My cousin John M. Frier, Jr. (1931-2016) was a 1953 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He and his wife Shirley, who died this past August, had four daughters and eight grandchildren. John and Shirley were devout Catholics. From 1960, they made their home in Los Altos, California. After his funeral, a relative sent me his funeral card. The card printed the following story he had composed in 1991. I had not heard the story until then. It is republished here with the permission of his estate:

The following incident occurred in 1958 when I was a Navy jet-fighter pilot. Our aircraft carrier was steaming in a northerly direction in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Sea of Japan, one late fall day.[1] Farther to the east a typhoon was moving north as well. The seas were heavy but not too rough to prevent air operations. Our flight, the last one for the day, launched around 3 PM and lasted for an uneventful hour and half.

When we returned, however, we found the ship pitching up and down and rolling in such heavy seas that our planes had great difficulty landing, either because of the uneven deck or because the plane ahead was fouled up in the arresting gear, blocking the landing area. Six times I tried to land and six times I was waved off. I became anxious. Each landing approach consumed 150 to 200 pounds of fuel (a pound is about 7 gallons of jet fuel). I was down to 450 pounds of fuel.

On my eighth attempt, I was again waved off.

“What is your fuel state?” the Air Boss asked by radio.

“One hundred fifty pounds.” The Air Boss asked for my intentions.

I could either climb to parachute altitude and eject before I ran out of fuel or make one more attempt to land, with no chance of parachute escape, but if I failed the plane would go into the sea. It was by now early evening and the ship was laboring in seas so rough that the rescue helicopter had landed. My plane was the last one in the air. I decided that my chances for survival after parachuting into a cold, mountainous sea with night approaching were nonexistent. Even in calm conditions a water landing was not advised, as the aircraft was known to blow apart on water entry.

I told the Air Boss I would make one last attempt.

As I flew downwind and prepared to turn onto the base leg of my approach, I prayed out loud into my oxygen mask but not into my radio: “Lord Jesus Christ, I need your help now or I will die. This is beyond my ability to control.” My wife of six months was expecting our first child. I prayed, “I want a family. I want to see my children. But if it is your will that I should die now, then I accept your will. I will fly this plane to the best of my abilities until the end.”

I turned onto my approach landing. Suddenly a feeling of great warmth, love, and indescribable joy overcame me. My anxiety was gone. Although my hands were on the controls, a far better pilot than me was flying the plane. I knew instantly my prayer was being answered and that I had nothing to fear.

As the plane let down to the carrier from a distance of about two miles and an altitude about 1,000 feet, I looked at the ship in utter amazement. It appeared to be floating on a huge upwelling and the ship floating level as in a calm sea. This lasted for some twenty or twenty-five seconds. Just as the tailhook engaged the arresting wire, the divine assistance ceased and the ship heeled sharply to starboard. But I was safely aboard. The aircraft line chief told me later that my aircraft was bone dry of jet fuel when checked before refueling.

Incidentally I did not tell my experience to my squadron mates; and the ship personnel were not in a position to see the upwelling, which, as I recall, extended no more than twenty yards on either side of the ship. As you can imagine, I was overwhelmed by the incident, and twenty-five-year-old fighter pilots don’t preach to their squadron mates. But I knew what had happened!

This contact with the Supreme Being affected my life. It made human goals of wealth and control and position seem of little consequence. It’s made me very uneasy in the presence of unprincipled men and women, even to the point of feeling chills.

Since then I have turned my life over to Christ. I have had a wonderful marriage of thirty-three years, children and grandchildren, and have been able to retire from business at the age of fifty-eight after the usual ups and downs.

Odd that people will trust their savings in the hands of a banker or investment broker but not think to put their happiness in the hands of God.

Like you, and all of us who witness or hear of God’s miracles, I was awestruck when I read this. Like you, I had to stop and think about it and pray about it.

I never had the opportunity to talk to John about it. We can wonder about his reaction to so many of the Gospel stories and accounts of miracles during the past 2,000 years.

As for me, I am immediately reminded of the Gospel account of Jesus asleep during a storm so terrible the disciples were afraid for their lives: “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’” (Mark 4:37-38). My cousin must have repeated to himself, over and over, the words “the wind and the waves obey Him!” (Mark 4:41). (See also Matthew 8:23-27 and Luke 8:22-25)

And I am reminded as well, especially during Advent, of the number of biblical passages that say the Messiah will lower the hills, raise the valleys, and straighten the road to make it easier for His people to travel to heaven. As it is written in the book of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation’” (Isaiah 40:3-5; Luke 3:4-6). (See also Isaiah 42, 45, 49, 62; Proverbs 3; Baruch 5)

John knew that the Lord had suspended the ship in an upwelling and made the ship level. And my dear cousin John had seen God’s salvation.

[1] Navy records show nine aircraft carriers in the western Pacific in October and November 1958: USS Bennington, Bon Homme Richard, Essex, Lexington, Midway, Princeton, Shangri-La, Ticonderoga, and Yorktown.