Edward L. Hart, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston Erickson, October 25th, 2001: Saving the legacy tape no. 294 and 295

Transcript (58 pages) of an interview by Winston P. Erickson with Edward L. Hart on October 25th, 2001. This is from tape numbers 294 and 295 in the "Saving the Legacy Oral History Project

Hart (b. 1916) describes growing up in a large family on a farm in Bear Lake County, Idaho. He attended the University of Utah, where he studied economics, poetry, and writing. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship which was suspended when Britain entered the war. He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and received his MA in English in the summer of 1941. He enrolled in an intensive Japanese language course and was invited to enter a program sponsored by the US Navy. After being commissioned as a yeoman second class Hart was ordered to section Z of the communication annex in Washington, DC. He remained there until July 1945. Hart describes the facility, work, and culture of code breaking. After promotion to lieutenant junior grade he received orders to Pearl Harbor. He arrived the day the peace treaty was signed aboard the USS Missouri. Hart discusses warfare, life in Tokyo, civilian life in England, and various teaching positions at the University of Washington, Brigham Young University, University of California at Berkeley, and Arizona State. 58 pages.