Dale was born February 12, 1922 in Kane, Wyoming, where he lived until enrolling at Montana State University in Missoula, Montana, in the fall of 1941. While a freshman, in May 1942, he was accepted in the Army Air Corps reserve cadet training program. Dale spent the summer of 1942, with at least two fire jumps as a smokejumper before enlisting as a Private in the Army Air Corps in December 1942.

Dale resigned as a Major from military service in December 1945 and returned to Kane, Wyoming, where he was living in 1959 when his father died. Dale died in Payson, Arizona, on July 13, 1994, at the age of 72 and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.