Presentation Date: October 24, 1996
Gen. John Kinney
Defense of Wake Island, his capture by the Japanese and escape from prisoner train in China 4 years later Defense of Wake Island, his capture by the Japanese and escape from prisoner train in China 4 years later
A good turnout of members and guests at our October 24th meeting were riveted to Gen. John Kinney's (USMC , ret.) story of the defense of Wake Island, his capture by the Japanese and his escape from a prisoner train in China four years later.
Kinney first landed at Wake Island on December 4th, 1941, after launching that morning from the carrier Enterprise. On board Admiral Halsey's flagship, machine guns and gun sights had been hastily mounted on VMF-211's Wildcats. Halsey "prepped" the Marine pilots with Battle Order Number One - - "the Enterprise is steaming under war conditions." Kinney says, "We had three days to get ready for war. We didn't realize it was that close."
VMF-211 had only twelve F4Fs on Wake, with the huge job of patrolling for and attacking the Japanese invasion fleet. On one sortie, Kinney recalled diving through a formation of dive bombers. A bullet crashed through the windscreen, shattering one lens of the goggles perched on top of his head, without harming Kinney. When the Marine made his second head-on pass, the plane he'd been shooting at was no longer there, but he wasn't really thinking about getting credit for it.
As the battle for Wake continued, planes were lost, with no replacements and no spare parts. Kinney, his fellow pilots and crew joined the ranks of troops behind battlements and held off the Japanese until surrender on December 24th.
Kinney joined thousands of Allied soldiers and sailors in Japanese captivity on the Chinese mainland. While enduring torture, abuse and hardships in the camp near Shanghai, Kinney scrounged parts to build a crystal radio set. He used it to keep abreast of the news of the war and bolster spirits in the face of inhumane treatment.
In May of 1945, Kinney and a handful of fellow prisoners escaped from a train boxcar near Nanking. All four in his party made good their escape. The sixty days after the daring night escape included travel with Chinese Communists, before they transferred him to Nationalist troops who took him to a U.S. air base.
Kinney also related his experiences in Korea, as Operations Officer for MAG-12. There, he distinguished himself by helping solve problems with F9F Panthers. After a series of fuel pump failures, the Marines were ready to set aside the F9Fs for proven, propellor-driven aircraft. But Kinney, determined to show the F9Fs were the right ride, discovered the fuel pump filters were too small for their housings, allowing rust from fuel drums used to refill the jets to clog the pumps. Kinney located some sheets of neoprene and cut washers for the fuel filters. From then on they had few problems with the Panther's fuel controls
Kinney also talked about the role he played in helping Ed Heinemann work up the specifications for the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, a plane that served the navy and Marines for more than three decades.
Kinney's World War II memoirs are told in his new book Wake Island Pilot.