The Missions Had to Be Flown
Early in the war scattered British and Australian forces, often with obsolete equipment, tried to oppose the Japanese advance through East Asia. Many Royal Air Force pilots were still flying biplanes that proved easy prey to the modern Japanese Zero fighters. As comrades failed to return from missions, it became ever harder for the survivors to keep going up. One airman commented on his own feelings and on a fellow pilot’s determination to oppose the enemy invasion of Sumatra:
We were terribly fearful, some of us literally shaking… But the missions had to be flown and it was then that I saw real valour… not just flashes of it but as a part of every member’s daily life. A special bravery seemed to be generated, where fear was greatest… The courage that we saw was in the calm before the storm, of very young men… doing something that petrified them… But they did it because it was their duty.295
I think of Bob’s sheer guts on that day only with deep admiration. He was going on a mission… to find a Japanese sea force, to try to break through its fighter and anti-aircraft screens and bomb it. Scared stiff like everyone who had to make such attacks, he was so overwrought that he actually vomited on the tarmac as he went to climb into his Hudson. But he just vomited, shook his head, climbed aboard and took off.296
Could anything be more difficult than finding courage in a losing cause? These airmen knew that defeat was inevitable, but continued to find the will to do their duty. Many times we, as Christians, are discouraged by far less formidable risks. We think that certain people are hopeless and that any effort on our part to share the gospel would be futile. When we hear moral issues being discussed and sense we’re in the minority, we sometimes feel that our solitary voice will have no effect. At these times, we need the courage of these RAF pilots, who were able to leave the bigger picture in the hands of a higher authority while focusing on their individual responsibilities. Courage is action in the face of possible embarrassment or failure.
I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
—John 14:12