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In conclusion over the course of the war and sometime after Japanese immigrants were treated unfairly based purely on opinion and wrong opinion at that. In this case the United States were no better than the enemy they were fighting.

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Pearl Harbor was just a peaceful military base, well as peaceful as one can get. Nice Hawaii beaches and waves kids playing in sand and then the air fills with alarms and the sound of planes over head. The sounds are so loud people could go deaf. You see soldiers saying goodbye to their families, most will never see them again. They scramble to trucks waiting to ship them out to their stations. The planes destroyed everything, bombed ships, shot up American fighter jets and destroyed whole buildings. The worst part of everything was that America blamed all Japanese people in America for the attack even when 99% of them had nothing to do with the attack. After the attack the US would do something that most countries like to call a war crime, the US committed many of them. The US would end up launching 2 atomic bombs on 2 large Japanese cities and killing thousands while poisoning many more. After that Japan surrendered but not before America caused carnage and destruction.

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This explains who the 442 battalion was. just some background info ( the 442 battalion was a group of Japanese-American drafted into war their sacrifices and work changed the tides of WW2.

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442nd Infantry Regiment (United States) - Wikipedia

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The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is an infantry regiment of the United States Army, part of the Army Reserve. The regiment was a fighting unit composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry (mostly from Hawaii) who fought in World War II.

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the central idea of this article is the 442 battalion and their accomplishments during the war. and it also teaches you how loyal japanese-americans were to their country even though they were treated horribly wrong

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Japanese interment camps were very very harsh, they did some very unnecessary things. This article shows pictures from the camps. The camps leave many people traumatized.  

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Japanese interment camps were very very harsh, they did some very unnecessary things. This article shows pictures from the camps. The camps leave many people traumatized.  

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In February of 1942, just 10 weeks after the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government issued Executive Order 9066, calling for the internment of Japanese Americans. Intended initially to prevent Japanese spies from receiving intel, this order authorized their removal from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable" during World War II.

These areas covered much of the West Coast, where many Japanese-Americans resided, including California, Washington and Oregon. By June, more than 110,000 people would be forcibly removed from their homes and placed in prison camps scattered throughout the country.

Under the order, anyone with 1/16th or more of Japanese heritage was required to be removed. At first, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved to the designated areas. By March 24, the U.S. Army began leading the removals, giving people just six days of notice to clear out with their belongings.

Many of the Relocation Centers were meant as temporary holding spaces, but some people waited many months before receiving permanent placement. These centers were in remote areas and reconfigured hastily to house the masses that were sent there. Food shortages and poor sanitation were common in these facilities.

The Relocation Centers housed Japanese Americans in barracks, with multiple families living together in communal areas. Each functioned as its own town with schools, a post office, and farmland, all monitored by guards and closed off to the outside world with barbed wire fences.

Jobs were offered to the prisoners during their times at these isolated camps, with a range as wide as their professions outside the camps had been. However, a policy was put in place that no person would receive wages higher than an Army private while there, no matter how critical or specialized their job was.

By December 1944, the Supreme Court put an end to Japanese internment camps with its ruling in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, the court stated the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The following month, Japanese American "evacuees" from the West Coast were finally allowed to return to their homes. The last camp did not close until March 1946.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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These Photos Show the Harsh Reality of Life in WWII Japanese American Internment Camps | HISTORY

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More than 100,000 Japanese Americans were sent to 'War Relocation Centers' between 1942 and 1946.

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the main idea of these articles are immigrants and the immigration process. it also tells you how japanese americans made it to america and what they first did.

this recource taught me the process of immigration and how japanese-americans felt and what they did when they first made it to america.

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This article from someone who wasn't directly in the action, but saw it happen.

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This article from someone who wasn't directly in the action, but saw it happen.

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Pearl Harbor Story: Interview with Pearl Harbor Eyewitnesses

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We're here to answer questions from the students regarding our experiences on Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. We were both 25 years old and had been married 4 months. We were not really uneasy about the world situation.

