Internment | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 19, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ni‘ihau Incident

When Pearl Harbor was attacked on the morning December 7, 1941, Japanese Airman 1st Class Shigenori Nishikaichi was among the raiders, escorting a group of bombers in his Zero fighter.

During the attacks Shigenori Nishikaichi’s fuel tank was punctured by a bullet. Nishikaichi was able to fly and safely land on Ni‘ihau.

Nishikaichi’s choice of Ni‘ihau was, apparently, not random. The Japanese Imperial Navy wrongly believed the island was uninhabited and had designated it as an emergency landing site.

The Japanese had a submarine standing-by off-shore to rescue any Zeros – but it’s not clear why they ordered it away prematurely, leaving him alone on the island.

Ni‘ihau residents were initially unaware of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Nishikaichi was rescued by Howard Kaleohano who confiscated his pistol and papers, but treated him kindly and took him home to be given a meal.

However, Nishikaichi was apprehended when the gravity of the situation became apparent.

Nishikaichi then sought and received the assistance of three locals of Japanese descent (Yoshio Harada and Ishimatsu & Irene Shintani) in overcoming his captors, finding weapons and taking several hostages.

In the end, Nishikaichi was killed by Niʻihauan Ben Kanahele, who was wounded in the process, and one of Nishikaichi’s accomplices, Harada, committed suicide.

Some believe that single bullet set into motion events that would eventually lead to the US interning more than one-hundred thousand people of Japanese heritage – despite their citizenship – in concentration camps for the remainder World War II.

Novelist William Hallstead argues that the Niʻihau incident had an influence on decisions leading to the Japanese American internment. According to Hallstead, the behavior of Shintani and the Haradas were included in a Navy report.

In the official report, authored by Navy Lieutenant C. B. Baldwin and dated January 26, 1942, Baldwin wrote: “The fact that the two Niʻihau Japanese who had previously shown no anti-American tendencies went to the aid of the pilot when Japan domination of the island seemed possible …”

“… indicate likelihood that Japanese residents previously believed loyal to the United States may aid Japan if further Japanese attacks appear successful.”

The particulars of the case “indicate a strong possibility that other Japanese residents of the Territory of Hawaii, and Americans of Japanese descent …”

“… may give valuable aid to Japanese invaders in cases where the tide of battle is in favor of Japan and where it appears to residents that control of the district may shift from the United States to Japan.” (Baldwin)

Ultimately, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones,” from which “any or all persons may be excluded.”

This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from “military areas” and “military zones.”

While the incident at Ni‘ihau may not have led inevitably to the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans, it is believed to have exerted influence in the investigation that ultimately led to the internment Executive Order.

On February 19, 1976, Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Gerald Ford.

In 1988, Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation said that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”.

The U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6-billion in reparations to Japanese Americans who had been interned and their heirs.

An interesting twist in all of this is that just as the Nishikaichi events ended on Ni‘ihau, a boatload of soldiers – led by a Japanese American, Lt. Jack Mizuha – reached Ni‘ihau.

Mizuha would later serve in a storied Japanese American 100th Battalion unit in Italy, where he was severely wounded. Still later, he would become the first attorney general of the new state of Hawai‘i – and eventually a justice on the state’s Supreme Court.

Ben Kanahele was awarded the Medal of Merit and the Purple Heart and Howard Kaleohano the Medal of Freedom.

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Ni‘ihau Incident – Crashed Japanese Plane

March 28, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Alfred Preis

“I do believe deeply that the arts (reside) in the truly human area, where each individual is going to do something he or she does because he or she wants to do something well and does it better and better and better until he or she is gratified; that this is the essence of a successful life. Because you can do that as a cook, you can do that by making beds.” (Alfred Preis)

“I hoped to be interned! I wanted America to win the war, and if I hadn’t been picked up, I would have lost confidence in the authorities.” (Pries; Clarke)

Whoa … let’s look back …

Alfred Preis was one of 112 Germans and Italians – both aliens and naturalized citizens – who were interned in Hawai‘i on December 8, three days before the US went to war. (Clarke)

Preis “was born February 2, 1911, in Vienna, Austria. That was before the outbreak of the First World War. I lived at that time in a working-class district. My grandfather, whom I never knew, was a furniture maker and had his workshop there.”

“And my father was in the army and sent his wife to live somewhere near the grandmother, so that she would be sheltered and protected and have help. I lived in that area for three years and got ill, because the living conditions in Vienna at that time were dreadful. The apartments were not worth anything.”

