POW


POW From The 504th B.G.

Fiske Hanley




Fiske Hanley When He Enlisted


Fiske Hanley When He Was A POW



Fiske Hanley is the historian for the 504th Bomb Group and lives in Fort Worth,Texas. He has written "History of the 504th Bomb Group" and "Accused American War Crimial". The stories that you can read on the other pages can be found in his book, "History of the 504th Bomb Group". The following story,told by him, about his time as a Pow comes from this book as well. The name of the B-29 that he was the Flight Engineer on, when they were shot down was "STORK CLUB BOYS". They were shot down March 27, 1945 during the Shimonoseki Straits.



POW/START&FINISH

Fiske Hanley/Brown Crew/Flight Engineer

My co-pilot, Al Andrews, and I were the only survivors of our crew when our airplane was shot down over Japan. We were captured and sent by rail with eleven other B-29 captive flyers to Tokyo. I was to spend the next six months in a hellish Tokyo dungeon and adjacent to the Emperor's Palace.

The following ANECDOTE gives a brief overview of my first hours and , six months later, my final hours as a prisoner of the Japanese Kempei Tai and their sadistic prison supervisor, "SHORTY".

APRIL 6,1945

After arrival at Tokyo's main train station, we were loaded on a balky, smoking truck. We chugged through the totally destroyed city-center and stopped in the alleyway behind a five storied modern office building. This was the command headquarters for the entire Japanese Army military Police organization. The guards and officers of the Kempei Tai were mostly combat veterans from throughout the Japanese Imperial Army. They were specially selected for their sadistic talents. Hitler's Gestapo and SS could have taken lessons from these inhuman brutes. They were the worst of the worst.

Dangerous looking Kempei guards, fully armed with bayonetted rifles, immediately surrounded our truck. An agitated Kempei officer came out of the building, accompanied by a civilian wearing black framed eyeglasses with thick lenses. The civilian spoke excellent English. He had learned English as a child in California and while a student at the University of Ohio.

He screamed at us, "Stand at attention like Japanese soldiers".He rocked back on his heels and harangued us about Japan's war successes. He informed us that we had arrived at the Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army's Kempei Tai Secret Police where we would be made to pay for our criminal atrocities against Japanese civilians. Our imprisonment would not be reported to Allied authorities. We were told that because we had killed women and children we were not to be treated as POW's but as "Special Prisoners". He shouted that we would be on half POW food rations and receive no medical aid. We would be caged like animals without sanitary provisions. His last sentence was, "You are War Criminals and will be tried and executed for your crimes against the Japanese people".

We were made to stand at rigid attention for over two hours while negotiations and paper signing took place between the train guard commander and the black suited, booted, self-important civilian. This pompous, haughty little bastard's name was Yasuo Kobayashi. We nicknamed him, "Shorty".

"Shorty" was in charge of American prisoner interrogations and their imprisonment at the Kempei Tai Headquarters. We were to find out the hard way that he was in charge of our lives. He was responsible for all of our suffering. He decided who was to live, who was to die, and who was to be tortured. He thrived on our misery. He quickly reduced us to animals. He ordered daily beatings and often additional beatings. He shortened our rations when we were already starving. He continually stomped through our dungeon screaming threats and harassing us because we continued to live. He refused all medical aid even for the dying and enjoyed watching them suffer as they died. He was diretly responsible for the deaths of many prisoners and the continual agony suffered by the rest of us.

We were to become well acquainted with this cruel, vicious, sadistic, inhuman little S.O.B. "Shorty" was the embodiment of all evil things written about Japanese cruelty and atrocities. I could not then, nor can not now, imagine why anyone so vile should be allowed on this earth.

After "registration" we were marched into the building where I was separated from the others, marched into a small room in the basement and shoved onto a chair in front of a desk. When my blindfold was removed I found that I was starring at the face of a young Kempei Tai sergeant. He was an interrogator and I was to meet with him many times.

"Shorty" stuck his head into the room and barked an order. A guard picked up a bamboo bat and beat me across the head. this was my introduction to the Japanese sport of Kendo and the Kendo bat. Its blows were painful.

Throughout the interrogation, which lasted serveral hours, "Shorty" would bounce in and out of the room and each time I would be beaten with the bat or pounded with a rifle butt. If I was on the floor "Shorty" would kick me with his heavy hob-nailed boots. He had a document that he demanded I sign which said that we had been ordered by our government to kill women and children. Each time I refused I received more blows and kicks.

