Outbreak of War

Prior to World War II, Germany and Japan became military powers, and in the 1930s began their conquests by annexing neighboring nations by sheer intimidation. Actual military conflicts broke out in Asia when Japan invaded China in 1937, and in Europe when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

As Germany overran the European continent and drove into Africa and the Soviet Union, and Japan moved into Asia and Southeast Asia, the United States was placed under tremendous pressure to enter the war. In July 1941, the United States, together with Britain and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), imposed a total embargo on exports to Japan, thus effectively cutting off Japan’s oil supply.

Arcadia, California. Dressed in uniform marking service in the First World War, this veteran enters Santa Anita assembly center for persons of Japanese ancestry evacuated from the west coast - April 1942. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Editorial cartoon in 1942 in the New York newspaper PM by children's author Dr. Seuss with the caption 'Waiting for the Signal From Home' - Courtesy UCSD Special Collections

The population of Japanese Americans across the United States as seen in “Final Report Japanese Evacuation From the West Coast 1942” presented by Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt

The United States had broken a Japanese top secret code and was aware of the probability of armed conflict. Consequently, the U.S. government undertook precautionary measures. In October 1941, the State Department dispatched a special investigator, Curtis B. Munson, to check on the disposition of the Japanese American communities on the West Coast and Hawaii.

The FBI was well prepared for the war, arresting over two thousand persons of Japanese ancestry throughout the United States and the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii within a few days after the declaration of war. Nearly all of those arrested were Japanese nationals, but some American citizens were included.

No charge of espionage, sabotage, or any other crime was ever filed against those arrested. They were apprehended because they were thought to be suspicious persons in the opinion of the FBI. Evidently, anyone who was a community leader was under suspicion by the FBI because almost all of those arrested were organization officers, Buddhist or Shinto priests, newspaper editors, and language or martial-arts school instructors. The established leadership was imprisoned. Inexperienced teenagers and young adults were suddenly thrust into the position of making crucial decisions affecting the entire Japanese American community.

Men were taken away without notice, and their families were left without a means of livelihood. Many also had their bank accounts frozen. Some of those arrested were released after a few weeks, but most were secretly transported to one of twenty-six Department of Justice (DOJ) “internment” or ”isolation” camps scattered in sixteen states and the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii.

Some families did not learn for years what happened to their men. Most detainees were eventually reunited with their families, but only to be sent to another barbed wire concentration camp where their families had been sent in the meantime. Some, however, were confined in the DOJ camps for the duration of the war, together with the Central and South American Japanese who were brought in for incarceration at the insistence of the United States.

Perhaps due to the swift action of the FBI, there was very little public panic, hysteria, or irrationality for the first month of the war. In fact, public opinion was remarkably enlightened: some newspapers even published editorials and letters sympathetic to Japanese Americans, and some elected officials urged the general public not to blame or harm Japanese Americans.

Economic interests in California, however, were not satisfied with the imprisonment of individuals, and the fact that domestic security was under firm control. They wanted the entire Japanese American population removed from California. The same pressure groups and newspapers that had always advocated Japanese exclusion from the state organized an intense rumor and hate campaign. Totally false stories were published about spies and saboteurs among the Japanese Americans. The war became the perfect pretext for anti-Japanese groups to accomplish the goal they had been seeking for almost fifty years.

The truth was that no person of Japanese ancestry living in the United States or the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii was ever charged with or convicted of espionage or sabotage. Ironically, numerous persons of non-Japanese ancestry were charged and convicted as agents for Japan.

Because of the long background of prejudice and stereotypes, many found it easy to believe the false stories. Some high federal officials knew the facts, but they remained silent. By mid-January of 1942, public opinion began to turn against Japanese Americans. Elected officials, city councils, and civic organizations in California, Oregon, and Washington demanded the ouster and incarceration of all Japanese Americans. Earl Warren, then the Attorney General of California, made the incredible statement that the very absence of fifth-column activities by Japanese Americans was confirmation that such actions were planned for the future. Warren also claimed that American citizens of Japanese ancestry were more dangerous than nationals of Japan.

There were a few isolated acts of violence committed against Japanese Americans, but there was no reason to believe that Japanese Americans were in danger despite assertions that the population should be confined for their own safety. If there were any threats, it was the job of local police and sheriff departments to provide protection. Also, many Japanese Americans were perfectly willing to take whatever risk was necessary to protect their homes and property.

Executive Order 9066 broadly authorized military commanders to exclude any person from any area. The presidential order did not mention any specific group, nor did it provide for detention. However, there was an understanding among high officials that the authorization was to be used for the purpose of removing and incarcerating Japanese Americans. Congress backed the Executive Order by passing Public Law 77-503, which authorized a civil prison term and fine for any civilian convicted of violating a military order.

