Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, Tsa Officer, and Ww Ii Soldier of the 442Nd Regimental Combat Team

Copyright © 2009-2013 Virgil W. Westdale with Stephanie A. Gerdes

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-8257-0 (pbk)

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iUniverse rev. date: 1/2/2013

Contents

Author’s Note

Co-Author’s Note: How I Came To Know Mr. Virgil Westdale

Ch. 1 My Japanese American Family: Chopsticks To Pitchforks

Ch 2 Farmlife: Growing Up Japanese American In The Caucasian Midwest

Part 1 Millersburg, Indiana: Black Dirt And Peppermint

Part 2 White Pigeon, Michigan: Sandburs And Rattlesnakes

Ch. 3 Western Michigan College: Struggling for Survival

Ch. 4 Flight School: I Take To The Skies Like A Duck Takes To Water

Ch. 5 From Confusion To Pride: I Join The 442Nd Regimental Combat Team

Ch. 6 Italy: Ancient Cities, Reverse Awol, And Fierce Fighting

Ch. 7 France: Fighting Hard In The Vosges Mountains And Rescuing The Lost Battalion

Ch. 8 Germany: Liberating The Dachau Prisoners, Exploring Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, And Occupying A Foreign Land

Ch. 9 Long Journey Home: A Fire, A Party, And A Storm

Ch. 10 Postwar Jobs and College: Cutting Logs, Back to Painting, and Success!

Ch. 11 Burroughs Corporation: Rising In My Career Toward Scientific Achievement

Ch. 12 Am International: Researching, Inventing, Earning Twenty-Five Patents, And Winning An International Research Award

Ch. 13 After Research And Development: Proud To Be An Officer In The Transportation Security Administration

Epilogue

Appendix A Letters From Pop To Mom

Appendix B Edith Loy Nishimura’s Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Appendix C The Sturgis Daily Journal Article

Appendix D Letters From My French Friends

Appendix E

Bibliography

Endnotes

Special Thanks

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the following individuals for their assistance in writing this book. We are very appreciative of their help and support.

Ann Byle, Grand Rapids, MI

Cheryl Budzeak, Flagstaff, AZ

Chris Crandle, Cannon Twp., MI

Clare Freeman, Spring Lake, MI

Steve Gerdes, Havana, IL

Marjorie Gerdes, Havana, IL

Fred Y. Hirayama, Honolulu, HI

James Korringa, Ada, MI

Courtney Westdale McNeil, Ada, MI

Susan Mellema, Cadillac, MI

John Mumma, Ada, MI

Sharon Robideaux, Grand Rapids, MI

Virginia Nishimura Sears, Midland, MI

Terry Shima, Gaithersburg, MD

Dr. James Smither, Allendale, MI

Jeffrey Snape, Woodridge, IL

Laura Reinders Stormo, Grand Rapids, MI

Lucile Nishimura Southwick, Midland, MI

Admiral David Stone, Arlington, VA

Sgt. Susan Tomkins, Lowell, MI

Ted T. Tsukiyama, Honolulu, HI

William Tucci, Bayport, NY

Cheryl Westdale, Ada, MI

Paul Westdale, Grand Rapids, MI

Author’s Note

One day a rather interesting couple in their forties came through the airport checkpoint where I work as a security officer. The woman looked at me and smiled.

"We read an article about you in The Grand Rapids Press! We also saw you on Veterans Day featured on ABC News. You’ve done so much with your life! May I have your autograph?"

I glanced at the long line behind her.

Well, I laughed. I don’t have anything to write on!

She pulled a scrap of paper from her purse and waited patiently while I hurriedly wrote my name. As she took it, she threw her arms around me in a big hug. All the while people were watching and quietly waiting in line behind her. I was so surprised at her enthusiasm that I didn’t know what to say. She smiled at me. Thank you so much. Then she picked up her luggage and was gone.