When I was no longer able to talk, sit, stand or walk, I was dragged, like a sack of garbage, to a foul smelling, damp dungeon cell. I heard a key turn in the lock just before I passed out.

SIX MONTHS AND MUCH AGONY LATER

AUGUST 15,1945

Before dawn there was a big commotion outside my dungeon cell. Each one-man-cell's eight occupants were rudely awakened by bayonet thrusts through the bars and the shouts of surly Kempei guards. "Shorty" was screaming orders. The guards opened cell doors and ordered the American prisoners out of the cells. The Japanese political prisoners were left in the cells. This was certanly a change in our usual routine. We knew that something BIG was happening.

Piles of shoes were dumped on the floor outside the cells. We were ordered to find a size that fit and put them on. In our emaciated condition all shoes were larger than our bony feet. We were blindfolded, handcuffed, and herded out into the building's courtyard-hurried along with shoves of gun butts but without the usual gun butt blows and beatings.

"Shorty" was waving his arms and yelling, ordering the guards to rush the prisoners outside. He wanted us "OUT" of that dungeon and they couldn't do it quick enough to please him.

Outside it was still dark. In the courtyard American B-29 prisoners were spilling from the dungeon cells and the horse stable cells. there must have been over a hundred prisoners assembled-along with that many Kempei guards.

The guards were excited, shouting to each other and rushing around tying ropes around the prisoners' necks. "Shorty" was giving orders to everyone. I suspected that the little bastard was taking us to be executed. I had been marched out to my execution before and survived; maybe I would live through whatever was to happen this time.

Several big Japanese Army trucks were lined up with their engines running, their stinking exhaust smoke billowing. We were ordered to get into the trucks. There was one guard guarding each prisoner. We were in such poor physical condition and so weak that they had to lift us onto the truck beds. Surprisingly, the Kempei guards didn't hit a single prisoner with kendo bats or rifle butts.

After all were loaded, "Shorty" crawled into the back of the last truck-the one on which I had been placed. He sat down next to me. I expected to be kicked with those heavy boots that he wore and to be verbally abused. Instead, he looked over at me and politely asked, "HOW ARE YOU"?

HOW WAS I? I jerked around to be sure my seat mate was "Shorty" HOW WAS I? Now I KNEW that something was very much amiss. All he had wanted since I first saw him was my demise; now he had cheerfully asked about my welfare. Thanks to him, my welfare was awful....and he asks, "HOW ARE YOU"? I was so surprised and shocked that I could only gasp.

An order was shouted and the trucks started moving just as the sun appeared on the horizon. Even with the foul exhaust smoke the fresh outside air smelled so good. The sunrise was another treat. I hadn't seen daylight since I left that train six months before. "HOW WAS I"? I felt better than I had in months. The good news was that we were leaaving Kempei Tai Headquarters-the bad news was that "Shorty" was leaving with us.

There were ten or more Japanese army trucks in our convoy. As we drove along, I worried that our P-51 or Navy fighters might show up and attack our long column of military vehicles. They didn't. In fact, we saw no aircraft in the skies overhead all that morning.

Our trucks travelled through destroyed urban areas. Even blindfolded with a flimsy paper blindflod I could easily view the landscape from the back of the truck. Ragged people were living in makeshift shelters constructed from scrap iron and other scrounged materials. The scenes were awful. I don't know how the Emperor and his military could justify letting the war drag on, forcing the populace to exist under such abject conditions. Our Kempei guards were fully armed and ready for trouble from the civilians, but there were no threats by the people we saw. Except for the truck noises, there were no sounds. The city of Tokyo was dead!

The area we were passing through was one of devastation. everything was burned to the ground. I noticed burned-out machine tools scattered around. I saw lathes, milling machines, and drill presses abandoned in the ruins of small houses. These were the machines that had been operated by "innocent women and children" engaged in home industries providing the Japanese military with parts to be assembled in larger war factories. General LeMay had been right to destroy Japanese urban areas.

After about fifteen miles of rumbling along we finally approached a large body of water. It was Tokyo Bay. The convoy parked on the side of a road that ran parallel to the shore about a hundred yards from the water's edge. Between the road and the water was a vegetable garden and on down the road was a wooden bridge which connected the mainland with a small island. On the island were several wooden buildings enclosed by a wooden stockade wall.

