After the Summer of 1947
We last left you back in 1947 with Alec Bahnson, Jim Birkitt, Bob DeViney, Dave Dowling, Joe Stevens and Howard Peach – six World War II veterans on their evangelization trip across the United States and Canada.
We now fast-forward to 2012 when Steve DeViney gets a call from his brother Lance regarding a story he read in Guideposts Magazine.
The magazine article, entitled “A Family Mystery”, related the story of Deborah Breda:
She had learned that he had fought in World War II with the legendary 10th Mountain Division, an alpine unit that suffered terrible casualties and that he and her mother had had a whirlwind romance, marrying only six months after they met.
Her mother had told her that soon after the marriage, he did not seem to be the same man. He was moody, prone to strange, obsessive behavior and angry outbursts, which only worsened once he learned of the pregnancy.
Deborah’s father was Alec Bahnson – one of the six veterans that Steve and Lance had been reading about in their father’s 1947 letters to their mother.
Steve and his brothers had, in fact, met Alec Bahnson when they were children. He gave them a plane ride in 1963 in Winston-Salem when Steve was nine years old. They had never heard about Alec before or after that flight – they knew nothing of his past.
Whether due to PTSD or heredity, part of Alec Bahnson’s past was indeed troubled.
Part of that past included a 1949 confinement to Grayland Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases where, in the crude methods of the times, he was given electroshock treatments.
In researching Alec and communicating with Deborah and Deborah’s daughter Elise, Steve DeViney discovered examples of Alec’s eccentricity. One story describes how Alec had been stopped by the police because he was cooling his dogs on the hood of his car as he drove on a hot day.
In another story, Alec, looking rather disheveled, clothes in a sack, and having a couple dogs in tow, was refused admittance at a prestigious hotel in the Bahamas. This did not sit well with Alec and he went back to the airport where he’d left his plane, loaded in two large water barrels and water-bombed the hotel. His aim was quite good and the barrel bombs crashed through the lobby roof.
But Alec was more than an eccentric. He still carried his metal-covered Bible that he had had in the war and he took his Christian faith around the world.
“Let me give you an example. In February of our freshman year – which would’ve been 1947 – we guys decided we would go up to Banff to go skiing. We got on the train and before we got there, Alec had 30 people on their knees accepting the Lord. We get up there and were skiing and then were back in the lodge and Alec is still over witnessing to people and has more people praying. On the trip back, Alec is still witnessing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
But Alec was not alone among these six veterans in his Christian walk.
Jim Birkitt became was a missionary in Ecuador and later a Baptist minister in South Carolina and Virginia. He owned and operated three Christian radio stations and authored more than thirty books.
Dave Dowling became a missionary to Japan.
Joe Stevens became a very well known preacher in Texas.
Bob DeViney was a missionary to Japan for five years and served as a pastor in Oklahoma and then in Washington State for 51 years. The last of the six fellows, Bob DeViney went home to his heavenly reward on December 21, 2016.
While the war and life in general surely impacted these men, it did not define them. Their World War II journeys, whether in the mountains of Italy, the islands in the South Pacific or the lowlands of Germany, did not compare to the length or impact of their journey with Christ.
Perhaps that is the most important part of this story.
We now fast-forward to 2012 when Steve DeViney gets a call from his brother Lance regarding a story he read in Guideposts Magazine.
The magazine article, entitled “A Family Mystery”, related the story of Deborah Breda:
“Growing up in her maternal grandparents’ home in tiny Nederland, Texas, an hour from the Gulf of Mexico, she’d often questioned her mother, Joyce, for details about her father. How had they met? Was he handsome? What was he like? Why had he left them? And where was he now? Why did he never write or call? An endless stream of queries bubbled up inside of her.
‘What happened to Daddy?’ Deborah would invariably ask.
It was an era when no one spoke of mental illness or what they called shell shock back then. ‘The war affected him,’ her mom said. ‘And I think the responsibility of being a husband and then me being pregnant was just too much. Still, I know he loves you.’ “
She had learned that he had fought in World War II with the legendary 10th Mountain Division, an alpine unit that suffered terrible casualties and that he and her mother had had a whirlwind romance, marrying only six months after they met.
Her mother had told her that soon after the marriage, he did not seem to be the same man. He was moody, prone to strange, obsessive behavior and angry outbursts, which only worsened once he learned of the pregnancy.
Deborah’s father was Alec Bahnson – one of the six veterans that Steve and Lance had been reading about in their father’s 1947 letters to their mother.
Steve and his brothers had, in fact, met Alec Bahnson when they were children. He gave them a plane ride in 1963 in Winston-Salem when Steve was nine years old. They had never heard about Alec before or after that flight – they knew nothing of his past.
Whether due to PTSD or heredity, part of Alec Bahnson’s past was indeed troubled.
Part of that past included a 1949 confinement to Grayland Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases where, in the crude methods of the times, he was given electroshock treatments.
In researching Alec and communicating with Deborah and Deborah’s daughter Elise, Steve DeViney discovered examples of Alec’s eccentricity. One story describes how Alec had been stopped by the police because he was cooling his dogs on the hood of his car as he drove on a hot day.
In another story, Alec, looking rather disheveled, clothes in a sack, and having a couple dogs in tow, was refused admittance at a prestigious hotel in the Bahamas. This did not sit well with Alec and he went back to the airport where he’d left his plane, loaded in two large water barrels and water-bombed the hotel. His aim was quite good and the barrel bombs crashed through the lobby roof.
But Alec was more than an eccentric. He still carried his metal-covered Bible that he had had in the war and he took his Christian faith around the world.
- In 1951, he acted as a chaplain on a ship taking cattle from the United States to Palestine for the Israeli government.
- In 1952, he made an 800-mile preaching tour through Guatemala.
- He was awarded a medal by the president of Korea for his preaching to troops in 1953 and 1954.
- He earned his Chinese pilot’s license and flew in China for 10 months.
- By the time of his death in 2002, he had preached in 165 countries and led many thousands to a Christian faith.
“Let me give you an example. In February of our freshman year – which would’ve been 1947 – we guys decided we would go up to Banff to go skiing. We got on the train and before we got there, Alec had 30 people on their knees accepting the Lord. We get up there and were skiing and then were back in the lodge and Alec is still over witnessing to people and has more people praying. On the trip back, Alec is still witnessing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
But Alec was not alone among these six veterans in his Christian walk.
Jim Birkitt became was a missionary in Ecuador and later a Baptist minister in South Carolina and Virginia. He owned and operated three Christian radio stations and authored more than thirty books.
Dave Dowling became a missionary to Japan.
Joe Stevens became a very well known preacher in Texas.
Bob DeViney was a missionary to Japan for five years and served as a pastor in Oklahoma and then in Washington State for 51 years. The last of the six fellows, Bob DeViney went home to his heavenly reward on December 21, 2016.
While the war and life in general surely impacted these men, it did not define them. Their World War II journeys, whether in the mountains of Italy, the islands in the South Pacific or the lowlands of Germany, did not compare to the length or impact of their journey with Christ.
Perhaps that is the most important part of this story.
January 2017