I am surprised time and again when travelers notice my World War II veteran’s pin or recognize me from newspaper articles, news broadcasts, or public speaking engagements. They shake my hand, give me a hug, or ask for my autograph. And they thank me. Yes, they thank me. How gratifying it is, sixty-plus years after I fought with the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe, to receive appreciation for hard work and dedication done in the name of freedom and patriotism.

Sometimes in the course of quick conversations, travelers discover my half-Japanese ancestry and wonder how that affected my life during World War II. Or they remember from a newspaper article that I made a career of inventing. Some enjoy hearing about my childhood on the farm. But regardless of what they are particularly interested in, they always say they are amazed at what I’ve accomplished and express interest in learning more. Many have even suggested that I write a book.

So here I am, in the twilight of my years, piecing together my life story. It starts with my father’s birth on an orange plantation in Japan and wends its way through San Francisco, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Italy, France, Germany, England, and then back to the American Midwest. My story is one of growing up on a farm during the Great Depression under a father who spoke few words of encouragement. He was difficult to please, and I had to wait until I was a top flight student before I received praise from my elders. My story is one of having my patriotism questioned by my country simply because I had a Japanese father. In its zealous attempt to strengthen national security, my government robbed me of the hopes and dreams she claimed I was free to pursue. My story is one of touring ancient Italian cities, rescuing the Lost Battalion, making friends with French and German families, and liberating pathetically weak and humbled people from a concentration camp. I am proud to have fought side by side with the dedicated soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most-decorated unit in U.S. military history. After the war, like many other GIs, I returned to college, married, and had a family. Then I embarked on a very rewarding career in research and development at a time when America was entering the modern world, and I loved the challenge and thrill of inventing new products for a growing nation. And finally, my story is one of finding retirement undesirable, for I preferred to keep active with various jobs and hobbies and even returned to the world of aeronautics and national security when I became an airport security officer for the Transportation Security Administration.

So, in a nutshell, that’s my story. That’s the flight map I’ve been given, and I’ve accepted every bolt of thunder as well as every ray of sunshine that has crossed my path. Yes, there has been plenty of thunder to disturb my peace, but I’ve always persevered and, in the end, settled myself back into the cockpit of life, believing that everything has worked out entirely for the best. Blue skies and thunder. My life has been filled with both, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Virgil W. Westdale

June 2009

Co-Author’s Note:

How I Came to Know Mr. Virgil Westdale

For as long as I can remember I have been enthralled with old black and white World War II movies and the inevitable USO dance scenes. The night I met Virgil placed me smack dab in the middle of one of those dances. I was in my early thirties at the time. He was fifty years my senior. It was the Halloween weekend of 2002. Dressed as a medieval lady in a forest-green velvet gown with bell sleeves, I was asked to dance by a trim, steel-grey haired man in a khaki army uniform. We were circling the room kicking up our heels to a polka when it dawned on me that my partner’s uniform was no mere costume.

This is your uniform, isn’t it? I mean, you wore this uniform sixty years ago.

He smiled, pleased that I had noticed. Yes, it’s my uniform.

And you wore it to USO dances during World War II, didn’t you?

Well, yes, I believe I did.

And it struck me that I would do well to capture this moment with a mental photo, for sixty years had just melted away, and I was suddenly on a USO dance floor in the arms of an American GI. My mind’s eye saw this soldier in this uniform twirling French and German girls across European dance floors, just as he was now twirling me across this dance floor. Those girls had rested their hands on the stripes on this khaki sleeve, just as I was now resting my hand on the stripes on this khaki sleeve.

I felt so honored to have this opportunity to dance with a man of The Greatest Generation. In a few short years, no woman would be able to experience this. But I was privileged. I had brushed with the humble greatness of an ordinary American who had obediently executed brave maneuvers because he had been called by the free world to do so. I had touched a piece of living history, and I will treasure that moment all my life.

