The Eric Metaxas Show - T Martin Bennett

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Author of "Wounded Tiger" T Martin Bennett joins to discuss the story of the Japanese pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II

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I wub, vanilla. I wub, wub, I wop, vanilla. Here comes Eric Metaxus. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. We, in hour one, we're going to be talking to the author of an insane book. It is a true story. The man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor eventually came to faith as a Christian.

It's like it's one of these insane stories that everyone needs to know. He is coming up in the next segment. hour two. I'm talking to a friend, a pastor from Plymouth, Massachusetts about what God is doing in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I think that's appropriate for Thanksgiving, don't you? But right now, we're going to talk news of the day with our dear friend, Kevin McCullough. Some of you know him as votes Trudamus. Kevin McCullough, welcome back. Hey, Eric, it's always good to see you. And if I don't have a chance to tell you otherwise, have a happy Thanksgiving. I know that we, we've been You've got many things to be thankful for.

I'm Greek. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving. Fine. I hope yours is terrible. No, we have Greek Thanksgiving. It's in March. No, we, of course we do. And thank you.

And same to you. So there's some dark stuff happening in the world today. You want to we talk about what is going on. I try to avert my eyes sometimes from the news because it's painful every now and again. Joe Biden's face pops up, so I try to avoid it. But what is happening right now with the IDF in Gaza, what can you tell us about that? Well, and I don't know that I have any new layers of revelation, but I will tell you, Eric, I spent last week out of the country and kind of away from the onslaught of the normal

news cycle that I kind of live with all the time. And it was interesting to kind of begin to reemer. back into American culture and news because the idea that, you know, even as we're going into the holidays and people are wanting to think about happier things and happier times, the truth is the world is really a scary place right now. And all you have to do is see the crises we're facing here at home. All you have to do is recognize that you have college professors like the one on the campus of Wake Forest University who was surprised by the fact that she said some horribly anti-Semitic things and people took exception to her and she ended up

resigning. It's like we, there's this phenomenon that I'm starting to see that is really, and it reminds me of my children, but it's, it's we, especially in the U.S., we want to have the right to do whatever we want to do, say what we want to say, absolutely be as belligerent and as profane, as offensive as we can possibly be, just by example, the group of people that marched through Manhattan on Sunday that said kill the Jews, kill the Jews. They didn't say kill Israel. They didn't say kill Israelis. They said kill the Jews. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them marching. I never thought I would see this on American soil with my own eyes in this day and age. I mentioned this professor in Wake

Forest. She actually said that she kind of understood where Hamas was coming from and that she she doesn't know that maybe she herself would want to go into an open-air concert and shoot people if she had been subjected to the same types of things that is the Palestinians. Now, she's breaking down the narrative because the Palestinians supposedly aren't the ones that are carrying out all the terror and torture. It was supposed to be the terrorists, right? Hamas, that's what we were told. But at the end of the day, we particularly in the West, particularly in America, we want to, we want to stamp our feet, we want to say, we want to say what we want to say, and then we

don't want to have any consequences for it. So when she gets encouraged to resign, she's like, well, the university threw me under the bus and I didn't, you know, I'm tenured and I should be, I should be allowed to, Eric, we've lost our grip on sanity. And until we do, I don't think any of us are going to have a happy Thanksgiving or a Merry Christmas, if that's the world that we continue to want to see develop around us. Well, it is hard to believe, frankly, I mean, a lot of what. we've seen in the last few years is hard to believe. Let's be honest that the world we grew up in

has changed very dramatically, very quickly, and it takes time to process what you're seeing. I mean, you know, when I heard that governors are putting, you know, COVID patients in nursing homes and that old people are dying, I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that can't be right. That can't be right. Even my worst political enemy, Andrew Cuomo, or what, they're not going to do that. Yeah, they did, they did that. On and on and on, we've been seeing things, you know, the election fraud. Honestly, I'll never forget, you know, waking up the next morning and go, wait a minute, Trump was ahead. What's going on? And then you're told, we can't talk about it. Don't talk about it. On and on and on, we have seen these horrible things happen.

And it is, I can understand how some people just, they don't want to go there. they don't want to deal with it, but it's good to deal with it, folks. It's good to see what is happening and to know what is really happening. What happened in Israel is one of those things. It's a nightmare. You can't imagine that that can happen. But wait, it gets worse. There are people in America chanting, kill the Jews.