“My grandmother lived in a suite composed of a large kitchen and one room, and to get into the room you had to walk through the kitchen. The only illumination at that time was kerosene lamps, which absorbed all the oxygen in the room.” (Preis; SFCA)

“But the situation in Vienna at that time-already before the outbreak of the war – was so that tuberculosis was all-prevalent. And when I was four years old, I got a touch of [tuberculosis] on my lungs.”

“The war broke out in 1914. [The sanatorium] was administered by the wives and daughters of Austrian aristocrats. It was a little chalet – a hunting chalet – up on the foothills of the Alps. I was dropped there by my mother, and she was advised, evidently, to leave me (without saying goodbye).”

“I (was released) after about half a year, not only hale but a different person. They planted seeds in me of curiosity-of (love for) literature (and good German). But the sheer interest these women had in us left an imprint on me which I still cherish. It was very important (for my future education).”

“I (grew up) in Catholicism. My father, however, was Jewish. Under the Nazi’s law I would have been considered half Jewish or Jewish, which (in effect) is the same thing. I was in danger.”

“My future wife also was in danger, although she was Catholic. She came as a refugee from the Russian Revolution and had to leave, as a child at that time, without a passport. So she had no citizenship, and she was vulnerable therefore.”

“The Nazis announced that they will put into concentration camp gypsies and loafers. And we were afraid that something would happen to her. We knew the Nazis would come. We still never talked about marriage or of intentions like that. After graduating from high school in 1929, he traveled throughout Europe and later returned to Vienna to study architecture.” (Preis; SFCA)

“We got our papers. But then we had to have a valid passport, which we had originally. But every time the Nazis reorganized the status of Austria, it meant that it had to be a different passport. So I think we had about five passports. The fina passport was a Nazi passport.”

“(W)e found out that the Queen Mary – an English ship, (and the fastest liner at the time) – that they (sold with the tickets) board money. That means (we) could pay with German money and get scrips. And (what we didn’t spend on board), they will (refund) them then in (dollars).”

“We arrived on April the 6th, 1939, in New York, before Easter – we saw an Easter parade on the 5th Avenue – and left on the 28th of May. Now before we could do that, we had to find contacts. I still wanted to go to Hawai’i. We had a letter [from] the priest who married us to a Catholic refugee organization in New York, which we presented.”

“(T)here was a priest – his name was Father Ostermann – and he was very different from the Austrian clerics. He was a very worldly man, experienced, had a sense of humor. I suspect he was skeptical, but certainly he was frivolous. And he said, “What do you want?”

“And we showed him our letter. ‘We would like to go to Hawaii’ (a destination they chose after seeing movies about the South Seas. (Clarke)) Father Ostermann looked at it and said, ‘Let me try.’ He obtained a waiver of a particular prohibition that people could [not] travel from an American port to another American port on a freighter.”

“Maybe Hawai’i was, to them, still a foreign port. He had to get that waiver. So we actually were then booked as a passenger on a 9,000 ton ship (of the Pioneer Line), a freight boat called the Sawoklah. And we were supposed to go through the [Panama] Canal to Hawai’i. … Then we left.” (Preis; SFCA)

Upon arrival in the Islands, he went to work with an architectural firm; “I did (design) a great number of (buildings) and residences, predominantly for Chinese.”

Then, that fateful day that changed the Islands and the world … “(we heard shooting and felt the impact of bombs or shots. And I turned to my wife and said, ‘That’s a very realistic maneuver today.’”

“At ten-thirty we … turned it to radio. KGU every Sunday at ten-thirty had a symphony concert, which we turned on. There was no symphony. There was a man who said, ‘This is not a maneuver. This is the real McCoy.’ We couldn’t believe it. We were all prepared for it, but we couldn’t believe it.”

“About seven o’clock in the evening … (following) the attack (on Pearl Harbor) – two men in civil[ian dress] came and said, ‘We have to ask you to come with us. We have to ask some questions. You will be back very soon.’”

“But it was seven o’clock in the evening. Somehow my upbringing under the Nazis made me skeptical. I said, ‘Do you mind if we take some toothbrushes along?’ ‘Well, you don’t need them, but okay, if you want to.’ We were the only people with toothbrushes.”

“We drove very, very slowly at that time (through the) darkened streets. The headlights were blue – later on red – (painted) with a tiny slit (for) the light (to shine through). And so the cars were creeping. I recognized – it was dark already, it was December – that we (were driving) to the immigration station.”