That dance was just the beginning of a lasting friendship. Two weeks later, I invited Mr. Westdale to my third grade classroom on Veterans Day. My students loved his World War II stories, asked dozens of questions, clambered for his autograph (even after the recess bell had rung!), and invited him back for our upcoming National Pride program. He accepted their invitation, and on the appointed night, as word spread that he was in the audience, you would have thought the President himself had arrived! Children know when they have met a generous and warm individual, and their adoration testified that he was such a man.

Virgil sensed my interest in his life and several times invited me to meet him for brunch. Over strawberry French toast and omelets made to order, Virgil told me tales of the war in his gentle, thoughtful manner. His story was unique, I learned, because he was half Japanese and had fought with a unit made up entirely of Japanese Americans, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Eager to prove their patriotism, they fought with great determination and distinction, becoming the most decorated of all war units (percentage-wise) in United States Army history. I heard how he had made friends with families in France and Germany, how he miraculously dodged a German 88 shell while holing up in a French home, and how he escorted concentration camp survivors door to door to find food.

But it wasn’t only Virgil’s stories and zest for life that attracted me. It was something woven throughout all he said—his character. It was as if his experiences were the pattern of a beautiful tapestry, and his character was the thread of the tapestry itself. Here was a man who had experienced great highs and lows in his life, and he had faced them with integrity, thoughtfulness, curiosity, a strong work ethic, and a desire to do good. He had a keen mind and a sensitive spirit. He was a man worthy of respect.

He was a wonderful storyteller with a story to tell, and I resolved to help him. So we began meeting on Monday evenings in the cafe at a local bookstore. Virgil told me his stories, and I typed like fury to get them into print. He told of his life after the war, too. I learned of his years as a chemist/engineer and of his twenty-five U.S. patents. For his work in developing photocopier toner, he received the prestigious Research and Development Award from the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen, and for his lifetime of achievement, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from his university. He told me how, after his retirement, he couldn’t sit at home and watch his neighbors go to work every day, so he returned to work. Now, each day, he heads off to the airport at 3 AM, where he works for the Transportation Security Administration to protect our citizens. He arrives well before his scheduled shift begins and performs his job with energy, a spring in his step, and a nearly obsolete courtesy that is very refreshing. No, Virgil is not ready to slow down! At ninety-one, he still has a rich life to live!

When, for several weeks, my teaching duties prevented me from meeting, Virgil took it upon himself to type and e-mail his stories to me. I then edited them and sent them back for content revision. He made clarifications and added more details before returning them. Then I’d reedit, and back and forth the stories flew. Over the last few years as we’ve pulled this book together, it’s been an honor to have been the keeper of Virgil’s stories. Now, with pleasure, I ask our readers to join me in keeping them. We can all know the man whose stories show how to embrace not just the blue skies but the thunder as well.

Stephanie A. Gerdes

June 2009

CHAPTER 1

My Japanese American Family:

Chopsticks to Pitchforks

1890-1927

Constant rain and snow seeped into my leather combat boots, and my head heated up with fever faster than we could find a place to bed down for the night. My unit of fifteen men had spent the last several days pushing the Germans northeast out of the French countryside, and our bodies were screaming for food, water, and a place to rest. As my fever increased, my teeth began chattering, and each step was sheer agony. I wanted desperately to lie down before some medic put me down for good. Unfortunately, our Lt. Billy Taylor decided that we’d keep moving until it was too dark to see. I had never been more miserable in my entire life.

Finally, we could just barely make out the silhouette of a house about three hundred yards ahead. When it was decided that we’d hole up there for the night, that house couldn’t have looked better if it had been a luxury hotel. We were let inside, and several of us dragged ourselves up the stairs to the attic, where I immediately dropped down onto the hard, wooden floor. I had never been more grateful for such an uncomfortable bed. I pulled my woolen blanket from my pack and wrapped it around me. In spite of my fear of becoming dehydrated, I couldn’t bear the thought of drinking the halazone-spiked (chlorine) water from my canteen. It wasn’t long before I fell asleep––or maybe passed out. I’m not sure which.