You think it's one thing for that to happen over there. But for people in America to think that it might be okay, to talk about that after we've had decades of, you know, learning about the Holocaust. We've got a Holocaust museum. And we have Steven Spielberg makes Schindler's list. And we have all of these things. And that we're at a place in America where it is possible that people would do that. It's very hard to process, Kevin.

It's just hard to process. It is. But I also think that this, I always kind of see these things as tied to larger, kind of amplification of biblical truths too. And we know if you read, you know, Paul's second letter to Timothy that towards the end of it, he talks about how bad things are going to be at the end of time and that, you know, part of what's going to happen is that men are going to delude themselves, or going to deceive themselves. Part of what's going to happen is that men were going to be lovers more of what they want than what is true, which ultimately is a rejection of God, if you're putting

it into the framework of a worldview. And in seeing it kind of come to life around me, I don't know whether to be excited or completely filled with anxiety because I don't know how, I don't know how bad it gets before God says, okay, it's time. Everybody out of the pool. Let's go. Safety break. We're done. But I'm hoping that we're closer to that day than we might have thought we were previously. But in the meantime, you know, my kids are 13, 10, and 8. I'm trying to help them make sense of the world around them and try to put into perspective the worldview that we hold in the McCullough family, and that's based on our theological understanding of God being in charge and we're not. And it drives me bonkers when someone who is as privileged and has such a place of

position as a professor at Wake Forest University can say, well, I think I'd be willing to blow up Jewish kids at a concert as well. And then, so she says it. That's one thing. She says it out loud. She puts it on her Twitter. She makes that and she's a, well, I want to be raw and poetic and all the rest of it. Okay, you're raw and poetic. And we raw and poetically understand that you are a jerk who wants to see nothing wrong with assassinating innocent people. We get it. I just don't think that we're ready at this point in society to say, yes, you can say whatever you want and you can put it out there, but you're going to get a pass on all of it all the time. And I hope that we're not at that point. I hope that we're not at the point where we say it's just a free for all, no matter

what the moral component is. Well, to me, one of the takeaways of that is ladies and gentlemen, do you have any idea what idiots are professors at colleges in America? Do you have any idea? these are professors at prestigious colleges, and they are absolute idiots is a very kind word for people who can think those thoughts, verbalize those thoughts publicly, utterly astonishing. These people are professors teaching your kids. You might want to think about whether you want to send your kids

to these schools, even if it were free, I think I would skip it. Kevin, we're at a time. It's just always good to have you. We've got to have you back on ASAP to talk about CSI. We're doing our Christmas campaign. We want everybody involved. When we come back, we're talking about an unbelievable story from Pearl Harbor. You need to hear this story. In our two, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Don't go away. There's nothing worse than hearing about people living in pain. That's why I want to tell you about Keith from Washington and his relief factor story. After years of activity from college football to running a martial art studio at age 51, Keith's body felt like it was wearing out. So he gave relief factor a try. Keith says he now has little to no pain in my knees and highly reduced neck pain. Feeling so much better, he pursued a second-degree black belt. Folks, I use relief factor.

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astonishing story to tell you. Actually, it is not I who will tell you this story, but the author of a brand new book. The book is titled Wounded Tiger. The author T. Martin Bennett is my guest. Martin, welcome back. Eric, it's great to be with you. Thank you so much. This is such an amazing story. You were reminding me that you were on this program like six years ago telling the story. And even then, I remember thinking, this can't be true. This is so. amazing. The world needs to know. You have now written like a full-blown book on this called Wounded Tiger, where you tell the whole story. Give the nutshell version of this for my audience, just so they know what we're getting into. Yeah, Wounded Tigers is the true story of the pilot who led

the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose life was changed or transformed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met. He hated America and Americans, and it involves three plot lines that come together in a way that's really almost unbelievable. If this were fiction, it wouldn't work because it's just too far out. But the fact that it's true, it's mind-boggling, but it's also very inspiring, very encouraging. Well, the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor right there, you think, oh, my goodness, um, 1941, it's within recent memory.

This is not some ancient story. There are many people alive. today with whom I've spoken, who remember Pearl Harbor. But the idea that the man, the Japanese fighter pilot who led that horrific, sick, cruel attack, sneaky, nasty, not the kind of thing you do in war, the kind of thing that makes people say, okay, now we're going to war with you, and we will crush you, which by God's grace we did. But the man who led that, What was his name? His name was Mitsuo Fujita.