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What was the internment of Japanese Americans?

Where were Japanese American internment camps?

Why were Japanese Americans interned during World War II?

What was life like inside Japanese American internment camps?

What was the cost of Japanese American internment?

Japanese American internment, the forced relocation by the U.S. government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II. That action was the culmination of the federal government's long history of racist and discriminatory treatment of Asian immigrants and their descendants that had begun with restrictive immigration policies in the late 1800s.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941, the U.S. War Department suspected that Japanese Americans might act as saboteurs or espionage agents, despite a lack of hard evidence to support that view. Some political leaders recommended rounding up Japanese Americans, particularly those living along the West Coast, and placing them in detention centres inland. A power struggle erupted between the U.S. Department of Justice, which opposed moving innocent civilians, and the War Department, which favoured detention. John J. McCloy, the assistant secretary of war, remarked that if it came to a choice between national security and the guarantee of civil liberties expressed in the Constitution, he considered the Constitution "just a scrap of paper." In the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, more than 1,200 Japanese community leaders were arrested, and the assets of all accounts in the U.S. branches of Japanese banks were frozen.

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, approximately 125,000 Japanese Americans lived on the mainland in the United States. About 200,000 immigrated to Hawaii, then a U.S. territory. Some were first-generation Japanese Americans, known as Issei, who had emigrated from Japan and were not eligible for U.S. citizenship. About 80,000 of them were second-generation individuals born in the United States ( Nisei), who were U.S. citizens. Whereas many Issei retained their Japanese character and culture, Nisei generally acted and thought of themselves as thoroughly American.

Relocation

In early February 1942, the War Department created 12 restricted zones along the Pacific coast and established nighttime curfews for Japanese Americans within them. Individuals who broke curfew were subject to immediate arrest. The nation's political leaders still debated the question of relocation, but the issue was soon decided. On February 19, 1942, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. military authority to exclude any persons from designated areas. Although the word Japanese did not appear in the executive order, it was clear that only Japanese Americans were targeted, though some other immigrants, including Germans, Italians, and Aleuts, also faced detention during the war. On March 18, 1942, the federal War Relocation Authority (WRA) was established. Its mission was to "take all people of Japanese descent into custody, surround them with troops, prevent them from buying land, and return them to their former homes at the close of the war."

On March 31, 1942, Japanese Americans along the West Coast were ordered to report to control stations and register the names of all family members. They were then told when and where they should report for removal to an internment camp. (Some of those who survived the camps and other individuals concerned with the characterization of their history have taken issue with the use of the term internment, which they argue is used properly when referring to the wartime detention of enemy aliens but not of U.S. citizens, who constituted some two-thirds of those of Japanese extraction who were detained during the war. Many of those who are critical of the use of internment believe incarceration and detention to be more appropriate terms.) Japanese Americans were given from four days to about two weeks to settle their affairs and gather as many belongings as they could carry. In many cases, individuals and families were forced to sell some or all of their property, including businesses, within that period of time.

Some Euro-Americans took advantage of the situation, offering unreasonably low sums to buy possessions from those who were being forced to move. Many homes and businesses worth thousands of dollars were sold for substantially less than that. Nearly 2,000 Japanese Americans were told that their cars would be safely stored until they returned. However, the U.S. Army soon offered to buy the vehicles at cut-rate prices, and Japanese Americans who refused to sell were told that the vehicles were being requisitioned for the war.

After being forcibly removed from their homes, Japanese Americans were first taken to temporary assembly centres. From there they were transported inland to the internment camps (critics of the term internment argue that these facilities should be called prison camps). The first internment camp in operation was Manzanar, located in east-central California. Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans for varying periods of time in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas.

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Japanese American internment | Definition, Camps, Locations, Conditions, & Facts

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Japanese American internment, the forced relocation by the U.S. government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas.