“We came to a one-story building which used to be a part of the quarantine station for immigrants. (The) man in charge, a major (who was originally) a customs officer, was (evidently) overanxious (and) strict. He (made us strip off) our (wedding) rings, which made me break down. Not even the Nazis took my wedding ring.”

“I was very nervous. I was worried about my wife. I made such a scene there that he returned all of our rings to all of us. With that man we had other (troubles). We were moved to an open area. There was a bunch of rolled up tents, and they said, ‘Erect them.’ So we built tents.”

“We were guarded by people from the national guard, local people. Some of them we were befriended with (from before). They were tired, and they didn’t have any sleep, (so) they begged us to (let them) sleep in our tent and that we would watch them so they wouldn’t get caught, which we did.”

“There were two camps side by side, separated by about (a) twenty-feet (wide maze) of barbed wire. We, the Haoles, were about fifty men. The Japanese camp had about 2,500”.

“The difference between the Japanese camp and ours was striking. Every tent – they had tents, as we did – (was adorned with tiny) pebbles, shells, and coral (splinters). They picked (them) up, and they made patterns like stone gardens out of it – neat, beautiful, clean, (with an innate genius) compared to us. We (at most) picked up cigarette butts (which our men just) threw away.”

“We saw that (from our) fifty people-Germans, Norwegians, Italians, (Austrians, and) Hungarians, all people (whose countries) were invaded and occupied by the Nazis and therefore (suspect) – small groups were leaving the camp.”

“The others, we later learned, were shipped to the Mainland. My wife and I and two others were left over. But eventually we were released on parole on March 28, 1942.” (Preis; SFCA)

Preis returned to his architectural practice. A notable, now iconic, structure was the USS Arizona Memorial.

The USS Arizona Memorial, located at Pearl Harbor, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors killed on the USS Arizona during the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 by Japanese imperial forces and commemorates the events of that day.

The memorial, which was dedicated in 1962 and spans the sunken hull of the battleship Arizona, without touching it. The memorial visually floats above the water like an out stretched white sail hovering above the waters of the harbor.

The memorial was designed by Honolulu architect Alfred Preis, his design set out to create a bridge that would float above the battleship with room for approximately 200 visitors at a time. (Johnston)

Critics of the memorial’s design have likened it to a “squashed milk carton,” but the USS Arizona Memorial’s design is a little more complex than that. Preis had a clear idea in mind when he designed the memorial and everything about it serves a purpose.

The structure is about 184 feet long, and at both ends, it rises. The peaks are connected to a sag in the middle of the structure. This was no random design choice. It’s a metaphor for the United States at the time of World War II.

On one side, the first peak represents the country’s pride before the war. In the middle, the sag represents the shock and depression the country faced just after the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor.

One the other side of the structure, the second peak represents the might and power of the US after the war. Together, all three components tell a story. (Visit Pearl Harbor)

In 1963, Preis became state planning coordinator. While serving in that position, he helped draft the bill that established the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts [SFCA] in 1965. Preis served as acting executive director of the SFCA until July 1, 1966, when he was formally appointed executive director. He retired from the position in 1980. (SFCA)

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USS_Arizona_Memorial_(aerial_view)

A;fred and Jana Preis on way to Islands-HanaHou

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Arizona Memorial under construction

USS Arizona Memorial under construction. The memorial opened in 1962

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Arizona Memorial-Missouri

Blueprint-Arizona Memorial

August 28, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hung Wai Ching

“This is a very interesting story that I have never heard before and I have never heard of this man. He is a great leader who rises above the fear, prejudices and anger to pick up a cause to do the right thing for humanity.”

“One wonders if there was never a Hung Wai Ching, where would the Japanese Americans be today?” (Mae Kimura; Yoshinaga)

Hung Wai Ching was born on August 1, 1905, in Hawai‘i. His parents, Yei and Un Fong Ching, came to Hawaii in 1898 from the Chung Shan district of Guangdong province, China. (Ng)

At an early age, his father was killed in an accident, leaving his mother to bring up the six children under circumstances of extreme financial hardship, forcing Hung Wai to sell papers and do odd jobs to help his way through school.

He lived in the predominantly immigrant neighborhood around the Nuʻuanu YMCA. He attended Royal School and graduated in 1924 with the famous McKinley Class of ‘24, which included Hiram Fong, Chinn Ho, Masaji Marumoto and Elsie Ting (to whom he was married for 60 years.)

