Moroni wrote that the Lord permits the righteous to be slain so that “his justice and judgment may come upon the wicked” (Alma 60:13). He continued,
“Therefore, ye need not suppose that the righteous are lost because they are slain;
but behold, they do enter into the rest of the Lord their God”(v. 13).
Soon after the beginning of World War II the First Presidency of the Church stated:
“In this terrible war now waging, thousands of our righteous young men in all parts of the world and in many countries are subject to a call into the military service of their own countries. Some of these, so serving, have already been called back to their heavenly home; others will almost surely be called to follow. But ‘behold, ’ as Moroni said, the righteous of them who serve and are slain ‘do enter into the rest of the Lord their God, ’ [ Alma 60:13] and of them the Lord has said ‘those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them.’ (D. & C. 42:46) Their salvation and exaltation in the world to come will be secure. That in their work of destruction they will be striking at their brethren will not be held against them. That sin, as Moroni of old said, is to the condemnation of those who ‘sit in their places of power in a state of thoughtless stupor, ’ those rulers in the world who in a frenzy of hate and lust for unrighteous power and dominion over their fellow men, have put into motion eternal forces they do not comprehend and cannot control. God, in His own due time, will pass sentence upon them”
(Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., David O. McKay,
in Conference Report, Apr. 1942, pp. 95–96).
A few months later Elder Harold B. Lee said:
“It is my conviction that the present devastating scourge of war in which hundreds of thousands are being slain, many of whom are no more responsible for the causes of the war than are our own boys, is making necessary an increase of missionary activity in the spirit world and that many of our boys who bear the Holy Priesthood and are worthy to do so will be called to that missionary service after they have departed this life”
(in Conference Report, Oct. 1942, p. 73).