[1] Fieser was born in Columbus, Ohio, obtained his BA in chemistry in 1920 from Williams College, and his PhD under James Bryant Conant at Harvard in 1924.

At Harvard University, Fieser was a well-loved faculty member widely known for using inventive methods to educate his students, such as demonstrating "How NOT to Perform a Recrystallization" (in which he allowed a flask of charcoal to overflow and create a mess of his desk and himself).

Project X-ray was a scheme to drop a great number of bats with small incendiary charges with a timed fuse attached over Japan to start widespread fires.

After the bats nested in housing and factories, the timed fuses would ignite the incendiary charges (napalm) and start the fires.

During a test run, a number of the bats escaped and ignited Carlsbad Airfield's hangars, barracks, and a general's car.

"The accidental incineration of Carlsbad Auxiliary Army Airfield by incendiary bats was both a high and a low for Project X-Ray.

Fieser was a chain smoker, and only after he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1965 and recovered did he quit the habit and start to actively promote the committee's conclusions.