While I drifted into and out of consciousness throughout the night, the Germans fired shells over the house. Eventually, one came much too close for comfort, and a sergeant yelled for us to clear out of the attic. I heard a rush for the stairs. I, however, was too sick and weak to care. I didn’t move a muscle. There are times when the thought of dying is less painful than living, and this was one of them. I heard another 88 missile come screaming through the darkness. Was this the deadly correction volley? Oh …  how I wished I were home … back on the Michigan farm with Pop and Len, or better yet, in the early years when Mom and the girls were still there. We had worked very hard, to be sure. We had labored to plant, tend, harvest, and sell our vegetable crops. As children, my brother and sisters and I had cleaned our filthy chicken coops, and as a young man I had helped put up hay before the days of bailing wire. But there were fun times, too. We had played with our Amish neighbors, spooked one another with ghost stories, and explored the wonders of nature all around us.

Determined to make a success of farming in the Caucasian Midwest, my Japanese father had made sure he taught us the value of honesty, hard work, and perseverance. He had never shirked his duty, and he made sure we didn’t shirk ours. He was a hard man when it came to managing his family, but he was honest and always true to his word. Pop often went about his chores with a Japanese song on his lips, and he was the first to share our lean meal with less-fortunate neighbors. Pop was an interesting man, that Pop of mine. I never quite understood him.

My father was born in 1890 in Japan. His name was Sunao¹ Nishimura, and he was the second son of rather well-to-do orange planters. After losing his mother at age two or three and his father a few years later, he was obliged to live under the care of his much older half brother, who by then was married with children. His brother inherited the family business, but Pop didn’t inherit a dime.

It seems that my father was an unruly sort of fellow. A story from his youth tells how he cut a hole in the back of an orange crate in the barn so he could snitch an orange any time he wanted. When his mischievous creativity was discovered, his orange-snitching days were over. We also know that Pop didn’t get along with his nieces and nephews and pulled the girls’ hair. He didn’t get along with his older brother, either. When he reached the age of sixteen, his brother presented him with $1,000 to make his way in the world. Pop boarded a ship to America and never looked back.

After a stop in Hawaii, Pop arrived in San Francisco. It was April 1906, during the aftermath of the Great Earthquake. Building ruins were everywhere, and so were the bread lines, of which my immigrant father made good use. Because of the chaos in San Francisco, he soon moved to Denver, where he operated a housecleaning business with a few other young men. In his free time, he took classes in elocution and participated in community theater––even playing the title role in a stage production of Hiawatha. It was in Denver that he met my mother.

My mother was born in 1895 near Millersburg, Indiana. Her name was Edith Loy, and she was Caucasian––English, German, and a little French. Her father was a carpenter and horse trader with a reputation for shrewdness, and when she was still a little girl, her parents divorced. As the family story goes, when Mom was a junior in high school, she became interested in some boy of whom Grandma disapproved. She must have thought things were getting too serious because she hauled Mom off to California. Why they went as far as California, no one knows.

After a few years, they relocated to Denver, where Grandma again pulled Mom out of school––this time to send her to work as a bookkeeper. Mom and Grandma lived across the street from Pop, and she, too, attended elocution² classes. One would think that in those days prejudice against a Japanese man courting a Caucasian woman would have prevented them from making the match, but at least out West that didn’t seem to be the case. They married in 1912. Pop’s extended family back in Japan, however, was none too pleased that Pop had married an American, and they promptly disinherited him. He no longer had any contact with anyone from his native country.

As suggested by some existing letters,³ there were a few weeks or possibly months during which Pop remained in Denver while Mom was living back in the Midwest. Fairly soon, however, they were living with my grandmother in a big house in Toledo along with Grandma’s parents, the Hoffmans. Pop got a job working for a bridge company, and in October of 1912, my oldest sister, Lucile, was born.