He was handpicked by Admiral Yamamoto as the number one pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy. And he says in his own words, it was the greatest day of his life to kill Americans. So when I was in high school, I remember asking teachers, you know, what were the Japanese up to? I mean, are they trying to take over America? What is this all about? I never really understood it. And when I came across his story years later, after previously writing a feature-length screenplay, I was intrigued by a story.

The more I dug into it, the more amazing it became. And I thought, Cali, this would make a phenomenal film. So I spent three years in research and put together the screenplay. Then I later novelized a book form. So I've had dozens of people tell me this was the greatest story they'd ever read. It is very impactful. It's compelling. And in a world full of war, you know, war, you know, Eric, the world has been at war since the dawn of man.

nobody really has any solutions. They always saying the other guy needs to change and they want bigger bombs and they think stronger power, more power, bigger weapons, that's going to solve it. But ultimately, war begins in the heart, has to end in the heart. And seeing that happen in a guy

who hated America and Americans and that transformation over time is really amazing. Even to people who are not of faith, I've found many people not associated with any faith whatsoever. They read the book and tell me with tears in their eyes.

This is just an amazing story, and it's encouraging. Well, look, first of all, let's repeat. It is a true story, folks. This is not a novel telling something that could have happened. No, this actually happened. The man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, again, a truly despicable act. Act of war is putting it mildly. A nasty sneak attack on soldiers unprepared, 3,000 killed.

The man who led that attack is the story, is the subject of the book. But what happened to him that's worth telling about? In other words, you haven't gotten to that. You've mentioned forgiveness, but give us the nutshell before we get into all the details. So without giving way the story, he was driven by selfish ambition and national ambition. He wanted to see the country of Japan be a great nation like Great Britain, Germany, France, the United States. However, they felt marginalized by the Western powers. And I include in the book that after the end of World War I in 1919, there was the League of Nations, which was a precursor to the United Nations.

And the Japanese were part of the League of Nations. And they put forth what's called the racial equality proposal, which said all races should be considered equal. And that should be part of the platform of the League of Nations. Well, it was shot down because multiple members of the board said, no, that's actually not true. There are superior races and inferior races. And the implication was that you guys are Japanese, you're Asian, you're inferior to white people. And it was shot down. This infuriated the Japanese.

And I knew none of this stuff. In 1919 and 1920, the Japanese were riding in the streets saying they wanted to declare war against the United States. So all these things all add together as far as what drove the Japanese in general and what drove Fujita in particular. So it's really fascinating to see what happens and why. But like any guy in the military, he wanted to see his side win. He wanted to see his country conquer other nations, colonize other nations, and become a great power of the world. But of course, it didn't work out that way.

So in Fujita's story, there's actually two plot lines of his own life. One is his aspirations to be a great man and a great nation. After the war, he had destroyed everyone and everything. He had nothing. And that's where these other plot lines come into play, Eric, and that's really interesting. One of the characters, a guy named Jake DeShazer. He joined the Army before the war. He was in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

And after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, like every other red-blooded American, he just wanted to go out there and kill Japs, as they said. And he volunteered for a secret mission. He knew nothing about. It was called the Doolittle Rape. He bombed Japan. His plane was supposed to land in unoccupied China. But unfortunately, they ran out of fuel.

He bailed out, was captured by the Japanese, was tortured, solitary confinement. friend shot death. It was just hell on earth. And his story and his transformation, how that happens, and later how his life criss-crosses with Puchitas, is another one of those, how could this see that happen in the stories? Well, I'm still not clear on the end game here. Where do we end up with this?

Does Mitsuo Fushita, who led this attack on Pearl Harbor, does he eventually come to faith? I'm not clear. Well, yeah, he does. But, of course, I'm trying not to give things away. I try to set up a story without giving away. That's a classic author's mistake. I've written 15 books, and I'm here to tell you, don't make that mistake.

People will read the book. They're not, you don't have to say, well, we don't want to tell you. You've got to buy the book to find out. They're going to read the book because they want to hear about this. That's why you need to tell as much as you can because I'm serious. This is such an amazing story. People need to know why it's amazing. You can't just say it's amazing.

you have to explain to them. Well, his transformation is his journey to faith in God, absolutely. But how it happens is so unpredictable and such a zigzag path. It's a fascinating story. So there's actually three plot lines in the story of Wounded Tiger. One, of course, is Bucita. It's his story. He's the protagonist of the story.

