Downloading Date Fields to Excel

I see from the archives that last June Peter Dow had the same problem that
I'm having, but I didn't see that he got an answer. I've got a file on my
AS/400 that contains some date fields, and I'm trying to use the Client
Access file transfer to download it into Excel. The transfer wizard
recognizes the fields as date fields, but they end up in the spreadsheet
as alpha fields. However, if I simply edit one without changing anything,
it magically transforms itself into a date.

Is there any way to get the transfer to produce dates without going
through this step?  Thanks very much!

Mike Naughton
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Judd Wire, Inc.
124 Turnpike Road
Turners Falls, MA  01376
413-863-4357 x444
mnaughton@xxxxxxxxxxxx