The Kempeis unloaded the prisoners and marched us through the growing vegetables to the edge of the bay. The ground was sandy and soft and the plants made walking difficult. Some of the worst-case prisoners could't stand up, much less walk. They crawled or were dragged by guards through the tangled vines to the shore. No one was left in the trucks.

Our guards removed the blindfolds, handcuffs and the ropes around our throats. The bright sunlight was blinding to our eyes, unaccustomed to light from months of darkened imprisonment. We were like mules who had lived their whole lives in a mine and saw sunlight for the first time when they were too old to work anymore and were brought to the surface.

We were ordered to remove our filthy clothing and wash off in the bay. I looked back toward the trucks and saw that the Kempeis were setting up several machine guns pointed in our direction. "Shorty" was directing them

The guards left us at the water's edge and moved back with the Kempei troops behind the machine guns. Our prisoner group was alone in the bay, standing in the water, naked. I looked around and saw starved boney bodies which looked like human skeletons. Angry red spots caused by flea bites covered our entire bodies. Our matted beards and long hair were awful looking. We looked as bad or worse than Hitler's Holocaust victims.

This was the first time that I had had my clothes off in six months. I could see that most of my flak wounds had skinned over, but were still red and unhealthy looking. My unhealed wounds were open and oozing pus. I carefully washed these as best I could with the clean bay waters. The salt water stung, but in a way felt good.

Many prisoners were crying with joy, others were laughing and splashing around in the wonderful clean water. We were overjoyed to be breathing fresh clean air and seeing the sun again. I knew that we might be machine-gunned any minute but at this moment I didn't care. I was so happy to feel like a clean human being again.

The Kempei guards were in a huddle by the machine guns. "Shorty" was dancing around, waving his arms and arguing. It was obvious that the argument was between "Shorty" and the others who seemed to be banded together and against whatever "Shorty" wanted them to do.

I later learned from Al Andrews, who had arrived at the bay after we did, that he'd overheard guards arguing about whether or not to machine-gun the whole prisoner group. The Japanese knew, but we didn't, that just that morning the Emperor had announced over the radio that "THE WAR WAS OVER".

The night before, on August 14, 1945, Kempei Tai Headquartes Commander, Colonel Keijiro Otani, ordered his diputy, Lt. Colonel Ranjo Fujino, to:

"IMMEDIATELY EXECUTE ALL AMERICAN PRISONERS"

After giving the order to execute the American prisoners Colonel Otani committed suicide. Fujino refused to carry out this slaughter. He was afraid that if the victorious Americans found out that he had been guilty of such a massacre he would pay dearly for this final artocity.

Our Kempei guards refused to obey "Shorty" and decided to follow Fujino's lead and let us live. They knew that it wouldn't be in their best interests to machine-gun all the American prisoners who had been held by the Kempei Tai.

Our guards returned to the water's edge and ordered us to dress again in our vermin ridden ragged clothing. Each prisoner, guarded by one guard, was marched or dragged back across the garden and assembled near the wooden bridge. We watched as a contingent of Japanese soldiers marched toward us from the walled compound on the island.

"Shorty" shouted that the Kempei Tai was turning us over to the regular Japanese Army who ran the prison that we could see on the island. He stepped back and a senior Japanese Army officer stepped forward and haughtily told us that we would be marched into the prison compound. I tried to keep up with the rapid pace, but couldn't. I was winded and could barely walk.

We left "Shorty" behind and no one told him "good-bye". If I had looked back and had seen the ground open up and the devil reach out and grab him, I wouldn't have been surprised.

As we moved toward the camp, I saw Hanks. He was dragging himself along and laughing. He and I had been cell mates and had both escaped death because our names were confused. I saw Al Andrews. He was still wearing the long Japanese army overcoat he had been given the night we had been shot down. He trotted along and looked over at me, grinned, and waved. He looked great! I looked around, vainly looking for the rest of our crew...but there was only Al and me.

I WAS NO LONGER A CAGED ANIMAL AT KEMPEI TAI HEADQUARTERS. I WAS GOING TO A REGULAR PRISON CAMP. WHATEVER WAS AHEAD, IT HAD TO BE MUCH BETTER THAN THE HELL HOLE I HAD JUST LEFT.

For the first time in many months, I dared think that I might live to see the end of the war. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might see the United States again. I might even get back to Fort Worth and see my parents. I felt the first glimmer of hope.

What a strange feeling.........HOPE!



