Prisoner of War
Dan Kunz
On November 29, 1943, B17 tail gunner, Gene Moran, hurtled to earth in the severed tail section of his bomber from four miles in the sky – and lived to tell about it! Gene’s amazing story is told by author John Armbruster in his recently released biography called Tailspin. Because the story is set not only in World War II Europe, but also in southwestern Wisconsin, where I’ve lived since graduating from college, I was eager to hear it, told by a fellow high school teacher. As amazing as that survival story is, it was just the beginning of Gene’s struggle to survive.
Although he sustained extremely serious head injuries in his fall from the heavens, what he endured over the next seventeen months as a prisoner of war, were just as life threatening. When he enlisted as a seventeen-year-old from rural Soldier’s Grove, Wisconsin, Gene weighed one hundred seventy pounds. When he was rescued in April of 1945, he weighed one hundred twenty-eight pounds – and he was fortunate! Because he was a self-reliant farm kid, he fared better than others. Some of them weighed closer to 90-100 pounds. Many didn’t survive at all.
Several times during Gene’s imprisonment, it appeared that freedom was near. At one point, the prisoners could hear the bombardments of the approaching Russian force. Another time, American fighter planes were seen flying over. Unfortunately, every time it appeared they may be rescued, their Nazi captors moved them farther from the nearing liberators. Gene and hundreds of other prisoners were crammed into the hold of a ship where they remained for several days, without food, without water, and without toilet facilities. They were forced to walk six hundred miles in eighty days, most of them without shoes or boots. The inhumanity with which they were treated is almost impossible to fathom. How could human beings act that way toward fellow human beings?
What kept Gene going during those seventeen months? Several things, actually. He was a man of faith. He longed to roam the green hills of his beloved farm in western Wisconsin. He believed that America would be victorious against the dark powers of Nazi Germany. The strength of the human spirit, driven by faith and love, is incomprehensible!
Although, God-willing, you and I will never have to endure the physical, mental, and emotional challenges which Gene did, we are also prisoners of war. Our prison is the world in which we live, the life which we experience, and the body to which we are chained. We have freedom here in America, but we are not truly free. I Peter 5:8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” That roaring lion is capable of making our lives miserable. His companions, the world and our own flesh, work with him to stuff us into the hold of a ship. They prod us into walking hundreds of miles without shoes. In other words life in this vale of tears is just that, a vale of tears. How can we survive? How will we make it?
Like Gene, we have a way of surviving. We know that God not only will be victorious, he already is victorious. I Corinthians 15:57 “But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We long to roam the green hills of our real home – heaven. We know that our beloved family and friends, who have fallen asleep in the Lord, are waiting for us. As prisoners of war, we have to hold fast to what we know to be true and it will be true – we have a God who loves us and will not allow us to be prisoner forever!