Then about 30% of a guy named Jake DeShazer, an American who bombed Japan becomes a prisoner of war. The third plot line and very significant plot line is the Covel family. They were highly educated teachers and missionaries who came to Japan. They loved the Japanese people. They raised their kids in Japan. But when Japan was ramping up for war, it was not a welcome place for Americans. So they fled to the Philippines, sent their kids back to the United States. And ultimately, their daughter, Peggy Covel, was the fulcrum of change in Fuchita's life, although he never met her.

And what she did, not giving away too much information here, is she wanted to be. wanted to do whatever she could to demonstrate the love of God to the Japanese people, who Americans by and large despised. They lost fathers, brothers, and sons, or maybe they were just disabled for life, and they hated the Japanese. So she volunteered to work at an internment camp because Japanese Americans were moved from the West Coast to these internment camps, and she helped them. This is during the war you're talking about.

During, well, during the war, well, actually, it was immediately after the war that she ended up these camps after she graduated. It was 1945. Then there was a hospital for wounded veterans and prisoners of war, German prisoners of war and Japanese prisoners of war. Because she spoke Japanese and was a believer, she volunteered for the Japanese part of this hospital. And while she was there, the soldiers who were wounded or amputees were saying, why are you so good to us? Because in Japanese culture, they have a belief system of obligation. When you're born, you have an obligation to your parents, to society, to your family, to the emperor. So if somebody is doing something good for you, they want to know what good thing happened to you

that's caused you to give so much love to us. And that was their curious question. When they got the answer, they were horrified and they couldn't believe that you would love your enemies like this. That story went to Fuchita's engineer, who happened to be in that hospital in Utah. When he went back to Japan, Fuchita was interviewing people to find out how prisoners of war were treated, were they tortured by the Americans, et cetera. And then he found out about Peggy Covell's story. And this really derailed his whole journey because he wanted to find out why would anyone love their enemies that doesn't make any sense. We're trained to kill our enemies to execute revenge on our enemies.

why in the world would you love your enemies? And that journey and that question draws him into this story, and that's when you see these three stories start to intertwine with each other. This is a truly amazing story, and I'm glad he gave us some more information because this is the gospel, this is the power of the gospel, the astonishing power of the gospel of the good news. And this actually happened, and history needs to know. this story. The book is called Wounded. Tiger will be right back talking to the author. Don't go away.

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promo code Eric. Mypillow.com promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057. I use these towels. They work. I promise you. Welcome back. We're talking to the author of just an amazing book, an amazing true story. The world needs to know this story, folks. It's called Wounded Tiger. It is about the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. So this Japanese warrior, who did this absolutely despicable thing, somehow encountering the power of God and eventually giving his life to Christ. You can't make this up. It sounds made up. It's not made up. It's true. So I guess I just want to be really clear. I'm talking to the author Martin Bennett. Martin, what happened? In other words, you just mentioned that this Peggy Covell shares her faith

with Japanese captives, with wounded soldiers. And of course, in their culture, this is foreign. They can't get over that somebody is treating us with love and kindness, whatever. So you just mentioned that one of these guys goes back and shares with this, the leader, Mitsuo Fujita, shares with him. He can't process this. This doesn't compute. And I guess it sends him on a journey. forgiveness is at the heart of this story. But what is the journey for him?

Well, what's interesting about Futu's life was he was not interested in Christianity, faith, God, nothing. I mean, he believed in the gods in general, the Shinto, kind of a blur of spiritualism out there. It often used really as a justification for war more than a foundation for life values. But what happened to him was, after this Pearl Harbor attack, his engineer came to him and showed his plane had been hit by flack. twice. And one of his control wires was frayed. It was that, you know, stereotypical piece of wire that's just hanging by a thread. And his engineer said, you know, if this cable had snapped, your plane would have just dropped into the ocean. You and I, Eric, would not be having this

conversation right now. And so their conversation at the time was the gods must be with us. The gods are with us. That's why this is working out well. But of course, later things did not work out well for the Japanese, but for Butchita in particular, odd things kept happening in his life. For example, he was in Hiroshima for the preparations for the expected invasion of Japan with thousands of other officers. He gets a phone call from an air base saying, hey, we need you out here. We need to talk to you. He leaves Hiroshima the next day the bomb has dropped.

