Dean Whittaker was born in March 1925 in Los Angeles, California. He was the second oldest of five children and his father worked as a builder in the local area. His father died just before he entered the service, so his mother worked at a variety of jobs to support their family; he recalls that this was challenging since it was still the Great Depression. He first heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor while he was working at a local gas station. A customer came in and asked if he had heard the news and he hadn't, so he listened in to a radio broadcast. He discusses a Japanese attack that took place in nearby Long Beach, California some days later, a balloon raid and he heard defensive gunfire in response to the raid. This action made an impression on him and he decided to volunteer, which he did just after he graduated high school in April 1943. He wanted to join the Air Force, so he and four friends went to the local recruiting office where they took an aptitude test. He was the only one of the five who passed and he was sent to Santa Ana, California as a cadet. He recounts his training as taking place at both Kingman, Arizona and Victorville, California. He received his wings [Annotator's Note: uniform insignia] as both an aerial gunner and an aerial observer in Arizona, and wings as both a bombardier and navigator in California. He describes wanting to be a bombardier at first because the school was only 12 weeks long, but when he arrived it was expanded to 18 weeks and he also completed navigation training at the same location. At the conclusion of his training he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and was sent overseas. During his discussion of gunnery training, he remembers that he and his father had gone hunting while he was a child, so he was already a good shot and his performance in gunnery school reflected that expertise.

Trained as a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] bombardier, Dean Whittaker describes leaving for overseas from New York via a troop transport. He recalls being a part of a convoy and that the transit over was uneventful. Arriving in London, England, he went via train to his permanent station. [Annotator's Note: Whittaker's permanent station was Nuthampstead, England where he served with the 603rd Bombardment Squadron, 398th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force.] He recounts a training mission where the aircraft he was on crashed on take-off into a wooded area by the airfield. His first combat flight was just after D-Day [Annotator's Note: 6 June 1944] and the mission was flown in support of ground troops being led by General George Patton. The mission was flown at a lower altitude than was normally the case, and he recalls heavy German flak [Annotator's Note: from the German Fliegerabwehrkanone, "aircraft defense cannon"]. His aircraft was heavily damaged; the plexiglass nose was destroyed, wounding him, and they lost an engine. His wounds kept him hospitalized for the next two weeks, and while he was awarded the Purple Heart for his injuries, it would take 60 years to do so. It was only after a Veteran's Affairs doctor inquired as to whether or not he'd ever been injured that the award was submitted. Normal missions were flown against a number of targets including railroad stations, aircraft factories, and oil production plants. Whittaker's final mission was flown against a target in Merseburg, Germany on 2 November 1944. He recalls not only heavy flak that day, but also large numbers of German fighter aircraft. These fighters attacked his plane twice. The first time they were fended off in part by the tail gunner, who shot down one of them. The second attack was worse. The tail gunner was killed and the plane sustained enough damage for the pilot to order the crew to bail out. He did so, but had some difficulty with his flak protective suit and his parachute which resulted in his jumping out with his parachute only partially fastened. He was able to deploy his parachute properly, and he remembers hearing gunfire on one side of him and cheering on the other. German civilians were shooting at the crew as they descended, and the cheering came from British prisoners of war who were watching from a nearby POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp. He recounts that four of the crew were killed after they bailed out, and this is still a very emotional memory.

Having survived bailing out of his B-17 [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] bomber over Merseburg, Germany, Dean Whittaker was captured by the Germans and at first taken to a nearby British prisoner of war camp. Following this, he was taken to a nearby SS [Annotator's Note: Shutzstaffel; the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party] headquarters where he was interrogated. The Germans concluded that since he was a junior officer, he had no information of value and he was taken to a transition camp prior to being relocated to Stalag Luft III, a permanent POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp. The camp had an organized chain of command for the prisoners headed by an American colonel. Any escape attempts had to be approved by a committee established for the purpose. Around Christmas 1944, the Russian Army was advancing into Poland and Hitler wanted to have the POWs as potential hostages, so the camp was evacuated. The POWs were sent to another camp, Stalag VII-A, in Moosburg, Germany. He describes the prisoners fashioning backpacks with which to take their belongings; since he had been there only a short time he was able to take along items some other prisoners had discarded. He recalls first marching, then being packed so tightly into railroad cars that he couldn't lie down for the trip. Billeting in the camp consisted of tents; the camp had some 100,000 prisoners. Whittaker became ill and was taken to the only actual building, a dispensary headed by a captain who had had some medical schooling and was the son-in-law of General George Patton. He remained there until the end of the war. As American troops approached nearby, the Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] guards came into the camp to prevent nearby SS troops from shooting the prisoners. Several Germans were killed by the SS before advancing American tanks destroyed a tower that was being used as a firing position. He recounts that over the next few days several prisoners were liberated under extraordinary circumstances, including General Patton retrieving his son-in-law, an infantry captain finding his brother, and a Red Cross worker finding her husband. [Annotator's Note: Describing these episodes is very emotional for Whittaker.]

Dean Whittaker had been liberated from a prisoner of war camp in Germany [Annotator’s Note: Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany]. It took a few days for things to happen, but he was eventually trucked to a nearby airfield to await transportation to France. While there, he recalls seeing a German airplane land. Its pilot had with him his wife and they were trying to avoid being taken prisoner by the Russians. He speaks very little of the time immediately following his liberation; he flew to France and from there took a ship home. He recounts that he was elated to see the Statue of Liberty when the ship arrived in New York Harbor and that it took some time to adjust to a diet of good food. He took a train to California, where his mother, sister, and two uncles who had served in World War 1 met him at the train station. He comments that his faith was a big part of getting him through his wartime experience. He states that at some point he thought that "someone had to survive, why not him?" He briefly considered staying in the Air Force and becoming a pilot, but he decided to attend the University of Southern California and study architecture. He took a semester off at one point and worked as a carpenter. This led to a series of postwar occupations including being a fireman, a realtor and a builder. He was very successful and attributes at least part of his success to his wartime service. While he did suffer from some post traumatic stress, he feels very fortunate to be an American and expresses concern that younger generations today may not have the same level of commitment and patriotism. He feels that World War 2 is an important part of history and it should be studied and remembered.