John F. Kinney (1914-2006) Marine Corps aviator, Brigadier General. Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese struck the small U.S. garrison on Wake Island. As his squadron's engineering officer, Kinney used all of his considerable ingenuity to oversee the repair of damaged planes at Pearl Harbor. After the island's inevitable surrender, Kinney was a Japanese prisoner for more than three years and became one of the few Americans to escape Japanese captivity. His paper-back book, Wake Island Pilot, Brassey’s, 1995, first edition, signed on the half-title page, “To Debra John F. Kinney VMF 211 VMF 311.” The book is unblemished.