IT'S A SMALL WORLD

Fiske Hanley/Flight Engineer/Brown Crew

During my stay in Japan as a guest of the Emperor, I was held as a war criminal (special prisoner) awaiting trial accused of killing innocent women and children. I was held in the dungeon of Japanese military Police Headquarters in the middle of Tokyo across the moat from my host's palace. These sadistic captors were the dreaded Kempei Tai or Thought Police. They imprisoned all Japanese political prisoners and war criminals.

I had been a prisoner for two months and had sat through some terrific bombings of the Tokyo urban area by my 20th Air Force colleagues. We special prisoners were not allowed to bathe, shave,or perform any other civilized sanition practice. Iwas pretty unkempt, dirty, and unrecognizeable.

On 25 May 1945, Tokyo was hit by a maximum effort B-29 incendiary raid. The stream of Superfortresses continued for several hours beginning right after midnight. In our dungeon cells, which already held some 20 or so American special prisoners, we could hear the low level bombers going over. There were two Japanese flak batteries adjacent to our prison placed to protect the palace. These batteries were continually firing during the raid. The flak barrage was so heavy that I could smell cordite from the burned explosives. Every now and then I heard excited cheering and clapping from what sounded like a large crowd of Japanese observers. These sounds could only mean that one of our B-29's had been fatally hit. There were too many crowd reactions. I think that over 30 B-29's were shot down that night. The B-29 Superfortresses were being hit very often, too often!

Even though standing 20th Air Force orders specified that the Emperor's palace was not to be bombed, on this night the terrific fire-storm generated by the heavy incendiary attack jumped the moat, set fire to, and destroyed the Wooden portion of the palace. Fortunately for me, the Kempei prison was not hit.

The raid knocked out Tokyo's electricity. Lights in Kempei Headquarters were out after the bombing. Shortly after dawn, several new prisoners were brought to the Kempei dungeon. Three of them were put in my small cell. Their heads and faces had been shaved. Even though their clothes appeared dirty and bedraggled, their persons were bathed and clean.

Being caught talking resulted in severe beatings by the brutal guards. With the lights out in the dark dungeon, the Japanese guards couldn't see into our unlighted cell and I rapidly learned more about the strange circumstance surrounding the sudden appearance of these new Kempei prisoners.

Those brought into my cell were members of Lt.Bill Grounds crew. They were from the 6th Bomb Group, 313th Wing on Tinian-my wing. They had been shot down two months earlier during the 27 March 1945 mining mission to the Shimonoseki Straits. The very same mission that I was shot down on. They had been brought to Tokyo on the same train with me and instead of being placed in Kempei Tai Headquarters had been imprisoned in a small suburban jail which had caught fire and burned down during last night's raid. They had been left locked in the jail to perish in the flames by their guards, but had broken out and helped the Japanese fight fires near the jail. A Japanese army colonel who was passing by noticed them. He observed their miserable appearance and ordered that they immediately be bathed, deloused, and shaved.

Due to their fire fighting assiatance, they were not bothered by the Japanese locals and were marched to Kempei Tai Headquarters after being cleaned up. They were lucky to survive this night!

As the four of us sat in the dark cell, one of the shaved headed B-29 airmen who was seated opposite me in the five by nine foot cell was fixedly staring at me. I wondered what he was so curious about. I probably looked with a wild animal with my accumulated filth and two month beard growth along with mangy flea and louse ridden hair. After a looking me over for awhile, he said that he thought that he knew me. I looked at him carefully to see if I could recognize him. People with no head hair do look much different than normal. In the dim light, I couldn't recognize him at all. He asked me if I was from Fort Worth. Amazing! That was my home town. He asked if I'd gone to North Texas Agricultural College and taken aeronautical engineering. I had! He asked my name. I told him and he said that he had gone to college with me before the war and that his name was Bill Grounds. I recognized his name and had been his classmate in many engineering courses. A small World! A super coincidence! From the same B-29 Wing, shot down on the same mission, same train to Tokyo, same cell in Tokyo, classmates in the same college taking the same courses, and from the same hometown.

Hard to believe! A post-war note: Had I not met Bill Grounds in Tokyo, I probably would not have met and married my wife, Betty, because Bill Grounds' wife, Dorothy, introduced me to several American Airline stewardesses, after the war. I picked the prettiest and the sweetest and married her.



If you would like to read more from either of the Books "History of the 504th Bombardment Group" or "Accused American War Criminal" written by Fiske Hanley, you can drop me a line and I will see that Fiske gets your request. Thank you for spending this time with us and our memories.

Have a minute, Drop me a Line.

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