Invisible Escort

The kind old doctor laid down his stethoscope and looked at us with compassion. “To China! Going to China? China will be blown off the map before you get there!”

He’d been reading the papers, this doctor who gave Jerald and me our physicals as we made ready to sail for mission service in China late in the summer of 1939. Japan had indeed been doing some bombing. She had invaded China months before and had already conquered Shanghai and part of the coast.

In spite of the warning, we went to C...