He graduated from the University of Hawai‘i in 1928 with a degree in civil engineering, earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1932.

He worked at the Nuʻuanu YMCA as a boys’ secretary and served as secretary of the Atherton YMCA from 1938 to 1941. (Tsukiyama)

In December 1940, he was invited to attend a meeting with the FBI, Army and Navy intelligence, and community leaders present to form the Council on Interracial Unity to prepare the people of Hawaii against the shock of imminent war and to preserve the harmonious race relations among Hawaii’s multiracial population.

When the Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the military governor appointed a Morale Division composed of Charles Loomis, Shigeo Yoshida and Hung Wai to put into effect the plans prepared by the Council of Interracial Unity.

The Morale Division served as bridge between the military government and the civilian community, in particular with the Emergency Service Committee composed of leaders of the Japanese American community.

Ching reported to Col. Kendall J. Fielder of Army Intelligence charged with the internal security of Hawai‘i and also reported to FBI Chief Agent Robert L. Shivers.

There were any number of Japanese in Hawaii who unbeknownst to them were either not detained or were released from internment because of Hung Wai Ching’s intervention on their behalf.

In the first few weeks of the war, the military governor assigned Col. Fielder a quota of Japanese to be picked up each day, but upon consultation with Ching, Fielder refused to make indiscriminate quota arrests, even at the risk of court-martial and his military career.

In January 1942, when all soldiers of Japanese ancestry were discharged from the Hawai‘i Territorial Guard, comprised of UH ROTC students, Ching met, counselled and persuaded these confused, bitter and disillusioned Nisei dischargees to offer themselves to the Military Governor for war time service as a non-combat labor battalion.

The petition of 170 Nisei volunteers was accepted by the Military Governor who assigned this group to the 34 Combat Engineers at Schofield Barracks as a labor and construction corps, popularly to become known as the ‘Varsity Victory Volunteers.’ As Father of the VVVs, Ching showed off the VVVs at every opportunity to military, intelligence and governmental officials.

In late-December 1942, Ching was asked to escort Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy around military installations on O‘ahu and made certain that McCloy witnessed the VVV volunteers at work in the field.

A few weeks later in January 1943, the War Department announced its decision to form a volunteer all Nisei combat team. This is exactly what the VVV had been working for, so its members disbanded so that they could volunteer for the newly conceived 442nd.

Ching then adopted the 442nd in place of the disbanded VVV and thereafter dedicated himself to seeing that the Nisei got every fair opportunity to prove their loyalty.

“Who knows if we would’ve had a 442nd if it wasn’t for all the things Hung Wai did.” (Tsukiyama)

Through his Morale Division job, Ching met with some very high and influential people, including President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt, but he never used these contacts to benefit himself.

During a 1943 visit to the White House, Ching used the occasion to brief the president on the wartime situation in Hawaii, how well Sen. Emmons and the FBI were handling the “Japanese situation” and assuring him that there was no necessity for a mass evacuation of Japanese from Hawai‘i.

Ching had no question about the loyalty of Japanese he had known all of his life, but he knew that the general American public would never be convinced of the loyalty of Japanese Americans until they could shed their 4-C (enemy alien) status, get back into military service and fight and even die for their country.

The greatest contributions made by Hung Wai Ching were his outspoken affirmation of the loyalty of Japanese Americans and the direct part he played in the long struggle of Japanese Americans to regain that opportunity to bear arms and to prove their ultimate loyalty to America. (Tsukiyama)

After the war Ching became a real estate broker and land developer, as well as continuing to be a leader in the community, serving on several community and company boards. He, along with his brother Hung Wo Ching, helped found Aloha Airlines. (Ng) (Lots of information here from Tsukiyama, Yoshinaga, Gee and Ng.)

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Hung Wai Ching

May 18, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Camp POW

According to the Convention of 1929 relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 118 LNTS 343, entered into force June 19, 1931, prisoners of war were subject to “internment” and may “be interned in fenced camps.” The Geneva Convention of 1949 also used “internment” as the definition for incarcerating prisoners of war. (NPS)

On July 7, 1937, Japan invaded China to initiate the war in the Pacific; while the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, unleashed the European war.

World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that was underway by 1939. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the US entered the conflict.

American entry into World War II necessitated a rapid expansion of facilities in dealing with enemy prisoners. Following the transfer of 50,000 German POWs from the British in September 1942, Civilian Conservation Corps camps were secured to house the first arrivals; more camps were constructed throughout the war.