His hotel is vaporized. He comes back to Hiroshima the next day on an investigative party for three days, walks throughout Hiroshima in radioactive rubble. A month later, almost everyone on a search party was dying of radiation sickness. The doctors examined him. No effects whatsoever. Zero. And he started asking himself, why am I not dead? Why am I still alive? And then he hears about Jake DeShazer, who was a prisoner of Japan, and he bombed Japan on the Doolittle raid, which actually Fuchina, as an airman himself, respected them for the guts it took to go. fly a plane right over Tokyo and, you know, Nagoya and these other cities, that was just

a balzy move. He thought, well, who is this guy? And then he told his story of being in prison, being just, in his own words, crazy with hatred toward the Japanese people. And he just wanted to kill all the Japanese because he hated them so much, just simmering in this hatred. But then he started thinking, I don't want to live this way and I don't want to die this way. And he remembered his mom. And I'm just telling anybody listening, if you're a mom out there, you're power and influence in your family is beyond your imagination because when people come down to the bottom wrong, they remember their mother's faith. And that's what happened with Jake DeShazer. And he thought, I need to find out who this God is because I don't want to live in hatred.

So his journey and his transformation is quite, well, it's supernatural. There's multiple supernatural things that happen. He gets back to the United States. He writes out his story, but Chita gets his story. He reads the track. Then he reads the book. And it set him on this journey. It was like, He was not seeking God. He was seeking truth. But the fact is, if you seek for the truth, you end up at the doorway of the kingdom of God. That's exactly what happened. And he was sincere in it.

But, of course, there was a lot of cost to it. And you'll see that play out in Petita's life. And it's really amazing and it's really encouraging. So here's the thing. If these people involved in dire situations, hell on earth, in murder, killing, destruction, can have an absolute transformation of their lives, your life is probably not as terrible as theirs. If God help them, God can help you.

Do what they did. Seek him out, and you'll find an incredible journey for yourself. When you talk about the life just of Fushita, I'm amazed in reading the notes, the idea that, so he leads the attack on Pearl Harbor, number one. He was in the middle of the Battle of Midway. Anybody who knows that story is, that's amazing. he was, as you just mentioned, in Hiroshima, the day before the bomb was dropped and is suddenly called away, which is incredible.

But then you say he was on the USS Missouri. Talk about that, because that is also unbelievable. It's like Forrest Gump of the Japanese. It's quite incredible. So he ran a ferry boat, a small boat to bring officers. to USS Missouri in his launch, and he was just on an upper deck. Now, he was approved to be there because he was responsible for assuring, ensuring that all the Japanese aircraft were disarmed.

That is, the propellers were taken off, et cetera. But explain what happens on the Missouri that makes it significant, just so people are tracking the big deal. He heard MacArthur's speech, and he was expecting it to be a triumphant speech about how great America is and how terrible Japan was, because in his mind, that's what the Japanese would have done. But instead what he heard was a very gracious speech, one of forgiveness, one of compassion, one of hope,

one of a commitment to help the Japanese people. And he thought, wow, the Japanese would never have said anything like this if they had been triumphant in the war. And it really touched his heart and it really humbled him as well. But you didn't tell us what happened on the USS, Missouri. When we come back, we're going to find out what happened. If you don't already know the story, Kind of significant.

The book is Wounded Tiger. T. Martin Bennett is the author and my guest. Folks, the book is Wounded Tiger. I'm talking to the author T. Martin Bennett. Amazing story. We're just talking about the protagonist, this man, Mitsuo Fushita, who led the charge, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, ends up being in all these different places.

And you were just saying he was on the USS Missouri during the surrender ceremony. This is this humiliating moment for Japan. His worst nightmare come true. He happens to be there while this happens. Yeah, it was a terrible moment for the Japanese, at least in their own mind. It's inculcated into the Japanese boys,

especially at a very young age. You never surrender to your enemies. You fight them and you defeat them or you die in battle and you die for the emperor. You do not surrender under any circumstances. So for the Japanese to bring their party and surrender to the Americans and the Allied forces was just phenomenal humiliation at such a level that many officers and people that Fuchita knew, they just chose suicide.

