God moved his mountain during WWII

Bill Harrison says he’s mastered the secret to faith.

“Start thanking God immediately before he answers your prayer,” Harrison told middle school students during a visit to Mariners Christian School last week. “That’s the secret to having faith.”

At 88, his faith remains unshaken. The Hemet resident has always believed in a higher being, but his religious conviction was tested in 1945, when, at 23, he found himself marooned on a raft in the South Pacific for six days. He and his mates who were adrift had no food or water, but the experience galvanized his sense of faith.

The World War II Navy veteran was one of nine sailors who survived after their mine sweeper ran into a category-3 typhoon and sank. He watched helplessly as a shark devoured one of his raft mates and three others died. Harrison longed to see his wife and 2-year-old son; at one point, he decided to give up.

“I bowed my head many times during the last six days and prayed, but I didn’t have faith, I was so upset with the Navy for not sending help,” Harrison told the students. “I made up my mind I was going to die.”

But a peak of a mountain that was visible on the horizon reminded Harrison of his childhood.

“I thought of a scripture of the Bible that my mother used to read to me and my younger brothers and sisters before we would go to school,” he said.

The scripture said, “If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, God will remove the mountain,” Harrison said.

That’s when he realized, he said, that he couldn’t just bow his head down and pray for being saved, but that he needed to thank God for saving him first. Harrison persuaded his shipmates to pray and thank God for answering their prayers first.

“I must’ve thanked God 60 or 65 times in the next 15 minutes,” he said. “After my prayer and thanking God, I got the feeling that the button had been pushed for our rescue.”

Less than an hour later, three aircraft rescued Harrison and his shipmates, he said.

“I feel, in a big way, to me, those planes came from heaven,” Harrison said.

Harrison vowed to spend the rest of his life spreading the word of Christianity. His book “Six Days on a Raft” is an extension of that vow. Harrison speaks at service clubs and at schools as much as he can.

Harrison’s story inspired many of the students at Mariners to help those in need and to have faith in God.

“It shows me to trust God because he trusted God and they were safe,” said Karli Ewing, an eighth-grader at Mariners.