By mid-1945, the American POW camp system consisted of 155 base camps in 44 states, Alaska, and Hawai‘i. At its height, the system held 371,683 German, 50,571 Italian, and 5,413 Japanese POWs. (Encyclopedia)

Of the 50,000 Italian captured soldiers and sailors, 5,000 Italian prisoners of war were sent to Hawaiʻi and held at Schofield, Kāneʻohe, Kalihi Valley and Sand Island.

Japanese Americans were also incarcerated in at least eight locations on Hawaiʻi. On December 8, 1941, the first detention camp was set up on Sand Island.

The Sand Island Detention Center held war captives as well as civilians of Japanese, German or Italian ancestry who were under investigation.

Another prisoner of war facility was in Hilo; it was simply known as Camp POW. It was in Ponahawai, up Kaumana Drive.

Land use in Ponahawai Ahupua‘a was used as homestead lands. The ahupua‘a of Ponahawai appears to have been given by Kamehameha to Keawe-a-Heulu, one of his trusted warriors.

At the start of the Māhele, Ponahawai was given up by Keawe-a-Heulu’s nephew Kinimaka. The ahupua‘a became Crown Lands during the Māhele and in the following years numerous, small Land Grants were awarded within the ahupua‘a.

Following the Māhele, the population of Hilo grew and scattered upland habitation gave way to other activities. Visits by ships representing foreign governments, whaling, the establishment and development of American Protestant missions in the Hilo area and the foreign sandalwood trade brought changes in long-established patterns of settlement and land-use patterns. (Escott)

Hilo became the center of population and settlements in outlying regions declined or disappeared. Sugar cane plantations dominated the uplands, displacing traditional farming, and processing and shipping facilities were established near the shore.

Commercial sugar production lasted in Ponahawai until the mid-twentieth century, at which time many of the fields were converted to pasturage associated with cattle ranching.

In 1894, the government opened the Ponahawai Homestead Lots. Road improvements over the next six years gave access to more lots and spurred development in the area. In 1901 Antone Carvalho bought 110 acres on the upland agricultural zone above Hilo. Carvalho sold the property to Charles Chong who subdivided it into house lots.

During WWII the Army’s 27th Infantry division was housed and trained on the property. Later, the Marines were stationed there and Japanese prisoners of war were confined there.

The camp became known as Camp POW.

After the war, Chong converted the camp buildings into rental properties. For safety reasons the buildings were eventually demolished in the 1980s.

In an archaeological survey of the area in 2012, two concrete foundations were identified – they are in close proximity to each other. It was determined these were from a modern (1940s to 1970s) structure, most recently used as a residential rental, based on household refuse that dates to that era.

An archaeologist concluded the site is likely part of the remains of the Camp POW buildings used by the military during WWII. (Lots of information is from Escott) Camp POW appears to have been in, or in the immediate vicinity of Kaumana Lani County Park.

Many of the photos in the album are from Raymond W McCracken’s son’s post on flickr. McCracken was with the 5th Marine Division spent time in three camps on Hawai‘i Island. The photos were taken during his stay between April 13, 1945 and August 25, 1945.

Camps Tarawa and Banyan were camps where they were trained for the attack on Iwo Jima and Camp POW was the camp they were at after Iwo Jima preparing for the invasion of Japan until the war ended.

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unidentified-marines-camp-pow-1945-Raymond W McCracken

unidentified-camp-pow-hilo-hawaii-1945-Raymond W McCracken

5th-pioneer-bat-headquarters-Raymond W McCracken

unknown-marine-camp-pow-1945-Raymoind W McCracken

volleyball-hilo-hawaii-july-45-Raymond W McCracken

unidentied-hilo-hawaii-1945-Raymondf W McCracken

raymond-w-mccracken-camp-pow-hilo-hawaii-1945-Raymond W McCracken

px-camp-pow-hilo-hawaii-1945-Raymond W McCracken

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Pohohawai-Kaumana-USBS-UH_Manoa-1471-1954-portion-Camp POW site noted

Layout of concrete foundation

December 8, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Fifth Column

There were several types of columns used by the military infantry: marching columns for transiting long distances and columns used on the battlefield. They were not intended as assault formations, except under special circumstances.

Reference to a ‘Fifth Column’ dates to the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and refers to a group or faction of subversive agents (or spys.)

