| Title |
Col. William F. Roos, Springfield, Virginia: an interview by Professor Daniel McCool: Saving the legacy oral history |
| Alternative Title |
William F. Roos, Saving the legacy: an oral history of Utah's World War II veterans, ACCN 2070, American West Center, University of Utah |
| Creator |
Roos, William F., 1919-2008 |
| Contributor |
McCool, Daniel, 1950- ; University of Utah. American West Center |
| Publisher |
Digitized by J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah |
| Date |
2004-11-11 |
| 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 |
Guam, Mariana Islands; Germany; Korea; Vietnam; Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, United States |
| Subject |
Roos, William F., 1919-2008--Interviews; World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American; Veterans--Utah--Biography; World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Pacific Area--Personal narratives, American; Military engineers--Biography |
| Keywords |
ROTC; West Point; Engineers; Army Air Corps |
| Description |
Transcript (75 pages) of an interview by Daniel McCool with Col. William F. Roos on November 11, 2004. This is from the "Saving the Legacy Oral History Project |
| Collection Number and Name |
Accn2070, Saving the Legacy oral history project, 2001-2010 |
| Abstract |
Roos (b. 1919) reminisces about his childhood and education in Utah, including his ROTC experience. He was attending West Point when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he speaks at length about his experiences there. He was assigned to an engineering unit with the responsibility for turning the island of Guam into a military base. After the war he transferred to the Army Air Corps and earned a masters degree in civil engineering from the University of Iowa. He later served in Germany, Korea, Vietnam, and the Central Pacific. 75 pages. |
| Type |
Text |
| Genre |
oral histories (literary works) |
| Format |
application/pdf |
| Extent |
75 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/s6vx2ftg |
| Topic |
Personal narratives--American; Veterans; World War (1939-1945); Military engineers |
| Setname |
uum_slohp |
| ID |
1025465 |
| Reference URL |
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6vx2ftg |
| Title |
Page 20 |
| Format |
application/pdf |
| Setname |
uum_slohp |
| ID |
1025407 |
| OCR Text |
Show COL. WILLIAM F. ROOS November 11,2004 DAN: Okay. So there must have been a lot of commotion and people; cadets milling about and gathering together, and ... BILL: Yeah, discussing. And if you remember the first couple of days-well, we all knew that they were Japanese airplanes that came over, so we just assumed we are going to go after those guys. But then the thought was-the real question-what are we going to do about the Germans? The Germans are really a lot more dangerous than the Japanese. And I'm sure that Roosevelt was trying to think, "Well, now what am I going to do?" And it was settled, though, for him because the Germans themselves declared war on America in two or three days. So the Germans settled that for us, and Roosevelt didn't have to do anything. DAN: He was stuck with fighting two wars at once. BILL: Yeah. And, of course, there's no country in the world that could have done what we did. But we did fight two world wars at the same time. And I remember we were having all kinds of debates, and things like that. What do we do? And the great majority of us felt that we should, first of all, concentrate on Europe which we did. And we had very smart guys in the army. George Marshall was the Chief of Staff at that time. And he was advocating that we concentrate on Europe, and just put enough people in the Pacific to keep the Japanese from running wild, but we'll take care of them in due time after we finish. Well, it turned out, as usually happens with the Americans, they find out now we're going to do both at the same time. So they did. They got enough troops that they could spare from Europe. They went in and they had two big forces at the same time. DAN: It's hard to believe today. 18 |
| Reference URL |
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6vx2ftg/1025407 |
