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CHARLES H. BROWN, 91, resides in Kingwood, West Virginia where he was born and raised. Upon graduating high school in the spring of 1942, he enlisted in the V-5 program (
Naval Aviation Cadet) of the U.S. Navy. In the period 1942 to 1945, the Navy produced 61,658 pilots - more than 2.5 times the number of pilots as the Imperial Japanese Navy. After a semester at
Potomac State College in Keyser, West Virginia, he traveled to Washington, DC to impress upon the Office of Naval Personnel that he was ready to enlist. He entered active duty February 10, 1943 and took Navy pre-flight training at the
University of Georgia at Athens. After advanced training in Kansas and Texas, he was commissioned an Ensign on April 1, 1944. After training to fly a
Douglas SBD Dauntless (divebomber) at the
Naval Air Station in Deland, Florida, he was sent to the
Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois for carrier training and then to the
Naval Air Station Astoria, Oregon to learn to fly a
SB2C Curtiss Helldiver. He left San Francisco on January 20, 1945, aboard the
USS Randolph CV15 assigned to the VB-12 of Carrier Air Group 12 known as “
Crommelin’s Thunderbirds” after their legendary
Commander Charles Crommelin. They were engaged in the first carrier strikes against Japan. Barely 26 days at sea and on his first mission, Brown was shot down on February 16, 1945 by anti-aircraft fire while bombing a factory. He made a water landing on
Lake Kasumigaura, Japan’s second-largest lake, which is about 35 miles northeast of Tokyo. Villagers from Kamiotsu (today’s Tsuchiura in Ibaraki Prefecture) captured him and his gunner. They paraded the men to authorities with their hands tied behind their backs, blindfolded, and subject to local women hitting them with their geta (wooden shores). At the train station, Brown was briefly positioned for what he thought was to be a beheading. Instead, he was jerked to his feet and put on a train to Tokyo and the Kempeitai’s Regional Headquarters. There he was subject to continual, ruthless interrogation and kept in a filthy horse stall with a Japanese civilian, who was possibly an informer, and a Korean civilian, who taught him how to use chopsticks. Brown was not considered a POW; he was a criminal, a “special prisoner” outside any protections of military custom. After two weeks he was then taken from Tokyo to the notorious
Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center in the historic seaside town of Kamakura. After a month of solitary confinement in a 6’ x 8’ cell, he was permitted to mix with other prisoners, but not to speak. At Ofuna, there was continual mental and physical torture on top of starvation and minimal sanitation. The Ofuna interpreter told the prisoners that there was a standing order that if the Japanese homeland was invaded, all prisoners were to be executed. While at Ofuna, he witnessed a “delivery” of young comfort women to the guards, which temporarily displaced the prisoners from their cells for the guards’ “recreation.” Sometime near July 1, 1945, the survivors were transferred to the
Omori POW Camp Tokyo #1, an island in Tokyo Bay built by POWs. Finally, the prisoners were permitted to talk to each other and have their wounds treated. However, the special prisoners were kept in a separate barracks surrounded by barbwire and not allowed to associate with the other POWs. By late July, physically and mentally fading, he was confronted by another prisoner, flying ace
Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington who cajoled him to “hang in there.” And he did. On August 15th, the Emperor’s address to the nation telling his people to stop fighting was broadcast throughout the camp. Much to Brown’s surprise the ‘kill all order” was not given and, instead, each special prisoner was given an envelope of Japanese currency for their “time” at Ofuna. Suffering from severe malnutrition, Brown barely remembers the next two weeks. On August 28, 1945, weighing 97 pounds, he was taken aboard the U.S. hospital ship
Benevolence and soon flown back to the United States to recuperate from the after effects of beriberi, dysentery, avitaminosis, and beatings. After leaving the Navy in January 1946, he returned home and enrolled in West Virginia University where he received his AB and LLB in 1950. Brown became an attorney and practiced real estate and banking law for 50 years. He did not receive help for his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from the Veterans Administration (VA) until 1997, but he credits the VA counseling service with helping rid him of his persistent nightmares. He has been married to Betty for 67 years. They had three children. Some of Mr. Brown’s experiences as a POW are included in James Bradley’s 2004 best-selling history,
Fly Boys: A True Story of Courage and Roy W. Bruce’s 1994
Crommelin's Thunderbirds: Air Group 12 Strikes the Heart of Japan. Mr. Brown’s POW memoir and oral history can be found at the Library of Congress’
Veterans History Project.
