Interviews

1. Discrimination in Air Corps

2. Fellow Hapa 442 Hana

3. Dachau prisoners

4. Becoming a pilot

5. 522nd and Dachau

Virgil Westdale

(1918-2022) Hapa World War II veteran, pilot

522nd and Dachau

And sometimes, you’d see a pile of snow and there’s somebody dead underneath the…you know. That’s…the concentration camp. [Clears throat.] And I know that one of the guys said that, that um, he heard a noise. And their group, someone sent…taken down into a valley, and are being been shot. And he had…he was so tired, he was just been lyin’ down. And so, uh, the Germans had to leave because we were moving pretty fast on them. So they left and he was alive, yeah. And, but he was covered up with snow. Which kept him warm all night. And then he heard a noise next morning and he woke up and he saw a truck. It was one of our guys. And the truck was on a hill. And the guy got out, he said, and he saw him walking toward him. And as he walked toward him, he said he thought he was gonna be shot again. And, uh, but he said the guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. And gave to him. He said the first time a soldier had ever given him a candy bar to eat. And it was the full four…the 522nd artillery battalion of the 442nd.

442nd Regimental Combat Team 522nd Field Artillery Battalion Europe United States Army World War II

Date: February 12, 2013

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Duncan Williams

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project. Courtesy of the USC Hapa Japan Database Project.

Interviewee Bio

Virgil Westdale was born in 1918 on a farm in Indiana, the fourth of five children in the Nishimura family. He was born to a Japanese father and an English/German mother. While attending college, Westdale was interested in flying and received his private pilot’s license.

After the outbreak of World War II, his commercial pilot’s license was revoked because of his Japanese heritage. He legally changed his name to Westdale—West (nishi) and dale (mura)—and joined the Army Air Corps, but was demoted and forced to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team when it was discovered a year later that he was part Japanese. He fought in campaigns in Italy and France, including the rescue of the “Lost Battalion.” Near the end of the war, he was transferred to the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion where he became part of the group of soldiers that liberated Jewish prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

After the war, he earned two university degrees and received 25 patents as well as an international award for his scientific work in research and development. In his retirement, he worked for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for 14 years.

He is the co-author of his autobiography Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WWII Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011. He passed away on February 8, 2022 at age 104. (Feb 2022)

* Virgil Westdale interviewed by Duncan Williams for the exhibition, Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History. A Collaboration with the USC Hapa Japan Database Project, Videographer, Evan Kodani with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project.