29
April 1909 A.D. Birth of
Chaplain A.J. Dieffenbacher—Presbyterian
Churchman, Army Chaplain, & Combat Casualty of D-Day. Took a fatal hit from an artillery round, 5
Jul 1944.
The PCA historian tell the
story.
Myers, David T. “A Casualty of D-Day.” This Day
in Presbyterian History. N.d. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/04/april-29/.
Apr 29, 2014.
A Casualty of D-Day
The following account comes from THE INDEPENDENT BOARD BULLETIN, Vol. 10, no. 10 (October
1944): 4-7. This was (and
is) the newsletter of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
In the falling of the Reverend Arthur Johnston
Dieffenbacher on the battlefields of Normandy, July 5, 1944, the Independent
Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions has lost its first and one of its best
missionaries by death. Few details are known even at this writing but in Arthur
Dieffenbacher’s passing his family, the Board, China and a host of friends have
sustained a very great loss; yet we know that God’s people should view all
things from the standpoint of eternity and therefore we can rest assured that God
Who knows all things “doeth all things well.”
Arthur Dieffenbacher was born in Titusville, Pa., April 29, 1909; and thus
was but a little over thirty-five years of age when the Lord called him home.
His early years were spent at Erie, Pa. where he was graduated from high school
at the early age of fifteen. Two years of college work at Erie followed, and
two years later in 1927 he was graduated from Grove City College. In 1931 he
finished his theological education at Dallas Theological Seminary, with a
Master’s degree in his possession and also credit toward a post-graduate
Doctor’s degree. He had proved himself precocious during his school days, but
he was also in advance of his years in the things of the Lord, his deep
interest in these things showing itself, for instance, in his spending the
first night of his college life away from home in a prayer meeting with a group
which was destined to aid him greatly to the clear insight into God’s word
which his later years so fully exhibited.
In September, 1932, Mr. Dieffenbacher was appointed a
missionary of the China Inland Mission and in company with his intimate friend
John Stam, who himself was destined to become a martyr, soon left for China.
There, after language study and a brief period of work in Changteh, Hunan
Province, he met in 1934 Miss Junia White, daughter of Dr. Hugh W. White,
editor of The China
Fundamentalist. Miss White and he were soon engaged, but because of
illness and other causes they were not married until June 1938, joining at
about the same time also and with the good wishes of the China Inland Mission,
the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions with the principles and
purposes of which both were in full sympathy.
All the years spent in China were filled with adventure
which included a flight from Chinese communists in 1935; and the summer of 1938
saw battles raging all around Kuling where Miss White and Mr. Dieffenbacher had
been married. Indeed China had been engaged for a whole year then in the war
which was to engulf eventually so many lands and was, for Arthur Dieffenbacher,
to end so tragically upon the battlefields of Normandy. On their way from
Kuling this young bride and groom had to pass through the battle zone, just
behind the fighting lines, but God gave them protection and enabled Arthur even
then to point a sore-wounded and dying Chinese lad, a soldier, to Christ as the
Lamb of God who was slain for our sins.
This trip led to Harbin, Manchuria, the “Manchukuo” of
the Japanese, where two years of happy, fruitful work ensued, years which saw
the beginning of what despite the hardness of the soil of that great cosmopolitan
city might have developed into a much greater work had it not been for the
tyranny of Japan and the war which was so soon to bring to an end so much
Christian work both in the Japanese empire and in China. In the testings of
those years in regard to Shinto and the Japanese demands upon Christians Arthur
and his wife remained faithful.
In the summer of 1940, after eight years in China, Mr.
Dieffenbacher returned to America with his wife on furlough. There on June 19,
1941, a little daughter, Sara Junia, was born. As war conditions were gradually
spreading it was thought that Mr. Dieffenbacher ought to return alone to
Manchuria and so passport and passage were obtained but ere he could sail the
events of December 7, 1941, compelled all such plans to be abandoned for the
time being, and as it proved in Arthur’s case, forever.
In America Mr. Dieffenbacher proved to be a good and
effective missionary speaker. He also rendered efficient aid at his Board’s
headquarters in Philadelphia. Later he held a brief pastorate in the Bible
Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. But when the American Council of
Christian Churches obtained for its member Churches a quota of Army
chaplaincies, Mr. Dieffenbacher applied for a chaplaincy and was appointed and
joined the Army on July 18, 1943.
In the Army Arthur Dieffenbacher won recognition for two
things. For one, he took with his men, for example, the whole system of
training including the dangerous and difficult “infiltration” course and other
things which were not required of chaplains, but which he did that by all means
he might win some. This ambition to win men to Christ was the second notable
trait of which we speak. Indeed it showed itself not alone while he was in the
Army but also throughout all his life. He always preached to convince, convert
and win. On his way to England with his unit he with two other God-fearing
chaplains, won eighty-four men to Christ. A brief letter home, mentioning this
asked, “Isn’t that great?” Truly it was great and not merely in the opinion of
his friends, we believe, but also in the sight of the Lord. Some of his friends
are praying that from among those eighty-four after the war some may volunteer
to take Arthur Dieffenbacher’s place in China. God is able to bring such things
to pass.
The time from April to June 24, 1944, was spent in
England. There, too, Arthur Dieffenbacher was constantly on the search for
souls and also for that which would bring inspiration to his men and to his
family and friends at home. Some of the poems he found and sent home testify at
once to his love for good poetry and for the things of the spirit, especially
for the things of the Lord. He believed thoroughly that he was in God’s will.
He longed to see his wife and child and mother again but assured them that “no good thing would the Lord withhold
from them that walk uprightly.” He rejoiced in full houses of
soldiers to whom to preach the Gospel of salvation. He was often tired after a
long day of duties done, but preached and lived that we are “More than Conquerors”
through Christ. With it all he learned to sew on buttons and patches and to
wash his own clothes and his good humor bubbled over into his letters when he
said, “Oh, boy, you should see the result!” Up at the front large attendances
at services were the rule, men searching for help, for strength, for God, as
they faced the foe. Perhaps a premonition was felt of what was to come. He
wrote, “There are so many chances of getting hurt in war or in peace that which
one affects you is by God’s permission. Hence I don’t worry, but take all
reasonable precautions and trust the rest to God. His will is best and His
protection sufficient.” On July 3, he wondered how they would celebrate the
Fourth, and knew not that on the morrow of that day he would celebrate humbly
but joyfully in the Presence of God. When killed by German artillery fire his
body was recovered by his senior chaplain, Chaplain Blitch, and later an
impressive funeral service was held.
“Faithful unto death” are words which characterized the
whole life of Arthur Dieffenbacher. The realization of that fact brings an
added measure of consolation to his mother, Mrs. Mildred J. Dieffenbacher, to
his wife and will, in time, to his little three-year-old daughter as she comes
to understand what her father was and what he did. It brings consolation also
to The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions and to all his
friends. But as Arthur Dieffenbacher himself would have been the first to say,
all he was and did he owed to Christ in whom he was called, chosen and
empowered and made faithful till that day when surely he heard the welcome “well done, good and faithful servant,
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
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