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WILLIAM L. CONNELL, 91, lives in Edina, Minnesota. Born in Bakersfield, California, he grew up in Seattle, Washington. At 17, after graduating high school, he enlisted August 29, 1942 in the U.S. Navy and was sent to Yakima, Washington to join the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) to learn to fly. The Yakima Composite Squadron is one the few remaining original CAP Charter Squadrons. In January 1943, he began his
Naval Aviation Cadet training at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. In April, he was sent to flight school at
Naval Air Station Olathe, Gardner Kansas where they trained on the
N3N Yellow Peril bi-plane for two months. Next was the
Pensacola Naval Air Station to learn to fly a variety modern aircraft. He graduated in December 1943 becoming an Ensign and Naval Aviator. He spent the next three months in
Douglas SBD Dauntless (divebomber) training at
the Deland Naval Air Station in Florida and then six weeks at the
Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois for carrier training on Lake Michigan. Next was training on the new
SB2C Curtiss Helldiver at Naval Air Station Barbers Point, Connell was assigned as a replacement pilot to Air Group 2 aboard the
USS Hornet (CV-12), which he joined on June 29, 1944 at the
Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Enewetak, captured in February 1944, was a major forward base for the U.S. Navy during the rest of the war. After the war, the atoll was used for nuclear testing as part of the
Pacific Proving Grounds. Forty-three nuclear tests were fired at Enewetak from 1948 to 1958. Connell’s first and last mission was July 4, 1944. After a predawn takeoff, Connell and his gunner, Ben Wolf, approached the small volcanic island of Chichijima in the Bonins, known today as the Ogasawara Islands. Their squadron was to bomb one of the heavily-garrisoned island's two radio bunkers, but as they approached their objective, they spotted two Japanese freighters entering the harbor. They decided to attack them as targets of opportunity. But before Connell had a chance to drop his bombs, an anti-aircraft shell exploded beside his airplane, tearing off the tail section. Although Connell was able to parachute out safely, his gunner did not. He landed in the waters near Chichijima and was captured. His first day was spent strapped to a tree in an excruciatingly painful position that prevented him from sitting. In the week that followed, he was either tied to the tree or being interrogated. While he was on the island, eight American aviators were captured, beheaded, and partially cannibalized for dinners by the General Staff. Five Japanese officers were eventually hanged for these crimes that were chronicled by Chester G. Hearn in his 2003
Sorties into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima. Connell has the distinction of being the last American to leave the island alive. He was taken to Japan to the
Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center in Kamakura, about 30 miles southwest of Tokyo. He spent nearly ten months there enduring isolation, brutal interrogation, and starvation. In April 1945, he was transferred to the
Omori POW Camp Tokyo #1, an island in Tokyo Bay built by POWs. Today, the island is
Heiwajima, a motorboat racing venue. Considered a “special prisoner” he and other aviators were kept in a separate barracks away from the other POWs on the island. They were considered criminals, not captives. Those who could work were sent out into the firebombed Tokyo to clear the rubble and salvage building materials. Daily, they were threatened with execution if Japan lost the war. Fellow prisoner, the Marine Corps flying ace
Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington organized Connell and other to fight back if the Japanese tried to enact this plan. In the end, this was not necessary and their Japanese captors disappeared soon after the Emperor’s speech ending hostilities on August 15, 1945. After liberation at the end of August, he was flown back to the United States to recuperate at the Naval Air Station, Sandpoint, Seattle Washington hospital. Despite his ordeals, he remained in the Navy and retired in 1964 as a Lieutenant Commander. He spent the next 23 years as a State Farm Insurance agent. After his second retirement, he worked for the next 11 years in various positions at the
Minnesota Valley Country Club in Bloomington, Minnesota. Connell has since turned his attention toward educating children about the history of World War II and mentoring them through golf and tennis. In 2012, he
took his second parachute jump, but this time under much more controlled circumstances in Minnesota. He has also returned to Chichijima several times--once with President George H.W. Bush, who was also shot down near the island. Twice married, Connell is the father of four children. He is mentioned prominently in James Bradley’s 2004 best-selling history,
Fly Boys: A True Story of Courage. His oral history has been recorded by the
POW Oral History Project, based at Concordia University, St Paul as well as by the Library of Congress’
Veterans History Project.
