His World War II stories, however, remain inspirational. As a result, Kinney, along with several other veterans, is now featured on a new episode of the Fox television show, War Stories. The show chronicles the veterans' valiant but futile defense of Wake Island and subsequent hardships in Japanese prisoner of war camps.

On December 9, 1941, then a young pilot, Kinney returned to his base at Wake Island, a tiny coral atoll in the mid-Pacific Ocean, to find columns of smoke, flames and wrecked planes on the ground. Two days earlier Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and had begun a series of strikes on American installations in the Pacific.

"We sent out a unit of 12 planes [to Wake Island before the war], and the eight on the ground were totally decimated," Kinney says of the fateful day.

Kinney's plane survived because it had been escorting what would be the last commercial flight off of the atoll. Wake Island served as a stop-over for Pan American Airlines clipper flights, given the island's strategic location 2,000 miles west of Hawaii. The island's location also proved desirable to Japan. Although the flat, 6.5 kilometer atoll had no natives or natural resources, its airstrip put planes within striking distance of Hawaii.

At the outbreak of the war, the United States had 350 Marines stationed on the island. More than 1,200 American civilian contractors also living on the atoll were building an airstrip and military defenses. Following the Japanese attack, the two groups joined to defend Wake Island as best as they could. Although significantly outnumbered, the Americans on Wake Island fought off Japanese forces for 14 days and had early success when they sunk two Japanese destroyers.

Kinney did his part by using his knowledge of airplanes. His pre-war experience as a Pan American Airlines mechanic enabled him to cannibalize parts from destroyed planes to help keep the remaining fighters aloft.

"After two weeks, John was so sick and exhausted they made him go to the hospital," his wife, Bonnie, said in a recent interview at their Cupertino home.

While Kinney recovered in the hospital, the Americans at Wake Island surrendered. However, their stubborn defense of Wake Island provided an important early boost to the U.S. war efforts. Hollywood even made a patriotic movie about Wake Island at the time.

After the surrender, Japanese forces sent Kinney and most of the remaining Americans to prisoner of war camps in China. However, according to Fox's War Stories, 98 civilian contractors remained behind on Wake Island to finish building the airstrip and defenses for the Japanese. After the contractors finished the work, they were executed on a Wake Island beach.

Kinney spent 3¹/2 years in a prison camp in China. During that time, he received just two letters a year from his family in his hometown of Colfax, Wash. Kinney's weight dwindled to 128 pounds but he considers himself relatively fortunate. "Officers didn't have to work," he says. The remaining prisoners became slave laborers for Japan's wartime industries.

Towards the end of the war, Japanese forces began to relocate prisoners from China to Japan. Kinney and a few fellow soldiers decided to take advantage of the opportunity and try to escape. "We wanted to get out of there," he says.

Their window of opportunity literally came while on board a train. "We jumped out of the train at about 40 miles per hour," he says. "There were four guards in the car, and we had to go when they weren't looking. We jumped out a window and weren't sure what we were going to hit on the ground."

Kinney landed safely and spent more than a month hiding deep in the woods.

The Chinese had a loose underground network that helped Kinney and four of his fellow escapees reunite. Kinney still recalls the name of the man who spoke some English and acted as the group's interpreter, Liu Yung.

"With the help of the nationalists, we linked up with an American air base in China and they helped us get out of there," he says. All five of those who jumped off the train were rescued.

"The Chinese were very helpful," he says now, "and at some danger to themselves. If the Japanese caught Chinese helping Americans, they chopped off their heads." After the war, Kinney stayed in the Marines, even though he never received his back pay from his time as a prisoner of war.

"He earned his flying colors in the Korean War," says Bonnie. As the leader of a squadron during the Korean War, Kinney earned several medals and commendations, eventually retiring from the Marines as a brigadier general in 1959.

Kinney then went to work as a helicopter test pilot with Hiller Aviation in San Mateo. He later wrote a memoir, Wake Island Pilot, published in 1995. Some 60 years later, his wartime experiences remain close at hand. Memorabilia hangs in his home and he has a POW license plate on his car.

Kinney finds the 2003 hoopla over former Iraqi War prisoner Pvt. Jessica Lynch interesting since his own experiences were initially kept as military secrets. "The military didn't want people to know we had escaped," he says of his return to the United States in 1945. "They put a lid on the publicity." Even so, Kinney is not complaining. "We weren't very healthy," he says, "but we made it."

To find out when the Wake Island story will air on War Stories, call 202.262.4297.