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ths tells you about the sacrifises japanese-americans did during ww2

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During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the West Coast because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage. As the war progressed, many of the young , Japanese immigrants' children who were born with American citizenship, volunteered or were drafted to serve in the United States military. Japanese Americans served in all the branches of the United States Armed Forces, including the United States Merchant Marine. An estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, of which 20,000 joined the Army. Approximately 800 were killed in action.

The 100th/ 442nd Infantry Regiment became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. The related 522nd Field Artillery Battalion liberated the infamous Dachau concentration camp. Other Japanese-American units also included the 100th Infantry Battalion, the Varsity Victory Volunteers, and the Military Intelligence Service.

The majority of Japanese Americans serving in the American Armed Forces during World War II enlisted in the army.

The 100th Infantry Battalion was engaged in heavy action during the war taking part in multiple campaigns. The 100th was made up of Nisei who were originally members of the Hawaii National Guard. Sent to the mainland as the Hawaii Provisional Infantry Battalion on June 5, 1942, the 1,432 original members of the 100th were stationed first at Camp McCoy and later at Camp Shelby for combat training. Their exemplary military record, and the patriotic activities of the Varsity Victory Volunteers, paved the way for the creation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in January 1943. The Battalion shipped out in August 1943, landing in North Africa before fighting in Italy, eventually participating in the liberation of Rome.

Meanwhile, an earlier decision to demote Nisei soldiers to 4-C class was reversed and the Army in January 1943 issued a call for Japanese-American volunteers. Most of the initial recruits came from Hawaii, as those on the mainland were reluctant to volunteer while they and their families remained in camp. The 2,686 accepted Hawaiians (out of 10,000 volunteers) and about 1,000 mainlanders were sent to Camp Shelby. The U.S. Army regiment served in Europe during World War II. Japanese Americans already in training at the start of the war had been removed from active duty shortly after Pearl Harbor, and the Army stopped accepting new Nisei recruits in early 1942. However, community leaders in Hawaii as well as Japanese-American leaders like Mike Masaoka along with War Department officials like John J. McCloy soon began to push the Roosevelt administration to allow Nisei to serve in combat. A military board was convened in June 1942 to address the issue, but their final report opposed forming a Nisei unit, citing "the universal distrust in which they [Japanese Americans] are held." Despite resistance from military and War Relocation Authority leaders, the President eventually sided with the War Department, and on February 1, 1943, Roosevelt announced the creation of a segregated unit composed of Nisei soldiers and commanded by white officers. The 100th Infantry Battalion composed of men from Hawaii entered combat in Italy is September 1943 and suffered horrific casualties and became known as the Purple Heart Battalion. As a result, the 1st Battalion of the 442nd began sending replacement troops to join the 100th in early 1944. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions shipped out on May 1, 1944, joining the 100th in Italy in June 1944. These men arrived in Europe after the 100th Infantry Battalion had already established its reputation as a fighting unit, and in time, the 100th/442nd became, for its size and length of service, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.

The Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was organized as part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; but towards the end of the war, the 522nd became a roving battalion, shifting to whatever command most needed the unit. The 522nd had the distinction of liberating survivors of the Dachau concentration camp system, from the Nazis on April 29, 1945. Nisei scouts west of Munich near the small Bavarian town of Lager Lechfeld encountered some barracks encircled by barbed wire. Technician Fourth Grade Ichiro Imamura described it in his diary:

"I watched as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot off the chain that held the prison gates shut .... They weren't dead, as he had first thought. When the gates swung open, we got our first good look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews. They were wearing striped prison suits and round caps. It was cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places. There were no German guards. The prisoners struggled to their feet .... They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons - all skin and bones ...."

Holocaust historians have clarified the Nisei 522nd liberated about 3,000 prisoners at Kaufering IV in Hurlach. Hurlach was one of 169 subordinate slave labor camps of Dachau. Dachau, like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Ravensbrück, was surrounded by hundreds of sub-camps. Only three days later, the survivors of a death march southwards from Dachau towards the Austrian border were found by troops of the 522nd just west of the village of Waakirchen, and cared for them until dedicated medical personnel took over.

