Fiske Hanley was born in January 1920 in Brownwood, Texas, one of the five children in his family. Although he grew up during the Great Depression, his father's work in the oil field business was not interrupted, and the family lived better than most. Hanley went for two years to Texas Agricultural College, then moved to Texas Tech in Lubbock. He was a junior there, and was driving a date around and listening to the radio, when he heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Hanley didn't know where Pearl Harbor was and wondered what was going on with the Japanese. He also wondered about what he should do; he wanted to finish his education. When he received his "greetings from the draft board" in the fall of 1942, he volunteered to join the Army Air Corps. He was allowed to finish his degree in May 1943 and the morning after graduation left for Boca Raton, Florida for basic training. Next he studied at Yale University to learn aircraft engineering, and in February 1944 he earned his wings and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant, qualified on the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber], even though he had never flown one. He went for further training as a flight engineer at Boeing in Seattle, Washington, and was then sent to Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado to learn to fly B-29s; however, there were only B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] and B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] in which to train. At Fairmont Army Airfield in Fairmont, Nebraska he joined his 11 man flight crew, but there were still no B-29s until just before they left, and they mostly flew B-17s. As an aside, Hanley noted that while he was there, Colonel Tibbets came to their base and chose from among his friends in the the 393rd Squadron [Annotator's Note: 393rd Bombardment Squadron] for the atomic bomb crew and took them off to Wendover, Utah. [Annotator's Note: Then US Army Air Forces Colonel, later US Air Force Brigadier General, Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr., was the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945.] No one knew what an atomic bomb was, but if it shortened the war, Hanley was all for it. His squadron went to their aerial point of embarkation in Herington, Kansas, and in early 1945 Hanley's crew started west to Mather Field in Sacramento, California, then proceeded to John Rodgers Field in Hawaii. A schoolmate who was on the general staff there informed Hanley that he would be participating in Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japanese home islands.

The B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] had "lots of troubles," but Fiske Hanley said his crew made it to Hawaii "okay." After a week of getting the airplane in shape, they headed west under sealed orders, arriving on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Mariana Islands] on 12 January 1945. There, their new airplane was taken away and they were issued a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] to fly to their home base on Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands]. They began flying practice missions on any available plane. Hanley describes the 313th Wing's [Annotator's Note: Hanley was a B-29 crewman in the 504th Bombardment Group, 313th Bombardment Wing, 20th Air Force] rookie missions, which were not very effective. General Hap Arnold [Annotator's Note: General of the Army and General of the Air Force Henry H. "Hap" Arnold was the commander of the Army Air Forces during World War 2] took command of the Air Corps on 9 March 1945, and adjusted operations, and the subsequent bombings of Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe and Osaka [Annotator's Note: all in Japan]. Hanley's crew made three of those missions. The missions were a great success. Crews in the Pacific had to fly 35 missions, and on 27 March 1945 Hanley's crew was assigned one they "liked"; the first mining mission for the 313th Wing with no flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and no fighters predicted. They dropped 12 naval mines in the Shimonoseki Strait between the two Main Japanese islands, but the Japanese had broken the American code, and knew what was happening beforehand. The airborne crews encountered searchlights and intense antiaircraft fire, and three B-29s, including Hanley's, were shot down. It was Hanley's job to keep all engines running until they could "bail out or ditch," but engines three and four were on fire. Hanley handed the fire extinguisher to the navigator, and when the man opened the bomb bay door, smoke and flames incinerated him and the radio operator. Hanley followed the pilot, copilot and bombardier through the nose hatch, and landed in a rice paddy.

First, Fiske Hanley said, he prayed [Annotator's Note: after bailing out of his battle damaged Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber over Japan]. With some difficulty he reached his ripcord, and was drifting toward the earth. During his fall, he counted only one other parachute, and saw his plane crash in flames. Hanley's combat career ended then, during his seventh mission over Japanese territory; and only he and the plane's copilot survived. Hanley landed in the middle of a rice paddy and was surrounded by what seemed like 200 civilians who began beating him with bamboo spears. He tried to surrender, but it didn't work; Hanley said his flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] suit saved his life. An unusually large Japanese policeman intervened, and got him to a nearby town. Japanese practice dictated that B-29 airmen be tried and executed, and special rules applied to the airmen while awaiting disposition such as half rations, no sanitation and no medical attention. Hanley sustained 40 or 50 flak wounds, as well as injuries from the beatings. Only one in 29 crewmen, fewer than 200, captured in Japan survived the war, and 13 of them were from Hanley's last mission. He was handed over to the vicious Kenpeitai [Annotator's Note: military and secret police force of the Japanese Army], and taken to their base at Kuro, in the northern area of Kyushu. A week later they were put on a train to Tokyo where they were interrogated at the Kenpeitai Imperial Japanese Army headquarters. "High ranking, highly intelligent Japanese" conducted the questioning in English, according to Hanley, and they got the information they wanted using Kendo Bats, sabers and bayonets. Hanley spent a considerable amount of time with seven other prisoners in a five-by-nine cell; they were not allowed to communicate with each other. They welcomed air raids, anything that would bring the war to an end.