General John L. DeWitt, Military Commander of the Western Defense Command, issued a series of over one hundred military orders applying exclusively to civilians of Japanese ancestry living in the West Coast states. The sole basis for DeWitt’s orders was ancestry; he was often quoted as stating: “A Jap’s a Jap. It makes no difference whether the Jap is a citizen or not.” He further masked the issue of citizen rights by using the term “non-alien” to refer to United States citizens in all of his written orders.

It should be noted that martial law was not declared on the West Coast; the writ of habeas corpus was not suspended; the civil courts were in full operation and anyone charged with espionage or sabotage could have been brought to trial. It also should be remembered that of the 1,100,000 nationals of enemy nations living in the United States in 1942, fewer than 4 percent were Japanese nationals.

Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt, Commander of the Western Defense Command.

Overwhelming despair caused some detainees to commit suicide. Many more died prematurely because of inadequate medical facilities and the harsh environment.

Most incoming and outgoing communications were censored, including personal letters and newspapers. All internal communications were strictly controlled by the camp administration. The Japanese language was banned at public meetings and Buddhist and Shinto religious practices were suppressed.

While the Japanese Americans were incarcerated, some members of Congress and the State Department proposed legislation or executive action to strip all native-born Americans of Japanese ancestry of their citizenship and deport them to Japan after the war. Other elected officials urged that the imprisoned Japanese Americans be used for exchanging with American prisoners of war. One member of Congress even proposed a mandatory sterilization program. Fortunately, none of these extreme measures was taken.

DeWitt first announced that all persons of Japanese ancestry had to leave the western half of the West Coast states and the southern half of Arizona, and urged the affected people to move inland “voluntarily.” Approximately ten thousand tried to comply, mostly moving in with relatives in the eastern half of the West Coast states and interior states. Many, however, were forced to turn back by hostile crowds and armed posses.

American citizens of Japanese ancestry were placed under curfew, along with nationals of Japan, Germany, and Italy. American citizens of German and Italian ancestries were not restricted in any way.

DeWitt then announced that all persons of Japanese ancestry would be expelled from the eastern half of the West Coast states as well and were prohibited from any further “voluntary migration.” He ordered them to maintain their residences until reporting for deten-tion. Then beginning in March 1942, DeWitt ordered all persons of Japanese ancestry in California, parts of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington to turn themselves in at temporary detention camps near their homes.

Byron, CA. Main Street of a small town in the farming district, on the morning of “evacuation” - May 1942. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

The rationale for these actions on the West Coast was “military necessity,” but such a claim was inconsis-tent with the fact that Japanese Americans in Hawaii were not similarly subjected to wholesale incarceration. Hawaii was three thousand miles closer to the enemy, and using DeWitt’s logic, could be in far greater danger of invasion and sabotage. The military commander in Hawaii decided to implement martial law enabling Japanese Americans to remain free to help maintain the islands’ economy.

Like the initial FBI roundups on the mainland, some Japanese nationals in Hawaii were imprisoned on an individual basis and held in prison camps on the islands or transferred to the mass detention or smaller “intern-ment” camps on the mainland. Only 1 percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii was incarcerated.

DeWitt’s detention orders were ostensibly for the purpose of protecting the West Coast against sabotage and espionage; but babies, orphans, adopted children, the infirm and bedridden elderly were also imprisoned. Children of multiple ancestry were included if they had any Japanese ancestry at all. Colonel Karl Bendetson, who directly administered the program, stated: “I am determined that if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them, they must go to camp.”

Non-Japanese spouses, adoptive parents, and orphanage directors were forced to surrender their children for incarceration or enter the camps themselves. The only exceptions were for those confined in prisons or asylums, and the few adults with 1/32nd Japanese blood or less who could prove they had no contact whatsoever with other persons of Japanese ancestry.

There were fifteen temporary “detention camps” scattered throughout Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington. They were mostly county fairgrounds, race tracks, and livestock exhibition halls hastily converted into “detention camps” with barbed wire fences, search lights and guard towers. Each camp held about five thousand detainees, except for the Santa Anita Race Track near Los Angeles, which held over eighteen thousand, and Mayer, Arizona, which held only 247. Living quarters were horse stalls, some still dirty with manure.

Japanese Americans had to leave their homes with only what they could carry with them. Property had to be hurriedly sold, abandoned, given away or left in insecure storage or unpredictable trusts. Crops were left unharvested. Many lost titles to homes, businesses, and farmlands because taxes and mortgage payments became impossible to pay. Most bank accounts had already been frozen or confiscated as “enemy assets,” and there was very low income within the camps. Token amounts were earned by detainees. (The highest was nineteen dollars a month earned by professionals such as doctors.)

