A trumpeter in Jimmy Dorsey’s band, Kinnan was a bomber pilot in World War II. He was shot down and captured, and housed in the German Luft Stalag 3 POW camp.
The Red Cross provided some musical instruments for the prisoners, so Kinnan started a band. The book (and 1963 movie) The Great Escape tells the story of a massive escape from Stalag 3; the band’s music helped provide cover and diversion while the tunnel was dug. “In real life, my dad organized and led that band,” says Kinnan’s son, Walter.
Kinnan was part of a special intelligence group; when 50 of the escaped men were recaptured and shot by the Germans, Kinnan was able to get word back to U.S. forces in specially coded letters to his wife. “She didn’t know,” said another son, Air Force Lt. Gen. Timothy Kinnan, “and she thought sometimes the language in these letters sounded a little stilted, a little odd. But it was a very complex code.”
After the war, Kinnen remained in the service and turned to meteorology. As a civilian in 1953, he became one of the first TV weather forecasters, working in Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Tampa, Fla. He died November 22 from an aortic aneurysm. He was 83.