During his interrogation, Fiske Hanley was asked some military questions, but the Japanese interest centered mostly on what the American people thought about the war, and how soon they wanted it to end. Hanley felt they were working toward a peace treaty that would be "honorable to the Japanese." They asked how Hanley would conduct an invasion of Japan, and he made something up; he said nothing about Operation Olympic. They told him their plan of defense, and how they meant to make victory for the Allies so expensive in terms of men and machines that capitulation would be the only answer. Hanley discusses how he knows the atomic bomb saved over 20 million lives. He only left his cell when he was being questioned, and during interrogation, Hanley's wounds were the targets of torture. In charge of the prisoners was a civilian who worked for the Kenpaitai, and was responsible for most of the deaths in the prison; his saying was, "you dog, you're going to die." The prisoners' only nourishment came from golf-ball sized rice clumps that were thrown onto the dirty floor of the cell. People were dying all around Hanley, and the dead might lie around for days before being collected and carted off. After a while, Hanley could no longer intelligibly respond to questioning, and his captors quit interrogating him. When he complained about the lack of medical attention, he was brought to the infirmary where they intentionally infected all his wounds. In May 1945, 62 American prisoners, all B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] personnel, were taken to the Tokyo military prison. When a B-29 bomb set the prison on fire, the Japanese left the American prisoners inside to die. Hanley credits his own survival to his faith and his will to live. He said he learned to accept and appreciate life.

When the atomic bombs were dropped, Fiske Hanley and his fellow prisoners were totally unaware of the events, but scuttlebutt finally reached them, and on the night of 15 August 1945, all the American prisoners were put on trucks and taken to Tokyo Bay to bathe. Hanley said it was a dreadful sight, he only weighed 70 pounds at that time. They were then taken to a camp on a nearby island where they stayed for two weeks, and Navy and Marine fliers were dropping them candy, gum and cigarettes. Food improved and life was better. On 28 August, a Marine fighter plane dropped a note that said, "Tomorrow you will be liberated." Halsey's [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey] Third Fleet was in the harbor, and mid-afternoon on the next day, Hanley saw one of the most beautiful sights of his life. There were six landing craft coming in with American flags flying. Because his condition was serious, Hanley was one of the first taken to the USS Benevolence (AH-13), a hospital ship. He climbed up the ladder into the care of pretty nurses in clean white uniforms. He was stripped and deloused, examined and treated. During his incarceration, Hanley's greatest worry was of dying from his infected wounds, but he said he is proof that a human body can heal. The prisoners were allowed to eat anything they wanted and they did, then went to the rails and lost it. Hanley describes his memories of the dungeon, and he is sure that the reason many of the prisoners died was because they lost hope. He came to know several of his fellow prisoners, and has kept in touch with some of them. Since the war he has worked with some Japanese people, and he is "all right with them," but he said that he is still nervous around Japanese people he doesn't know.

The only help Fiske Hanley remembers getting from the Red Cross while he was overseas was the loan of two books when he was in Camp Omori [Annotator's Note: Omori Prison Camp in Toyko, Japan] before being sent to the Tokyo prison. After he was taken off the hospital ship [Annotator's Note: Hanley was treated aboard the hospital ship USS Benevolence (AH-13)], he traveled from Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] home. He had no way of communicating with his family, and said the Red Cross was nowhere to be found during that time. He remembered being taken off the hospital ship and transported to a destroyer, and the next day being called to report to the stern of the ship to talk to the press. The interviewer turned out to be Ted Dealey, president of the "Dallas Morning News," who promised he would contact Hanley's family, and he did within two hours. Hanley joked that it took the Pentagon three weeks to send his family notice that Hanley was "returned to American hands." Hanley mentioned giving Dealey credit in a book he has written about his POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] experience. He was just happy to be alive and free. He was taken to a hospital in Hawaii, then to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco, California. While he was there, the Red Cross finally helped him contact his family, and they were relieved to know he was stateside. The next day he learned from the Red Cross that his father was dying, and they put him on a fast train to San Antonio, Texas. He arrived home in the middle of October 1945, and the family had a "real homecoming." [Annotator's Note: Hanley wipes his right eye.] Hanley's father died of cancer two weeks later.

After the war, Fiske Hanley was involved in testifying against the Kenpeitai. By then, Hanley was married and had a good job at General Dynamics. Late one night, he was awakened by two men from the Criminal Investigation Division who wanted to interview him then and there, and he answered their questions for about three hours. They showed him photographs and Hanley gave them information, and his testimony was notarized. Hanley talks about how the criminals were prosecuted. Asked if the war changed him, Hanley responded "of course" but he doesn't let things he can't control bother him, and he's a better person. [Annotator's Note: Hanley discretely wipes his right eye again.] He said America fought to win and did, and the rest of the world was changed. He thinks the purpose of museums such as The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is to let the younger generations know what happened in the past, so they can profit from the information.

Fiske Hanley talks about the close calls he experienced during his first six missions over the Japanese home islands. He affirmed that his motivation to bail out of his burning plane was his will to live, and was thankful for the cursory medical attention he received from the Japanese after he was captured and before he was sent to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. Hanley describes the early flaws of the B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber], and how adjustments and training cured most of its problems. He goes on to describe the living conditions on Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Mariana Islands] while he was there, and the friends he made during his stay on the island.