They just would not do it. But the thing that was, there's two things about this surrender ceremony that were really, really interesting. One was simply that Puchita expected the Allies to be dancing on the graves of the Japanese, which they did not do. They are very gracious. That touched him. But the second thing was, when I was writing the screenplay for the film, I wrote the screenplay first, then I novelized a book for him. I studied MacArthur's speech, and I was just expecting it to be a transitional thing in the story, but it was not. It was fundamental because here is the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, and he said, we've come to our Armageddon, we'll

get no more chances. This is a spiritual problem and requires a spiritual solution. And I'm reading this thinking, wow, he's saying this to the whole planet. And he knew more than anyone what war was all about. And he said, it's never going to be solved with weapons. It's a spiritual battle. I thought, wow, if I was a creative writer, I would have put that in this speech. But I didn't. That's exactly what he said. Well, I mean, we have to be clear, folks. Let's spell it out. America is a Christian nation, not officially, but in reality, the grace, the mercy that we showed to our defeated enemies, Germany and Japan, most particularly, is astonishing in world history. You don't do this unless you are fundamentally Christian in your worldview.

Grace to your enemies, that's a biblical value. You don't see it in history. And so when you have this man, Mitsu Fu Shihisian, and the other Japanese, seeing the graciousness. And by the way, MacArthur was not exactly, you know, a born-again believer. He didn't go to some mega church and praise Jesus every week. But the values in his bones, just like with people like Donald Trump, you see these Christian values in the entire culture. And that's why when it expresses itself like this, you just think, I mean, MacArthur.

You do not think of this guy as being any kind of Christian, and yet he is exhibiting grace and these biblical values on the world stage at a moment that is just astonishing. And obviously, as you're saying, this hit home with the Japanese. They didn't know how to process this. I mean, you talk about piquing somebody's interest in the good news of Jesus Christ. This is the kind of thing that will do that, and in this case actually did that. Yeah, the beauty about the story of Wounded Tiger is it's not telling people what to do. It's a demonstration of how it happens. And people witness this and they find themselves attached to the characters and want to see their journey.

How does Fuchita go from hating Americans to loving Americans? How does Jake DeShazer go from wanting to kill the Japanese to volunteer and to spend the rest of his life in Japan serving the Japanese people? And another thing about this girl, Peggy Covell, she was a very, well, introverted kind of person. was a librarian technically. And simple acts done in loving kindness for others can have monumental impacts on the lives of others and the planet itself. We would not be sitting here having this conversation if Peggy Gavelle had not volunteered to go serve her enemies, and now thousands and millions of people will know about her story, but it can be your story too. You don't know that lady in the grocery stores who dropped her bag. Give her a hand, help her out. She might be an heiress to a multi-billionaire

empire. You don't know who you're helping. Just love everybody, help people, and just see what God will do in your life. And that's what we see in Peggy's life. Faith Without Works is dead, ladies and gentlemen. Who said that? Oscar Wilde? Oh, no, it's in the scriptures. I have a question. This is genuinely an amazing story. The book is Wounded Tiger. How did you, Martin Bennett, come to the story? What is your background? Where did you grow up? When did you come to faith? Well, I'm a native New Yorker. I was born in Long Island, New York, so I know that you're in New York. So my dad was in the Korean War. He was a fighter pilot, and then later he worked for a commercial airline. And from an early age, I loved true stories. I was just drawn to true stories,

biographies of all kinds. I just consumed them. Likewise, movies and documentaries, the two stories, I love them all. Eventually, I ended up working, spending years working on a screenplay, a feature-length screenplay in the life of John Newton, author of The Song Amazing and grace. John Newton's life story is absolutely phenomenal. I'm extremely committed to bring it to the screen. But I stumbled across a used book from a defunct publisher about this guy Fuchita. I knew nothing about his life. It said, you know, the book mentioned that he became a believer. So I expected, you know, it's just a war story. And then he goes to a church or something. When I started digging down into a story, I thought, my goodness, this is a mind-boggling story. And I just committed myself to

getting the screenplay done. And so, Eric, seriously, the more I dug through the dirt, the more I came up with things of like, you've got to be kidding for me. And I've heard people tell me this story multiple times. A guy told me he said he's in bed at 2 o'clock in the morning. His wife is elbowing him, finishing reading Wounded Tigers saying, oh my goodness, you're not going to believe this. I cannot believe this. And I've heard that story multiple times. So I think a great story, great true story for me, is unpredictable and rewarding and encouraging. and inspiring. That's what you find in Wounded Tiger. Well, and you just have to see God's hand in, because I've experienced this a number of times, you discover something. I wrote a book about

