| Title |
Dale H. West, Provo, Utah: an interview by Winston P. Erickson, June 23, 2000: Saving the legacy tape no. 45 |
| Alternative Title |
Dale H. West, Saving the legacy: an oral history of Utah's World War II veterans, ACCN 2070, American West Center, University of Utah |
| Creator |
West, Dale H., 1918-2007 |
| Contributor |
Erickson, Winston P., 1943-; University of Utah. American West Center |
| Publisher |
Digitized by J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah |
| Date |
2000-06-23 |
| Date Digital |
2015-09-16 |
| Access Rights |
I acknowledge and agree that all information I obtain as a result of accessing any oral history provided by the University of Utah's Marriott Library shall be used only for historical or scholarly or academic research purposes, and not for commercial purposes. I understand that any other use of the materials is not authorized by the University of Utah and may exceed the scope of permission granted to the University of Utah by the interviewer or interviewee. I may request permission for other uses, in writing to Special Collections at the Marriott Library, which the University of Utah may choose grant, in its sole discretion. I agree to defend, indemnify and hold the University of Utah and its Marriott Library harmless for and against any actions or claims that relate to my improper use of materials provided by the University of Utah. |
| Spatial Coverage |
Utah County, Utah, United States; New Guinea; Philippines |
| Subject |
West, Dale H., 1918-2007--Interviews; World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American; Veterans--Utah--Biography; World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Area--Personal narratives, American |
| Keywords |
7th Army Air Force; Radio; decoding |
| Description |
Transcript (28 pages) of an interview by Winston P. Erickson with Dale H. West on June 23, 2000. This is from tape number 45 in the "Saving the Legacy Oral History Project |
| Collection Number and Name |
Accn2070, Saving the Legacy oral history project, 2001-2010 |
| Abstract |
West (b. 1918) recalls his childhood in Provo, Utah, and describes getting a degree in English from Brigham Young University. He taught school for several years and eventually received both a master's degree and doctorate in English. He served in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater of Operations with the 7th Army Air Force. He describes intercepting and classifying enemy air-to-ground and point-to-point radio messages. He decoded and relayed information concerning weather conditions, enemy air action, and enemy administrative orders to locally-based air combat units. 28 pages. |
| Type |
Text |
| Genre |
oral histories (literary works) |
| Format |
application/pdf |
| Extent |
28 pages |
| Language |
eng |
| Rights |
 |
| Scanning Technician |
Mazi Rakhsha |
| Conversion Specifications |
Original scanned with Kirtas 2400 and saved as 400 ppi uncompressed TIFF. PDF generated by Adobe Acrobat Pro X for CONTENTdm display |
| ARK |
ark:/87278/s6sx8cdx |
| Topic |
Personal narratives--American; Veterans; World War (1939-1945) |
| Setname |
uum_slohp |
| ID |
1023445 |
| Reference URL |
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6sx8cdx |
| Title |
Page 17 |
| Format |
application/pdf |
| Setname |
uum_slohp |
| ID |
1023431 |
| OCR Text |
Show DALE H. WEST June 23,2000 messages to them. They, in turn, would decide whether to attack that flight in the air, or to wait until they landed and bomb them on the ground. We didn't get much feedback, but we learned later that we did an enormous amount of good to get things going there. I was on Palawan at one time to set up a direction fmding group. We were shot at a few times by the Japanese. Leyte was our main headquarters where we did most of our work. Formosa (called Taiwan now) was a center hub for the Japanese. They could fly there and then take off to the other direction they were assigned. We were pretty good. We got so we could decode quite well and send the messages directly to the '13th~ Force via an encoding and decoding machine like ours, the Sagaba. WIN: Well, it's a new one for me, too, so explain it. DAL: Alright. It was like a teletype machine. We and the 13th both had one. We would type the messages telling them who it was, how many planes, where there were going, their direction from what wind, and then the direction finding. So then, when we'd type it in, their machine would pick it up at the 13th Air Force headquarters and decode our message. We had to have a guard on ours 24 ~ours a day. It was supposedly so advanced that it would take the best people in the world 20 years to break the code. Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing by even mentioning it. It may still be part of the machinery, I don't know. WIN: I imagine they've made some advances in the last 50 years though. DAL: Yeah, I think they have. This was a pretty good machine. We were doting over it. We had one of the great machines. WIN: Now, this was a machine that the Americans had that the others didn't, and what was it 15 |
| Reference URL |
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6sx8cdx/1023431 |