Sometime thereafter, my great-grandfather Hoffman died and divided his seven properties among his seven daughters. Grandma Loy inherited a farm outside Millersburg, Indiana, and since Pop needed a better income, he, Mom, Lucile, and Grandma moved to northern Indiana, and Pop tried his hand at working the land. To become knowledgeable about the farming business, Pop consulted with neighboring farmers and attended evening agricultural classes offered locally through Purdue University. Two more girls were born––Virginia, or Ginny, (1915) and Elinore (1917). In 1918, I came along.

I was born during a terrible blizzard. Just like in the movies, the doctor drove his horse and buggy through whiteout conditions to our farmhouse and managed to arrive in time to deliver me. I weighed 9½ pounds and was born exactly at midnight. After a lengthy debate about whether to record my birthday as January 7 or 8, my parents chose January 8 since that was the start of a new day. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been forward-thinking. Mom named me Virgil William, after the ancient Roman poet Virgil, author of the epic poem the Aenneid, and after my great-grandfather, William Hoffman.

Our youngest sibling, Leonard, was born in 1922. Although our ethnic background was half Caucasian and half Japanese, my facial features were predominantly Caucasian, as were those of Ginny and Elinore. Len and Lucile appeared a little more Japanese. The girls were all very pretty, and I always thought Elinore’s college graduation photo was particularly attractive. (Len and I were surprised when we happened to see it displayed in the front window of a Kalamazoo photography shop!) Ginny and I were more like Mom in that we were more sensitive and quiet. Ginny was very gentle and caring, and Pop seemed to discipline her with a little less force than he did the rest of us. Elinore, however, appeared to be his favorite, because she didn’t get into trouble when she made the same sorts of mistakes we made. Perhaps this was because she was so sweet and pretty and because she obeyed Pop without asking questions.

This was definitely not the case with Lucile. As a teenager, Lucile challenged his authority. She wasn’t afraid of him like the rest of us were, and if she saw a better way of doing some work he had assigned her, she’d argue about it. Their relationship would have been easier if Pop could have mustered up a little more tolerance for a child of her intelligence, but Pop didn’t have much tolerance for any children, even when they didn’t talk back.

It was very different with Len. Four and a half years younger than I, Len was more like Pop with his all man and a bit of a rebel attitude. Those two got along great. When Len told Pop how much he’d paid for a bike with some money he’d earned selling produce, Pop wasn’t impressed that he had used family money to buy himself a bike, but when he later chuckled about Len’s purchase, I could tell that he didn’t really mind. When I, on the other hand, wanted to purchase a bicycle for myself with some money I earned selling produce, Pop wouldn’t let me buy one. I never did own a bike. I finally learned to ride a bike by borrowing one from a neighbor.

On the other hand, Pop could also be rather generous, at least with the neighbors. With us, it was a different story. Lucile used to wryly say, With Pop, charity begins next door. Yes, during the Depression Pop bent over backwards to give farm jobs to a poor man who lived down the road with four or five children. The man wasn’t a particularly hard worker, and we couldn’t really afford him, but Pop used him whenever he could. Pop also helped widows with their farms and neighbors with their unruly animals. He also allowed some neighbor boys to work alongside us all day digging potatoes or loading hay, and they learned that if they hung around until suppertime, they could even get a meal out of us. This would have been okay if we had had the food, but in those days we didn’t, so we all simply ate less as the dishes were passed around the table. Unlike the neighbor boys whom Pop paid and even thanked, we kids received no payment for our hard labor and not a single word of praise. I didn’t mind not getting paid, but a few words of appreciation would have been nice. Pop’s philosophy was that anything done by the family for the family was expected. Pay and verbal appreciation were not necessary.

Worse than this was his anger. We never knew when Pop would fly off the handle, letting a string of expletives escape his mouth. For many a childish and innocent error relating to farm chores, we felt the pain of a wooden switch across our legs or a swift kick in the shins from Pop’s work boot. Sometimes when he got angry with me, he’d kick me out of the way and call one of my sisters to help him instead. The bruises were of little concern, but our tender souls felt the sting of intense humiliation.