Pierre Moulin in his recent book 'Dachau, Holocaust and US Samurais' writes that the first Nisei arrived at Dachau's gate not on April 29, the date of the liberation of the camp, but on April 28, 1945. Two jeeps of forward observers with 522nd Field Artillery Battalion Captain Charles Feibleman, Kelly Nakamura (Driver), George Oide, Kenzo Okubo, Mike Hara, arrived first at the gates of Dachau but were told to wait for back up since the SS were still in the towers.<ref. Charles B. Feibleman>

Approximately 6,000 Japanese Americans served in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). The first class received their training at the Presidio in San Francisco, but in June 1942 the MIS Language School was moved to Camp Savage, Minnesota, which offered larger facilities, removed the complications of training Japanese-American students in an area they were technically prohibited from entering, and had less anti-Japanese prejudice. In August 1944, the language school was moved again to Fort Snelling.

Most of the MIS Language School graduates were attached to the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) as linguists and in other non-combatant roles, interpreting captured enemy documents and interrogating prisoners of war. (At the end of the war, MIS linguists had translated 18,000 enemy documents, created 16,000 propaganda leaflets and interrogated over 10,000 Japanese POWs.) However, MIS servicemen were present at every major battle against Japanese forces, and those who served in combat faced extremely dangerous and difficult conditions, sometimes coming under friendly fire from U.S. soldiers unable to distinguish them from the Japanese and often encountering former friends on the battlefield.

Japanese-American MIS linguists translated Japanese documents known as the " Z Plan", which contained Japan's counterattack strategy in the Central Pacific. This information led to Allied victories at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which the Japanese lost most of their aircraft carrier planes, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. An MIS radio operator intercepted a message describing Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's flight plans, which led to P-38 Lightning fighter planes shooting down his plane over the Solomon Islands.

When Merrill's Marauders were organized to conduct long range penetration special operations jungle warfare deep behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India Theater in January 1944, fourteen MIS linguists were assigned to the unit, including Army Rangers and Military Intelligence Hall of Fame inductee Roy Matsumoto.

The Nisei under Merrill's command proved themselves particularly intrepid and helpful, venturing into the enemy lines and translating audible commands to counter attacks, and shouting conflicting commands to the Japanese, throwing them into confusion. They soon became the best known Nisei in the war against Japan. The War Relocation Authority used their story to impress other Americans with Nisei valor and loyalty, even placing stories in local newspapers as the war waned in 1945 and the WRA prepared to release the Japanese-Americans back into their communities.

Over 5,000 Japanese Americans served in the occupation of Japan. Dozens of MIS graduates served as translators, interpreters, and investigators in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Thomas Sakamoto served as press escort during the occupation of Japan. He escorted American correspondents to Hiroshima, and the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Sakamoto was one of three Japanese Americans to be on board the USS Missouri when the Japanese formally surrendered. Arthur S. Komori served as personal interpreter for Brig. Gen. Elliot R. Thorpe. Kay Kitagawa served as personal interpreter of Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. Kan Tagami served as personal interpreter-aide for General Douglas MacArthur. Journalist Don Caswell was accompanied by a Nisei interpreter to Fuchū Prison, where the Japanese government imprisoned communists Tokuda Kyuichi, Yoshio Shiga, and Shiro Mitamura.

Japanese Americans were generally forbidden to fight a combat role in the Pacific theatre[why? ]; although no such limitations were placed on Americans of German or Italian ancestry who fought against the Axis powers. Up to this point, the United States government has only been able to find records of five Japanese Americans who were members of the Army Air Forces during World War II, one of them being Kenje Ogata. There was at least one Nisei, U.S. Army Air Forces Technical Sergeant Ben Kuroki, who participated initially in 35 missions as a dorsal turret gunner over Europe, followed by 28 bombing missions over mainland Japan and other locations in the Pacific Theater.