Squanto and the story of the first Thanksgiving. I've written other things. When you encounter it, you think, this can't be true. I would have heard of this. This is too amazing. And then you start researching it and you think, wait a minute, it is true. It's checking out. Every detail is checking out, but nobody seems to know the story. Nobody's told the story. I guess I have to tell the story. But this happened to me innumerable times, and that's where you just realize this is a gift from God.

He finds people like you or like me who know how to tell a story, and he puts this in front of us, and we can't believe that nobody's heard this story before. So the book is Wounded Tiger. I'm talking to the author T. Martin Bennett. Hey there, folks. I'm talking to the author of Wounded Tiger, T. Martin Bennett, it's just an insane true story from history. And I think these true stories from

history are coming out more and more. They are transformative. They're mind-blowing. They will change you and they will change other people because they're true stories. And most of us have never heard them. Okay, the title, Wounded Tiger. What does that mean? Well, most people have heard the title of the film back in the 70s, Tora, Tora, Tora, and that was the code word for Fuchina. to send back to the fleet that they'd achieve complete surprise. That word Torah means tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger. He was born in the year of the tiger, and a wounded tiger is an animal that has potential for great power and beauty, but it cannot achieve its potential because it is wounded.

So wounded tiger represents Japan as a nation in general, but it represents Fuchita in particular. He wanted to achieve greatness. He was selfishly ambitious, but he could not reach these goals through those fleshly means. But it was through another means that he could actually reach that potential. So he became the triumphant tiger that really God had called him to be in the beginning. So the fact is, Eric, everyone is a wounded tiger. We all have potential for greatness, for power, for beauty, for success in God's purposes and plans, but we can't get there on our own. Things hold us back. Things that we have done, things that other people have done to us, and it's frustrating. However,

when you put God into the equation, he heals and he restores and he brings you into your purpose and plant. Everyone can be a triumphant tiger. This is obviously, as we've said over and over, a true story. And I guess I'm just curious, did you come to faith later in life? Like, what is your faith journey? Because this is, that's at the heart of this story. When I was 13, I gave my life to God. I meant it. I never looked back. On Long Island? No, I was actually in Southern California. I went to, It was a forest home up in the mountains in San Bernardino. That's where I became a Christian, and I met it 100% and I never looked back. And when did you know that you wanted to tell stories and be a writer?

Well, I worked with Keith Green for, I worked vice president with his organization. But it's when I came across the story of William and Catherine Booth of the Salvation Army, and I read that years ago, decades ago, and I thought, oh, my goodness, this would make an incredible film. And it really felt the Lord speaking to my heart that, hey, you're going to do this. as a series. You know, if you do this as a film, I read the John Newton story, then I wrote the screenplay. I met with the producer a couple of months ago. We are definitely going to do this John Newton's story, but I have to get wounded target out of the, but I've got another 20 projects in various stages of development. Most are true stories. So I just love true stories. I find them

fascinating. I learn from them, and we can build our future. That's what one of the things I say on the back of the book. It says, remember the past, live for the future. That's what we should do. learn from that and be a better person and have a better future? The idea, again, of telling these true stories, I really believe that they are transformative. When you encounter these things, it's part of the reason I've written three biographies and I wrote a book called Seven Men and Seven Women. When you actually encounter the story of a real life, it is transformative. You cannot help but be moved by it.

It's just the way God made us. And so I know that that's part of your story. your goal in telling these stories and in writing this book, Wounded Tiger, I just cannot believe the world doesn't know this story, that the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor found faith in Jesus. I mean, it's mind-blowing stuff. What is the website? It's WoundedTiger.com, and you can read the first chapter's free there.

Of course, it's available on Amazon as well. WoundedTiger.com, and obviously you're hoping to turn this. into a film. This is exciting stuff. T. Martin Bennett, good to talk with you again. Congratulations on telling a very important story. We need more of this, folks. This is transformative.

This kind of thing is transformative. T. Martin Bennett, thank you. Eric, thank you very much for having it.