SCOTT M. DOWNING, JR, 96, resides in Amarillo, Texas. He was working for Boeing Aircraft making
B-17s in Seattle, Washington when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1942. He was not called to active duty until February 15, 1943 and he began his basic training at
Buckley Field, Denver, Colorado (today’s Buckley AFB). He was then sent to
Fort Hays State College in Kansas for Cadet Training and then to Bombardier School at
Big Spring, Texas. In June 1944, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and sent to
Harvard Army Airfield, Nebraska (today’s Harvard State Airport) and the
505th Bombardment Group for
B-29 training. In mid-December 1944, he reported to Grand Island Army Airfield, Nebraska (today’s
Central Nebraska Regional Airport) to pick up a new B-29 plane and was sent to Tinian to join the 482 BS, 313 Wing, 505 Bombardment Group, 20th Air Force in the Mariana Islands, arriving December 27th. Raids against
Japan from Tinian had started November 24, 1944. His crew’s bombing and mining missions began on January 29, 1945. On their 20th mission over Tokyo on May 25/26, 1945, his B-29 was shot down near Musai, about 15 miles northeast of Tokyo in Chiba Prefecture. He bailed out of the burning plane and was captured almost immediately by civilians who turned him over to military personnel. The next day he and three other members of his crew were trucked through bombed-out downtown Tokyo to the
Kempeitai Tokyo Regional Headquarters. After initial interrogations and beatings, he was thrown in a cell that was about 8’ x 12’. These were converted horse stalls that often held 19 men per cell including some that were critically burned and injured. For roughly three months, Downing subsisted on a baseball-sized ball of rice each day, and his weight fell from 165 to 120 pounds. These months were marked by a horrible monotony of fear and homesickness, occasionally interrupted by guard-administered beatings and sadistic interrogations. The men were not allowed to talk, wash, shave, or receive medical care. Conditions were so tight that when everyone would lie down to sleep, the only way to turn over was to stand in place, turn, and then lie back down. Throughout the day and night, they listened to fellow POWs–some of whom had been severely burned–scream in pain or insanity and struggle to take one more breath before their breathing stopped altogether. It is estimated that 250 American flyers were brought the Kempeitai Tokyo Regional Headquarters, but only 160 survived. On August 15, 1945, Downing and his fellow prisoners were moved to a barbed wire-surrounded barracks on a five-acre man-made island between Tokyo and Yokohama called
Omori POW Camp Tokyo #1. This move was part of an agreement between the United States and Japan in anticipation of the end of the war. It was a tough camp but a relief from the Kempeitai horse stalls. On Omori, the prisoners had more freedom and could talk, bathe and exercise. On August 29, 1945, the over 500 POWs including 155 B-29 flyers on Omori became the first liberated by American forces. After the war he was in and out of
Madigan General Hospital (today’s
Madigan Army Medical Center) at Fort Lewis, Washington. He remained in the service and was assigned duty in the spring of 1946 at Clinton County Air Base in Ohio. In April 1947, he was ordered to Japan and was sent to the 611th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at
Shiroi Air Base (today’s
Shimofusa Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces Air Base) located northeast of Tokyo. Downing was soon asked to help investigate the atrocities committed by the Tokyo Kempeitai for war crimes prosecution in Yokohama. Working in the Investigation Division of the Legal Section of General Headquarters, Japan, he helped interrogate Japanese defendants and assisted the prosecutor by preparing the witnesses. He also testified concerning conditions and the treatment of the prisoners at the Tokyo regional Kempeitai Headquarters. Discharged from the Air Force while in Japan, he concluded his part of the investigation in early fall of 1948 and returned to the United States and Canyon, Texas. He then entered the construction business with his two brothers. Downing has been married to Bitsy for 64 years and they have one son. He enjoys fishing and watching college sports. His
oral history is held by the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress.