The government built ten mass permanent camps in the isolated areas of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. The vast majority of Japanese Americans were moved from the temporary detention centers near their hometowns to the permanent camps hundreds or thousands of miles away even after the threat of invasion by Japan had vanished. Each of the permanent camps held seven thousand to eighteen thousand Japanese Americans. A total of about 120,000 Japanese Americans were ultimately detained.

These inland camps were located in desolate areas and were surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. Guard towers were placed at strategic intervals, and any Japanese American leaving without permission could be shot. Dozens of those confined were shot and wounded. Eight were killed by guards (one each in central Utah, Gila River, Tule Lake, and Fort Sill, and two in Manzanar and Lordsburg). Living quarters were crowded and there was no privacy. Large extended families or groups of unrelated individuals were squeezed into tiny unpartitioned 20 x 25-foot units. The detainees tried to make the dreary camps

The incarceration of Japanese Americans was ac-complished district by district over a five-month period. DeWitt methodically issued detention orders almost daily, each applying to a new locale. As orders pro-gressed through the eastern half of California, Japanese Americans in the eastern halves of Oregon and Wash-ington fully expected their turn would be next. They stripped their possessions down to the bare essentials just as the others before them had been required to do. They lived day-to-day unsettled under the constant threat of imminent removal; however, the actual exclusion orders, fortunately for them, never came.

Government actions also encouraged private harassment: for example, in one town outside the official expulsion area, the entire Japanese American community was boycotted and forced to leave town.

In June 1942, the U.S. Navy won a decisive victory at the Battle of Midway, and the tide of war shifted in favor of the United States. Japan was no longer militarily capable of attacking the West Coast, including Hawaii. The U.S. government and military were aware of this fact, but they went ahead with plans to build permanent American mass detention facilities in the interior deserts in the west and in the Mississippi delta region of the south.

tolerable by foraging scrap materials to make furniture and room partitions. They used indigenous plants to make gardens, and surplus materials or adobe to build schools and recreation facilities. Detainees also operated farms, and many camps became self-supporting for much of their food.

They also volunteered to relieve the critical farm labor shortage in the Mountain Plains area and were granted seasonal work leaves. Others were given leaves to fill labor shortages in Midwest and East Coast factories, and college students were granted educational leaves. But these leaves were a form of parole: they were not free to go or do anything they wanted and had to periodically report to government officials. During 1943 and 1944, about 33 percent of the detainees, mostly young single men, and women, were conditionally released on various forms of leaves or for military duty. The other 67 percent remained in the camps for the duration of the war.

Japanese Americans were known for their pride in rarely having been on welfare or locked up in prisons, but the camps made them wards of the government guarded by armed soldiers. Fathers were no longer the family breadwinners, parents lost control of their children, and families rarely ate meals together. Many were frightened because of the unpredictable future and the hopelessness of the situation. Many did not expect to come out alive.

Due to the insensitive wording, Japanese nationals were asked, in effect, to renounce the only citizenship they had (since they were prohibited from becoming U.S. citizens) and render themselves stateless. American citizens were asked to falsely incriminate themselves by “forswearing” an allegiance to Japan-allegiance they never had. Women and elderly persons were asked to serve in “combat duty wherever ordered.”

Despite the problems with the questionnaire, the majority of detainees affirmatively signed the oath. The loyalty review program would be administered as a part of the “Application for Leave Clearance.” The questionnaire would be used to determine whether an individual would be “at risk” if released from incarceration. The answers of adult respondents would be used to determine their eligibility for enlistment into the military (either voluntary or later by draft), and also for work in any war-related industry. The questionnaire asked about family background, education, and employment. Following the administration of the questionnaire, a Joint Board consisting of representatives from the Navy, War Relocation Authority (WRA), military intelligence and the Provost Marshal General would decide the disposition of each adult detainee. Some would be allowed to work in war production facilities, serve in the army, or be released for other work outside the “internment” camps. This did not mean, however, that the minority who refused to cooperate had been any less loyal or patriotic. Some highly principled individuals felt that their fundamental constitutional rights should be restored before signing. Loyal citizens were incarcerated without a trial. Bitter feelings would be natural, and a questionnaire under these circumstances would not measure objective and true feelings of loyalty.

When the United States entered the war in 1941, there were about 5,000 Japanese Americans in the armed forces, but many were summarily discharged as unsuitable for service. Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Japanese Americans were classified by the Selective Service System as “enemy” nationals (4C) ineligible for duty and were refused enlistment.