Nisei Herbert Seijin Ginoza flew combat missions over Europe as a waist-tail gunner in the 483rd Bomb Group. He spent 3 months as a German prisoner-of-war after his B17 was shot down on a bombing mission near Vienna, Austria.

Women's Army Corps

Like their male counterparts, Nisei women were at first prohibited from serving in the U.S. military; this changed in November 1943, and 142 young women volunteered to join the WAC. Because their number was relatively small, the Nisei WACs were not restricted to a segregated corps, but instead were spread out and served alongside other ethnic groups. The idea of female auxiliary service was still new at this time (the Women's Army Corps was only nine months old when it opened its ranks to Nisei volunteers), and these women were most often assigned to clerical duties or other "women's work." Additionally, WACs were often portrayed in media and propaganda as highly sexualized and were encouraged by male supervisors to play into this role. The Nisei WACs faced another difficulty in that they were expected to translate Japanese military documents; even those who were fluent in Japanese struggled to understand the military language, and eventually some were sent to the Military Intelligence Language School for training.

The nation's highest award for combat valor, the Medal of Honor, was conferred upon one Nisei during the war, Sadao Munemori, after he sacrificed his life to save his fellow soldiers. Twenty-one members of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team received Distinguished Service Crosses during or immediately after their World War II service, but in the 1990s, after a study revealed that racial discrimination had caused them to be overlooked, their awards were upgraded to Medals of Honor.

On October 5, 2010, Congress approved the granting of the Congressional Gold Medal to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion, as well as the 6,000 Japanese Americans who served in the Military Intelligence Service during the war. The Nisei Soldiers of World War II Congressional Gold Medal was collectively presented on November 2, 2011.

The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington, D.C. is a National Park Service site to commemorate the experience of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and their parents who patriotically supported the United States despite unjust treatment during World War II.

The Go for Broke Monument in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California, commemorates the Japanese Americans who served in the United States Army during World War II.

California has given four state highway segments honorary designations for Japanese American soldiers:

Pearl Harbor (2 July 2014). Adm. Harry Harris Jr., COMPACFLT, thanks Ralph Tomei, a 442nd veteran. Tomei represented his friend Shiro Aoki as French RADM Anne Cullere presents him with the Legion of Honor.

Asahina, Robert. (2007). Just Americans: How Japanese American Won a War at Home and Abroad. New York: Gotham Books. ISBN 978-1-59240-300-4

Sterner, C. Douglas. (2007). Go for Broke: The Nisei Warriors of World War II Who Conquered Germany, Japan, and American Bigotry, Clearfield, Utah: American Legacy Media. ISBN 978-0-9796896-1-1 OCLC 141855086

Yenne, Bill. (2007). Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-35464-0

Moulin, Pierre. (1993). U.S. Samurais in Bruyeres - People of France and Japanese Americans: Incredible story Hawaii CPL Editions. ISBN 2-9599984-0-5 [1]

Moulin, Pierre. (2007). Dachau, Holocaust and US Samurais - Nisei Soldiers first in Dachau Authorhouse Editions. ISBN 978-1-4259-3801-7 [2]

Gene Oishi: In search of Hiroshi, Rutland ; Vermont ; Tokyo, Japan : Charles E. Tuttle, [1988], ISBN 0-8048-1533-X

John Okada: No-no Boy, with a new foreword by Ruth Ozeki; introduction by Lawrence Fusao Inada; afterword by Frank Chin, Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2014 (Original: 1957), ISBN 978-0-295-99404-8

Julie Otsuka: When the emperor was divine, London : Penguin Books, 2004, ISBN 0-14-100905-5

Inada, Lawson Fusao: Legends from camp : poems, Minneapolis : Coffee House Press, 1993, ISBN 978-1-56689-004-5

Frank Fujita; Stanley L. Falk; Robert Wear (Dec 1, 2000). Foo, a Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun: The Secret Prison Diary of Frank "Foo" Fujita. University of North Texas Press.

Harrington, Joseph Daniel (1979). Yankee Samurai: The Secret Role of Nisei in America's Pacific Victory. Pettigrew Enterprises. OCLC 5184099.