FISKE HANLEY II, 95, lives in Fort Worth, Texas where he grew up. Always fascinated with aviation, he earned an AS in Aero Engineering from North Texas Agricultural College (today’s
University of Texas at Arlington) and in 1943 a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Technology College (
today’s Texas Tech University). In his junior year, he was accepted into the
Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. Immediately after graduation, he was sent to the Boca Raton Army Airfield, Florida for cadet training for engineering, meteorological, and communications. The base was created from
appropriated land of Japanese-Americans. In September 1943, he was sent to
Yale University for specialized technical training and graduated in February 1944 with a second lieutenant’s commission. With only 20 members of his Yale class, Hanley was sent to B-29 flight engineering school at the Seattle Boeing factory. Graduating in August, he was assigned to the 504th Bombardment Group training as a flight engineer at Fairmont Army Air Field, Nebraska. In January, his air crew commanded by 2nd. Lt. John A Brown made their way to Tinian. They flew 16 missions, seven considered combat, which included the March 10, 1945 bombing of Tokyo. Hanley’s plane was shot down on March 27, 1945 while mining the Strait of Shimonoseki. One of only two crew members who survived the plane’s destruction, he parachuted into a rice paddy near Ueki, southwest of Yawata, near the steel mills of Kokura on Kyushu Island [today the mills have become
UNESCO World Industrial Heritage sites]. His first eight days were spent in or near Kokura at a police station and a military facility. He had his wounds treated twice and he believes he was questioned by a high level Combined Fleet Command about his mission to mine Shimonoseki Straits. In early April, Hanley and 12 other B-29 captured crew members were taken north over 600 miles by train to Tokyo. On April 6th, the group arrived in Tokyo. Before reaching the
Kempeitai Tokyo Regional Headquarters, the prisoners’ guards took the time to reward themselves by visiting a Comfort Station, or military brothel. The American flyers were taken to filthy, basement 4’11’ x 9’10” dungeons or “pig boxes” [buta bako] and told that they would either die of their wounds in or be executed. They were “special prisoners,” considered criminals who murdered women and children and lower than the vermin that would infest their cells and bodies. Eight men, a mixture of B-29 crewmen and Japanese political prisoners, were crammed into these cells. Except for one light bulb that burned 24 hours a day in the corridor, these cells were continually shrouded in gloom. Eventually he was sent to a cell holding 19 other men in an 8’ x 12’ horse stall in the back of Kempeitai Tokyo Regional headquarters. Many mortally wounded men were thrown into these cells. Hanley still has nightmares of their groans and screams of agony as they slowly succumbed to their injuries. Subject to constant beatings and brutal interrogations, Hanley and the other POWs were quickly fading from starvation, torture, untreated wounds, unsanitary conditions, and misery. One tormentor, the English-speaking
Yasuo Kobayashi particularly stands out for his cruelty. He seemed to thrive on the prisoners’ agony and enjoy their suffering. He was directly responsible for the deaths of many prisoners and the continual torment of the rest. Although sentenced postwar to 40 years hard labor, he was released in 1952 and settled into a peaceful and successful life in Hawaii. On August 15th, the surviving POWs were taken to
Omori POW Camp Tokyo #1 a prison camp island constructed by American POWs. Still “special prisoners” they were separated from the other POWs, but allowed more freedom, given medical attention, and could talk, bathe and exercise. On August 29, 1945, the over 500 POWs including 155 B-29 flyers on Omori became the first liberated by American forces. Camp Omori also housed Olympian Louis Zamperini, a WWII hero at the center of
Unbroken, a film by Angelina Jolie based on the best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand. Hanley was a “source for Unbroken” and he was invited to the movie’s Hollywood premiere in 2014. After liberation and medical care on the U.S. hospital ship
Benevolence, he was flown back to the United States. He was treated at
Letterman Army Hospital and then went home to Texas on leave. He was discharged from the Army Air Corps and married to Betty, an American Airlines stewardess, in June 1946. He went to work as an engineer for Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft in Fort Worth, which became Convair, then General Dynamics, and now today’s
Lockheed Martin. He worked on developing new bombers and fighters as well as NASA’s Saturn V moon rocket. He retired in 1989 and wrote
The History of the 504th Bomb Group in World War II and then his autobiography,
Accused American War Criminal: One of Few Survivors of Japanese Kempei Tai Military Police Brutality. Married to Betty for 23 years they had three children.