The United States, however, soon discovered the need for Japanese language specialists and started to recruit men and women of Japanese ancestry for the Military Intelligence Service, the Office of Strategic Service, and the Office of War Information in June 1942. The bypassing of the Selective Service System and the fact that Japanese Americans were serving with the U.S. Armed Forces in the Pacific Theater was not made public knowledge. Japanese American soldiers in Asia and the Pacific Islands worked primarily as translators and interpreters but engaged in combat whenever the need arose. General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, said that by obtaining crucial military intelligence, the Japanese American soldiers helped to shorten the Pacific war by two years.

In January 1943, the U.S. War Department announced that Japanese American volunteers would be accepted for combat duty in Europe. Most of the volunteers came from Hawaii, but there were also thousands who volunteered from within the mass detention camps on the mainland. The volunteers were assigned to a segregated Japanese American unit—the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd eventually became the most decorated American unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.

In January 1944, the Selective Service System started to draft Japanese American men, even though they were still incarcerated in the camps. Most of the over 33,000 Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. military during World War II were in one of three military units: the 100th Battalion that originated in Hawaii; the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, comprised of volunteers and draftees from the ten mainland “internment” camps; and the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), comprised of Nisei and Kibei, who worked in the Pacific Theater.

Many Japanese American soldiers were greatly concerned about the treatment of their families still incarcerated behind barbed wire fences in the United States while they faced enemy firepower in combat zones.

Among the thousands of Nisei who proclaimed their loyalty and who served in the military during World War II, were a group of men who protested the process of loyalty review and refused to be drafted into the army. Their story has largely been untold, overshadowed by the experiences of the 100th and 442nd. Because they refused to be drafted, they were branded as traitors and referred to in derogatory terms as draft dodgers and troublemakers. For many years following their resistance, the Japanese American community refused to acknowledge the validity of their protest, and many of the draft resisters spent their lives in obscurity. For many of the resisters, their form of protest was not a question of loyalty, but a question of principle. They would not compromise their rights as U.S. citizens, and their beliefs in justice and civil liberty. Many of them chose not to be drafted because of what they saw as injustices in their own and their family’s experiences with the incarceration. (Visit the Japanese American Perspectives module for more information on Tule Lake and the Draft Resisters)

On the other hand, Mitsuye Endo cooperated with the military orders, but when she found herself detained against her will without charges, she sought a writ of habeas corpus in July 1942. Habeas Corpus cases are supposed to be adjudged promptly, but the federal district court took a full year before announcing the decision denying Endo’s plea for release. Endo appealed, but again, the Court of Appeals took another year before forwarding her case to the Supreme Court.

All four Japanese American appellants argued that the military orders were unconstitutional when applied to citizen civilians, and the government conceded that the appellants were loyal citizens who had not committed any crimes other than to challenge the military orders.

Regretfully, judges and justices of the Supreme Court were not immune to the prejudices and war hysteria of the time. The judicial system failed in its constitutional responsibility to protect citizens against abuses by the executive and legislative branches.

In Hirabayashi and Yasui v. U.S. (320 US 81, 115) the Supreme Court ruled that a curfew may be imposed against one group of American citizens based solely on ancestry. In Korematsu v. U.S. (323 US 215), the Supreme Court further decided that one group of citizens may be singled out and expelled from their homes and imprisoned for several years without trial. The Court refused to question military judgment or the validity of military orders applied to civilians without a declaration of martial law.

The majority of the Supreme Court justified these decisions by reiterating the false stereotypes about Japanese Americans that had permeated American thinking. The justices argued, without any foundation, that Japanese Americans were inherently more dangerous to national security than other people merely because of their ancestry. The Court ignored the constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection of law, and violated the basic principle of American justice that guilt and punishment must be individual, i.e., the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property cannot be deprived except upon conviction of an individual’s own wrongdoing. Justice Robert Jackson stated in dissent: “The Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure.”

In the case of Ex Parte Endo (323 US 283), the Court granted Endo an unconditional release from confinement. In a very important sense, however, she lost her point. The court specifically stated that the original expulsion from the West Coast and the detention for three years without charges or trial were legitimate exercises of presidential and military power during an emergency. The ruling did conclude that Endo and other admittedly loyal American citizens could not be imprisoned indefinitely.

The Court decided the Endo case on narrow grounds indicating that Executive Order 9066 did not authorize the indefinite detention of citizens the government conceded were loyal, nor did it authorize the imposition of parole conditions on citizens once removed from the West Coast.

The Endo decision was announced on December 18, 1944, a month after Roosevelt was re-elected to his fourth term. The Western Defense Command (then under General Henry C. Pratt ) had rescinded the exclusion and detention orders a day earlier on December 17th. Japanese Americans were free to return to their homes on the West Coast effective January 1945.