David Hanning was born in May 1927 in Saranac Lake, New York. His mother, a nurse from Montreal [Annotator's Note: Montreal, Canada], met his father while he was a tuberculosis patient under her care. Hanning moved around and lived with relatives as a child as his parents were constantly separating. In the 1930s, Hanning lived in Montreal throughout his time in elementary school. He says a lot was going with the Canadian military at the time. His seventh grade teacher was a captain in the Canadian reserves and was called into active service shortly after the school year had ended. Hanning remembers plenty of military and political conversations while in school. There was constant talk of the "yellow-bellied Americans" who did not come into the First World War until many Canadians had already died. The mother of one of Hanning's friends worked at the German Embassy in Montreal. He says the family disappeared and was interred in a prison camp in 1937 after it was discovered the Embassy was operating a secret radio station broadcasting from Nazi Germany. After the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Hanning's family moved back to Saranac Lake where he began high school. He participated in sports, but unlike in Canada, he did not pay as much attention to the war. He says Saranac Lake was largely abandoned when the war broke out with many of its residents moving to Southern New York in search of jobs. Hanning was drafted in June 1945, after graduating from high school. He says he was glad to be away from his parents because in the Army there would be no more arguments. After induction at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Hanning reported to Fort McClellan, Alabama for basic training. Hanning says the training was severe as most of the drill instructors were combat veterans. One experience involved digging foxholes while a tank came down the line firing live ammo. Near the end of basic training, Hanning says a notice was posted asking for volunteers to apply to become interpreters. Having grown up in Montreal, Hanning had learned a good deal of French and, therefore, decided to apply. Hanning was sent to Yale University [Annotator's Note: in New Haven, Connecticut] to begin learning to speak Japanese. He says his instructors were Japanese-Americans who had been excused from internment camps in California. English was never spoken in the school as the interpreter recruits worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.

David Hanning says the goal of the program was to train interpreters to act as a translator between the American occupation force and Japanese civilians. After only four months of training, Hanning boarded a troop ship with 40 other interpreters bound for Japan. Hanning says that he was a poor interpreter as other interpreters in the group had over two years of training. Upon arrival in Japan, Hanning was attached to an engineer battalion with the 24th Infantry Division in Lower Honshu [Annotator's Note: Honshu, Japan]. The engineer battalion had been assigned to duty destroying Japanese fortifications and armaments. Hanning estimates that 90 percent of the workers employed to do this work were Japanese. As the interpreter for four separate companies within the battalion, Hanning says these relationships between the Japanese and the Americans were very tense. The 24th Division was soon replaced by British forces consisting of Sikh, Hindu, and Ghurka regiments. Hanning was assigned to the island of Kyushu [Annotator's Note: Kyushu, Japan]. He says his mission then was to serve primarily as a peacekeeper; he was not issued a weapon and only carried a piece of pipe for protection. While in Kyushu, Hanning and another soldier witnessed a protest being staged by former Japanese soldiers. While watching the protest, an irate soldier ran from the mob and slashed Hanning's arm with a knife, nicking an artery. Hanning went back to the medical office and got stitched up. Hanning was housed in a former armory on Kyushu. Hanning and the other men in the unit sent the machinery in the armory to Korea as reparations only to learn later that Russian forces had confiscated the machinery for their own. Hanning says the armory consisted of about 30 buildings with narrow alleys between them. On the rooftops, huge gardens were grown to supply the local population with produce. During the war, a large steel factory nearby had been bombed relentlessly by American forces, but the armory was not bombed a single time as the roof made the building appear as nothing more than farmland.

David Hanning was assigned as an assistant to a lieutenant and then to the headquarters of an adjutant general where he handled personnel work. In January 1946, Hanning, a staff sergeant by this time, boarded a ship bound for the United States. He was placed in charge of the library on board. He says because the library was amidship, it was a relatively stable place to be when the seas started to pick up. Hanning spent most of his time in the library sleeping on life jackets on top of a counter which he says was quite comfortable. Hanning landed at Fort Lawson [Annotator's Note: near Seattle, Washington] and boarded a troop train back to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: near Trenton, New Jersey] for his discharge. However, an old officer encouraged Hanning to join the reserves to preserve his rank in the event of another war. Hanning took advantage of the G.I. Bill and went to college. After finishing college and working as a bartender, Hanning moved from Saranac Lake [Annotator's Note: Saranac Lake, New York] to Rochester [Annotator's Note: Rochester, New York] and began to work for the Eastman Kodak Company. In Rochester, Hanning joined the 98th Infantry Division which eventually became a training division. For two weeks every summer, Hanning helped operate a basic training center.

David Hanning retired after 32 years in the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer pauses the interview at 0:46:13.000.] Hanning says the Japanese soldiers were very industrious and well trained. He says some were intelligent, but others were strictly blind followers. While in Japan, Hanning says he was assigned a Japanese assistant who had been one month away from becoming a kamikaze pilot when the war ended. He says many of the Japanese people were friendly and he enjoyed visiting the night clubs around his base. He recalled he was given a carton of cigarettes a week and soldiers would sell them on the black market because the Japanese loved them. All his experiences in Japan were good and he says that influenced him to join the reserves. [Annotator's Note: The interviewee has a long pause from 0:52:33.000 to 0:52:57.000.] His most memorable experience was arriving in Japan and when the war was declared over. Hanning remarked that World War 2 changed his life because it gave him a code of conduct that guided him throughout his life and his career. He says this code directly resulted in his success in life.

David Hanning believes he was lucky that his service happened during a meaningful and necessary requirement. He believes World War 2 was a turning point in America. Many servicemen were able to return and get an education because of the G.I. Bill. It helped the civilian life increase their influence on a global scale. He believes that The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is an important institution. Like Israel, he believes that the United States should have a program to give young an opportunity to join the military or do some other service.