{"id":30230,"date":"2013-04-08T15:09:10","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T15:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=30230"},"modified":"2016-04-01T15:59:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T15:59:02","slug":"blue-skies-and-thunder-farm-boy-pilot-inventor-tsa-officer-and-ww-ii-soldier-of-the-442nd-regimental-combat-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=30230","title":{"rendered":"Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WW II Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WW II Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

iUniverse<\/a>
\n2009-12-21
\n296 pages
\nE-Book ISBN: 978-1-44018-258-7<\/p>\n

Virgil W. Westdale<\/strong> with Stephanie A. Gerdes<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

In 1942, Virgil Westdale was a successful young flight instructor when the government ousted him from the Air Corps and demoted him to army private. Having grown up as a Japanese American midwestern farm boy, Westdale had his first taste of Japanese culture when he was sent to train with the all Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team<\/a>. He was ultimately transferred to the 522nd Artillery Battalion, where, as a member of the Fire Direction Center<\/a>, he helped push the Germans out of Italy, rescue the \u201cLost Battalion<\/a>\u201d in France, and free prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp<\/a> in Germany.<\/p>\n

After the war, Westdale went on to pursue a career in research and development with large corporations. He received twenty-five U.S. patents and earned an international award for his work with photocopier components. In retirement, he has been working for the TSA<\/a>, returning to the worlds of aviation and national security.<\/p>\n

Written for the lay reader as well as the history buff, Westdale\u2019s stories of World War II<\/a> challenge preconceived notions of what we think we know about a soldier\u2019s life in Europe and offer images that go beyond the history books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Playwright, producer, actress and\u00a0educator\u00a0Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni<\/a> and author Virgil W. Westdale at the 2013 Hapa Japan Conference in Los Angeles, California (April 2013). \u00a9<\/sup>2013, Diego DiGiovanni<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The son of a Caucasian mother and Japanese father, Virgil W. Westdale was born in 1918 and grew up on a midwestern farm. After the war, he obtained two university degrees and received twenty-five patents for his work as a scientist in research and development. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and enjoys tap and ballroom dancing. Stephanie A. Gerdes teaches third grade in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received her bachelor\u2019s degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and her master\u2019s degree in reading and language arts. She is active in her church, teaches piano, and enjoys history, reading, cultural events, and ballroom dancing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Skies and Thunder: Farm Boy, Pilot, Inventor, TSA Officer, and WW II Soldier of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team iUniverse 2009-12-21 296 pages E-Book ISBN: 978-1-44018-258-7 Virgil W. Westdale with Stephanie A. Gerdes In 1942, Virgil Westdale was a successful young flight instructor when the government ousted him from the Air Corps and demoted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,395,11,459,8,17,20],"tags":[14322,14324,14325,14323,14326,969],"class_list":["post-30230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-autobiography","category-books","category-history","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-usa","tag-iuniverse","tag-stephanie-a-gerdes","tag-stephanie-gerdes","tag-virgil-w-westdale","tag-virgil-westdale","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46350,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30230\/revisions\/46350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}