My sense is that I was a particular disappointment to Pop. He would have liked a strong, manly first son. There was no doubt that I was a hard worker, but I suffered from asthma and hay fever as a youth, which he regarded as a weakness. Furthermore, in his opinion I spent far too much time watching bugs and dreaming of inventions. Then there was the problem of my finger. An accident when I was four years old left it unable to bend and grip properly. I remember trying to hold open a gunny sack so Dad could fill it with grain. I tried my best to grip the sack, because I wanted to please him and be of help, but that finger just wouldn’t cooperate. The gunny sack slipped from my fingers, and grain poured onto the floor. Pop yelled at me for causing such waste. Things changed, however, as I got older. Once I was a teenager and physically bigger, Pop started asking for my advice about farming matters and seemed to value my opinion, which felt really good.

My father may have been hard on me, but he was a very smart man. He had only attended school until age sixteen, but he surprised us with his knowledge. He could quote Shakespeare, had a mathematical mind, and knew a lot about Abraham Lincoln. He’d sometimes tell us Lincoln jokes like A man asked Lincoln how long his legs were. Lincoln replied, ‘Just long enough to touch the ground.’ I remember him helping Lucile solve some of her more difficult high school math problems after supper. When Lucile’s teachers saw how he had helped solve the problems, they often didn’t know how he arrived at the answer, but they admitted he was right.

My father also enjoyed music and sang Japanese songs in his clear, strong voice as he went about his chores. I couldn’t understand the words, but I managed to mimic them and sing along in places. Sometimes in the evenings, I’d be shivering in the back of the wagon as we drove it in from the field, and Pop would call me up to sit with him on the driver’s seat. Since he wasn’t an affectionate man and would more likely reprimand us for not doing a chore correctly than praise us for doing it well, I wasn’t very comfortable joining him. I’d hang back until he called me several times. But when I finally gave in, I would lean against him to keep warm as he sang English nursery rhymes, such as Little Boy Blue. He’d also sing a little as he rested at the kitchen table after our noon dinner. That was the softer side of Pop.

My Tender, Hard-Working, and Pretty Mother

Although my relationship with my father was rocky, it was just the opposite with Mom. She was gentle and understanding. She had a heart-shaped face, dark eyes, and brown hair that was bobbed, as the fashion of the times dictated. When she curled her hair and ran a ribbon through it, I thought she was just about the prettiest mother a boy could have. I even carried her photo in the hip pocket of my pants so I could show it to my friends at school.

But she wasn’t just pretty. Mom was also a hardworking, fastidious farmwife. The windows of our Indiana farmhouse were poorly sealed, and the wind blew fine black muck into the house through tiny gaps. It settled on every flat surface in the house, including the dining table and the sofa, keeping Mom and the girls busy cleaning. When Pop walked in from outdoors, Mom used to follow him with a broom and dust pan. The floor was so clean that after our noon meal (which everyone called dinner at that time and in that place), Pop would lie down on it and rest his head on a tobacco can, while my mother would exclaim, "I don’t see how you can lie there with your head on a can!"

Mom’s days were filled with washing, cooking, cleaning, sewing, tending the vegetable garden, canning vegetables, keeping the farm books in her nice, neat penmanship, and even milking the cows when the rest of us were working late in the fields. Doing the wash was no easy task in those days, as it was all done by hand with a washboard or a long hand-lever washtub that was agitated manually. Mom also sewed dresses and shirts on an old treadle sewing machine. I certainly kept her busy mending the knees of my overalls.

Mom made an absolutely delicious pumpkin custard pie. Unfortunately, she died before the recipe was put into writing, so after Lucile retired from teaching, she spent two years experimenting with various ingredients and methods until she developed a pumpkin pie that closely resembled Mom’s. My sisters have used that recipe ever since. I always said that if Lucile hadn’t gone into teaching, she could have been a highly successful research