McCaffrey, James M. (2013). Going for Broke: Japanese American Soldiers in the War against Nazi Germany. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806143378. OCLC 814707444.

McNaughton, James (2006). Nisei Linguists:Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service during World War II. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 70-99-1.

Swift, David W, Jr., Ph.D.(2006, 2008) First Class: Nisei Linguists in World War II National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc., San Francisco. ISBN 1-881506-15-0 (PAPERBACK)

Tamura, Linda (2012). Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence: Coming Home to Hood River. University of Washington Press. ISBN 9780295992099. OCLC 783520848.

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Japanese-American service in World War II

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During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the West Coast because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage. As the war progressed, many of the young , Japanese immigrants' children who were born with American citizenship, volunteered or were drafted to serve in the United States military.

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This describes the harsh life that was the internment camps that Japanese-Americans lived in.

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Executive Order 9066

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the stated intention of preventing espionage on American shores.

Military zones were created in California, Washington and Oregon-states with a large population of Japanese Americans. Then Roosevelt's executive order forcibly removed Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes. Executive Order 9066 affected the lives about 120,000 people-the majority of whom were American citizens.

Canada soon followed suit, forcibly removing 21,000 of its residents of Japanese descent from its west coast. Mexico enacted its own version, and eventually 2,264 more people of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina to the United States.

Anti-Japanese American Activity

Weeks before the order, the Navy removed citizens of Japanese descent from Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded-up 1,291 Japanese American community and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets.

In January, the arrestees were transferred to prison camps in Montana, New Mexico and North Dakota, many unable to inform their families and most remaining for the duration of the war.

Concurrently, the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese American residents on the West Coast, seizing items considered contraband.

One-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. In a panic, some politicians called for their mass incarceration. Japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

Some Japanese American residents were arrested and 1,500 people-one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii-were sent to prison camps on the U.S. mainland.

Photos of Japanese American Relocation and Incarceration

John DeWitt

Lt. General John L. DeWitt, leader of the Western Defense Command, believed that the civilian population needed to be taken control of to prevent a repeat of Pearl Harbor.

To argue his case, DeWitt prepared a report filled with known falsehoods, such as examples of sabotage that were later revealed to be the result of cattle damaging power lines.

DeWitt suggested the creation of the military zones and Japanese detainment to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Attorney General Francis Biddle. His original plan included Italians and Germans, though the idea of rounding-up Americans of European descent was not as popular.

At Congressional hearings in February 1942, a majority of the testimonies, including those from California Governor Culbert L. Olson and State Attorney General Earl Warren, declared that all Japanese should be removed.

Biddle pleaded with the president that mass incarceration of citizens was not required, preferring smaller, more targeted security measures. Regardless, Roosevelt signed the order.

War Relocation Authority

After much organizational chaos, about 15,000 Japanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. Inland state citizens were not keen for new Japanese American residents, and they were met with racist resistance.

Ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the Japanese Americans might never leave, and demanded they be locked up if the states were forced to accept them.

A civilian organization called the War Relocation Authority was set up in March 1942 to administer the plan, with Milton S. Eisenhower from the Department of Agriculture to lead it. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent citizens.

Relocation to 'Assembly Centers'

Army-directed removals began on March 24. People had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry.

Anyone who was at least 1/16th Japanese was evacuated, including 17,000 children under age 10, as well as several thousand elderly and disabled residents.

Japanese Americans reported to "Assembly Centers" near their homes. From there they were transported to a "Relocation Center" where they might live for months before transfer to a permanent "Wartime Residence."

Assembly Centers were located in remote areas, often reconfigured fairgrounds and racetracks featuring buildings not meant for human habitation, like horse stalls or cow sheds, that had been converted for that purpose. In Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people stayed in the livestock pavilion of the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities.

The Santa Anita Assembly Center, just several miles northeast of Los Angeles, was a de-facto city with 18,000 incarcerated, 8,500 of whom lived in stables. Food shortages and substandard sanitation were prevalent in these facilities.

