100-year-old World War II veteran who survived Japanese prison camp dies in Fort Worth

Fiske Hanley II, a well-known World War II veteran and former prisoner of war, died Sunday at the Trinity Terrace retirement center in Fort Worth. He was 100.

His son, 65-year-old Fiske “Tom” Hanley III, says his father “survived so much.”

He was captured and tortured by Japanese forces during World War II in 1945 after the plane he was on was shot down and crashed on enemy soil, killing eight of his crew members in March of that year. At the time, he was assigned to the 504th Bomb Group, which was tasked to bomb Japan towards the end of the war.

He was only 25 years old when he was liberated from the Japanese prisoner camp on Aug. 29, 1945. He died 20 days before the 75th anniversary of his liberation.

Tom Hanley said his father was liberated by Harold Stassen, the 25th governor of Minnesota and who unsuccessfully ran for president.

Fiske Hanley II also suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and battled dementia for almost a decade before he died.

“He was tough,” Tom Hanley said. “He was an amazing human being in a lot of ways, not perfect, but he survived so much.”

Tom Hanley recalls when he was young boy his father would have him feel the shrapnel that was still lodged in his legs when his plane was shot down.

“It would have been too painful and too cumbersome to take the flak out, but he lived just fine with it,” he said.

Fiske Hanley II was born in Brownwood, Texas, on January 14, 1920, but for 97 years he called Fort Worth home, according to his son.

He is survived by his three children, Tom Hanley; Barbara Meyer, 71; Diane Keller, 70, and five grandchildren.

Growing up, Fiske Hanley II always had a burning passion for airplanes. He even won a national airplane model competition in Detroit when he was only 17.

He then went on to pursue that same passion as an adult.

He entered the Army Air Force Aviation Cadet Training Program as an engineering student during World War II. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with an emphasis on aeronautics from Texas Tech University in 1943, and he eventually worked for 44 years as an engineer at what is now Lockheed Martin Corporation.

He worked at Lockheed until his retirement in 1989 and during his retirement, he wrote two books, “History of the 504th Bomb Group” and “Accused War Criminal: An American Kempei Tai Survivor,” where he details his 11-month experience as a prisoner in one of the most brutal Japanese prisoner camps during the war.

The 2014 film “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie, captures the harsh conditions of the prisoners who lived in that camp. The film is based on the 2010 nonfiction book by Laura Hillenbrand titled “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.” Tom Hanley says his father was interviewed by the book’s author when she was writing it, but he wasn’t depicted in the film, although Fiske Hanley II was acknowledged in the credits.

As he fought back tears, Tom Hanley said that his grandfather fought cancer at the time Fiske Hanley II was missing in action during the war.

“He held on to see my dad and both of his brothers come home from the war. He passed on shortly after. His dad got to see him again,” he said.

This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 10:00 AM.