DONALD E. RYAN, 93, lives in Sebring, Florida. He grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps on November 16, 1942. He did his basic training at the
Big Spring Army Air Force Bombardier School in Texas. In January 1943, he was sent to the
Gulfport Army Air Field in Mississippi for aircraft training on P-39/P-40s and other older planes. He then trained at Boeing’s B-29 flight engineering school in Renton, Washington. In August 1943, he was assigned to the
794-468th Bombardment Group; 58th Wing, 20th Air Force at the Smoky Hill Army Airfield Salina, Kansas with the first group to train on the B-29 Superfortress. In January 1944, the 468th Bombardment Group shipped out to the
Kalaikunda Air Force Station in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. It was
one of four B-29 bases established by the U.S. in India. Ryan flew as a tail gunner in the 16 missions they had in India which included flying gasoline and bombs over the “hump” (the Himalayan Mountains) to China; bombing railyards and docks in Bangkok, Singapore, and Sumatra. The crew also participated in the bombing the steel mills at Yawata on Kyushu (today an
UNESCO World Industrial Heritage site). In April 1945, they were reassigned to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. On their second mission, May 25-26, 1945 to bomb Tokyo, his plane was attacked and hit by fighter planes and those that could, bailed out. Ryan landed on a farmer’s fence near today’s Misato in Saitama prefecture close to Tokyo. The local Kempeitai official, who identified himself as having attended the University of Michigan, questioned him while “playing” Russian roulette on him. This intimidation was reinforced by taking Ryan to a saw mill and alternatively trying to stuff him into a casket or pushing him toward the buzz saw. He was soon turned over to military authorities in Tokyo and told he was a “special prisoner,” undeserving of care or POW status. He was taken to the
Kempeitai Tokyo Regional Headquarters near the Imperial Palace. He was put in an 8’ x 10’ cell that was once a horse stall with 16 other men. Flies and lice soon turned his and his cellmates’ skin into unending open boils and infections. Continual beatings, starvation, darkness, filth, random cruelty by the guards, and dehydration wore on his humanity and morale. He endured the slow deaths of two badly burned fliers who were added to his cell. On August 15th, the horse stalls were emptied and the prisoners were taken to Tokyo Bay to wash in the surf and then to
Omori POW Camp Tokyo #1. Still “special prisoners,” the men were held in barracks separate from the other POWs on this man-made island outside Tokyo. It was a tough camp but the prisoners had more freedom and could talk, bathe and exercise. On August 29, 1945, the over 500 POWs including 155 B-29 flyers on Omori became the first liberated by American forces. Ryan was evacuated to the USS
Benevolence and soon flown to Hawaii to take a ship back to the United States. He spent at least six months in the
Edward Hines, Jr., Veterans Administration Hospital outside Chicago and was discharged from the Army Air Corps in mid-1946. Ryan returned home to Kalamazoo where he worked with his brother in a truck leasing business and for a number of years owned the Otsego Inn. He has five children from his first marriage. He enjoys dancing and married his fourth wife in 2013.
7TH POW JAPAN TRIP, DECEMBER 5-14, 2015
The following five American veterans, members of the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Navy, travel to Japan on a Japanese government-funded program of remembrance and reconciliation. They will visit the sites of their capture, torture, and rescue as well as several Japanese cultural properties.