surprise was how optimistic they were. And they told their parents, "don't worry about it, I'll be all right." And they knew that the majority of them would die that night. But I liked their optimism.”
The next day the United States declared war on Japan. Jim recalled, “This was a going to be a long war.”
Battles in the Pacific theater alone resulted in 35 million casualties - three percent of the world’s population. 100,000 civilian casualties at Okinawa heavily influenced America’s use of two atomic bombs against Japan to end WWII. Jim was stationed in Washington D.C., at the war’s end, grateful the 400 gunnery trainees under his command would enjoy civilian life once again. “We were relieved that it was over. We were too close to disaster. It must never happen again! Because I believe that weakness invites aggression and we must never be weak as a nation or aggression will result.”
Years later, to his surprise, Jim got to know Mitsuo Fuchida, Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack commander, before his death. “I met him and talked with him on several occasions. A missionary gave Fuchida a Bible and he became a Christian and became an evangelist.”
They fought against each other in war, but, through Christ, discovered a brotherhood of peace. Jim concluded by saying, “I have a favorite verse…Ezekiel 36:23.” God Himself said, ‘the nations will know Me when they see Me in you.’"
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