Nationalist General Emilio Mola Vidal coined the term when he told a local journalist that four columns of his soldiers were fighting their way to Madrid, and that a secret ‘Fifth Column’ was intent on undermining the loyalist government from within the capital. The papers reported:

“Out of hiding came a few of the phantom ‘fifth column’ – the fascist auxiliary force dreaded by the loyalists. Scheduled to appear within the city itself and take the defenders from the rear, these rebel sympathizers sniped from rooftops at the government militia.” (North Adams Transcript, November 14, 1936)

The term ‘Fifth Column’ survived that war and has ever since been used to designate secret armies or groups of armed subversives.

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, that brought the United States into World War II, outraged Americans and sparked a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment across the country.

Many blamed all Japanese for the Pearl Harbor attack, directing their anger and frustration even at Japanese resident aliens and Japanese-Americans who had done nothing that would bring into question their loyalty to the United States. (Weider)

Fear of the ‘Fifth Column” hit home.

The term’s first use in WWII was by Navy Secretary Frank Knox to describe the Japanese in Hawaiʻi, even though his own report proved his charge an unsupported averment. (Tanner)

“I think the most effective Fifth Column work of the entire war was done in Hawaiʻi with the exception of Norway.” (Frank Knox, Secretary of Navy)

“It was common wisdom that the Nazi invasions of Norway and western Europe had been aided by agents and sympathizers within the country under attack – the so-called fifth column – and that the same approach should be anticipated from Japan.” (Executive Order 9066, archives-gov)

Wartime hysteria inherently relied on the narrative of widespread Japanese saboteurs, or the fifth-column myth. This myth developed as “fears (were) spawned by … headlines (blaring,) ‘Secretary of Navy Blames Fifth Column for Raid’ and ‘Fifth Column Treachery Told.’” (Tanner)

In February 1942, Mississippi Congressman Rankin told the US House of Representatives:
“I know the Hawaiian Islands. I know the Pacific coast where these Japanese reside. Even though they may be the third or fourth generation of Japanese, we cannot trust them.”

“I know that those areas are teeming with Japanese spies and fifth columnists. … Do not forget that once a Japanese always a Japanese …. (They had) been there for generations were making signs, if you please …”

“… guiding the Japanese planes to the objects of their iniquity in order that they might destroy our naval vessels, murder our soldiers and sailors, and blow to pieces the helpless women and children of Hawaii. (Congressional Record; Everest-Phillips)

“(S)enior Government officials ’ignored’ reports by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and members of naval intelligence who concluded that nothing beyond careful watching of suspicious people or individual reviews of loyalty was called for.” (NY Times)

A report commissioned by Congress contended that the vast majority of Japanese Americans were loyal but it did nothing to stop the mounting public hysteria and government and military reactionism.

“(Second generation Nisei are) universally estimated from 90 to 98 percent loyal to the United States … The Nisei are pathetically eager to show this loyalty. They are not Japanese in culture. They are foreigners to Japan. … The loyal Nisei hardly knows where to turn.” (Munson Report; UW)

On February 19, 1942 President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which authorized the military to exclude any person from designated military areas.

“I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders … to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded”.

“(A)nd with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military … may impose in his discretion.”

“The Secretary of War is hereby authorized to provide for residents of any such area who are excluded therefrom, such transportation, food, shelter, and other accommodations as may be necessary, in the judgment of the Secretary of War or the said Military Commander, and until other arrangements are made, to accomplish the purpose of this order.” (Executive Order 9066)

Beginning in 1942, more than 120,000-Japanese-Americans, most of them living on the West Coast, were ordered to leave their homes and were transported to relocation centers (camps) for the duration of the war. The internees were stripped of both their possessions and their civil liberties. (Papers of the Wartime Relocation Commission)

After the war, Japanese Americans returned home.

“(N)ot a single documented act of espionage, sabotage or fifth column activity was committed by an American citizen of Japanese ancestry or by a resident Japanese alien on the West Coast.” (Wartime Relocation Commission; NY Times)

In the decades following World War II, the internment of Japanese-Americans has generally been acknowledged as a national embarrassment, a shameful episode that stands as a blot on America’s record. (Weider)

In 1952 the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act finally allowed Issei (first generation) naturalization. In 1976, on the thirty-fourth anniversary of Executive Order 9066, President Gerald Ford declared the evacuation a “national mistake.”

And in 1988 HR 442 was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan providing for reparations for surviving internees. Beginning in 1990 $20,000 in redress payments were sent to all eligible Japanese Americans. (UW)

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