<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Do you recall what you were thinking when you were going down the stairs and walking across the field?

VW: Well, I was... I felt, it was enough, I felt, (to) practically (destroy) my soul. But I knew that that couldn't happen, shouldn't happen. So I hung in there, and I walked across the field and walked into the office, and they already knew. Because he had called over and told them that I wouldn't be flying with the program anymore. And so I looked and all my instructors were there and so on. It was a very embarrassing moment. But they just, the flight instructors couldn't understand it, and especially my instructor. He said, "I just, I just can't understand it. It's just prejudice," he said. And he was right, but I said very little about it.

TI: Because, did your instructor know that you were half Japanese, and that was maybe the reason why they took your...

VW: Well, he knew, he knew something about it because I had entered my name as Nishimura, and then, so he knew that the name had to be somewhat Japanese or something, and probably Doris and all of 'em had talked about it, probably knew that I was part Japanese. But we never, they never said anything about it, and I didn't say anything to them. And so, but I used the regular name, Nishimura. And then they kept my license for five months, I was out of flying.

TI: This was the CAA kept it?

VW: The CAA, it was the forerunner of the FAA. And in fact, it's in my log book, I mean, my dossier in Oklahoma City. The FAA has all that. And that's how I got some information, from the Freedom of Information, and I sent for it. In fact... well, I'm getting ahead of the story a little bit. Maybe I should skip that for the moment. But I went to the... well, first I went home. Not home, I went to the house where we all lived. There were, there were nine of us fliers that lived in this house. And I packed up my things and, of course, some of the people were there, some of the pilots, and they wanted to know what was happening. And I said, "Well, I don't know. The CAA inspector took my license away. And, "Well what did they do that for?" And they didn't know that I was part Japanese. And I don't remember the exchanges at the time too well, except that... and they had some suspicion that something was going on, 'cause they knew I was the top acrobatic flier. And so, but I left and went home. A drunk had hit me going home.

TI: Just right after that?

VW: Yeah, as I was driving home. And so it destroyed my car and everything. And I was in the hospital for ten days after that trying to recover from brain, brain concussion. And I didn't have a fractured skull, though, but I had a horrible brain concussion. And I had lost my memory a little bit for a while. And the drunk that hit me, he wasn't hurt at all.

TI: So this has to be one of your low points of your life.

VW: It sure was.

TI: To be, to take your license away from something you loved to do, to be hospitalized with a concussion.

VW: Well, then I'd say that I used complete perseverance and determination to not pull me down. And so evidently, my background worked, worked well in that period of time, because it was, it was a very, very difficult period in my life. And so during that period of five months, after I recovered from my accident, I went to court. Changed my name, translated my name, not changed it, but translated it into English. I also...

TI: But this was the time you --

VW: ...I joined the Air Corps.

TI: Right, but you legally changed it to Westdale also.

VW: Yes, I did. And then I joined the Air Corps under Westdale.

TI: Now, this, in terms of your, so the United States is at war with Japan. Was there, what were your feelings about your Japanese heritage at this point? Was it difficult to, how did you feel about it?

VW: Well, I felt like maybe I was kind of a second-class citizen at the time, because I was half Japanese and half Caucasian, and I wasn't sure which one I was, really. In a way, I was just as much American as I was, I mean, I was just as much Caucasian as I was Japanese. But, and they were coming down on me because I was, because of my nationality of being half Japanese. And if it would have happened... well, it wouldn't have happened now anymore, ever. But it did then. And the propaganda was all against the fact that the people were, were Japanese. And I often wondered, "What happened, what would happen if I were a quarter Japanese? Would they still stomp on me? Or what if I were one-eighth Japanese? Would they do the same thing? They didn't want me flying, and that became very evident later on. But then after, after that, after I was in the Air Corps and I had translated my name, they gave me my license back. That was five months...

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.