Life in 'Assembly Centers'

Assembly Centers offered work to prisoners with the policy that they should not be paid more than an Army private. Jobs ranged from doctors to teachers to laborers and mechanics. A couple were the sites of camouflage net factories, which provided work.

Over 1,000 incarcerated Japanese Americans were sent to other states to do seasonal farm work. Over 4,000 of the incarcerated population were allowed to leave to attend college.

Conditions in 'Relocation Centers'

There were a total of 10 prison camps, called "Relocation Centers." Typically the camps included some form of barracks with communal eating areas. Several families were housed together. Residents who were labeled as dissidents were forced to a special prison camp in Tule Lake, California.

Two prison camps in Arizona were located on Native American reservations, despite the protests of tribal councils, who were overruled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Each Relocation Center was its own "town," and included schools, post offices and work facilities, as well as farmland for growing food and keeping livestock. Each prison camp "town" was completely surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

Net factories offered work at several Relocation Centers. One housed a naval ship model factory. There were also factories in different Relocation Centers that manufactured items for use in other prison camps, including garments, mattresses and cabinets. Several housed agricultural processing plants.

Violence in Prison Camps

Violence occasionally occurred in the prison camps. In Lordsburg, New Mexico, prisoners were delivered by trains and forced to march two miles at night to the camp. On July 27, 1942, during a night march, two Japanese Americans, Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot and killed by a sentry who claimed they were attempting to escape. Japanese Americans testified later that the two elderly men were disabled and had been struggling during the march to Lordsburg. The sentry was found not guilty by the army court martial board.

On August 4, 1942, a riot broke out in the Santa Anita Assembly Center, the result of anger about insufficient rations and overcrowding. At California's Manzanar War Relocation Center, tensions resulted in the beating of Fred Tayama, a Japanese American Citizen's League (JACL) leader, by six men. JACL members were believed to be supporters of the prison camp's administration.

Fearing a riot, police tear-gassed crowds that had gathered at the police station to demand the release of Harry Ueno. Ueno had been arrested for allegedly assaulting Tayama. James Ito was killed instantly and several others were wounded. Among those injured was Jim Kanegawa, 21, who died of complications five days later.

At the Topaz Relocation Center, 63-year-old prisoner James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot and killed by military police after walking near the perimeter fence. Two months later, a couple was shot at for strolling near the fence.

In October 1943, the Army deployed tanks and soldiers to Tule Lake Segregation Center in northern California to crack down on protests. Japanese American prisoners at Tule Lake had been striking over food shortages and unsafe conditions that had led to an accidental death in October 1943. At the same camp, on May 24, 1943, James Okamoto, a 30-year-old prisoner who drove a construction truck, was shot and killed by a guard.

Fred Korematsu

In 1942, 23-year-old Japanese-American Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to a Japanese prison camp. His case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where his attorneys argued in Korematsu v. United States that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment.

Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a civil rights activist and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. With the creation of California's Fred Korematsu Day, the United States saw its first U.S. holiday named for an Asian American. But it took another Supreme Court decision to halt the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Mitsuye Endo

The prison camps ended in 1945 following the Supreme Court decision, Ex parte Mitsuye Endo. In this case, justices ruled unanimously that the War Relocation Authority "has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure."

The case was brought on behalf of Mitsuye Endo, the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, California. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free her, but Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese incarceration.

One year later, the Supreme Court made the decision, but gave President Truman the chance to begin camp closures before the announcement. One day after Truman made his announcement, the Supreme Court revealed its decision.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment camp closed in March 1946. President Gerald Ford officially repealed Executive Order 9066 in 1976, and in 1988, Congress issued a formal apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 each to over 80,000 Japanese Americans as reparations for their treatment.

Sources

Japanese Relocation During World War II. National Archives.
Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord and R. Lord.
Lordsburg Internment POW Camp. Historical Society of New Mexico.
Smithsonian Institute.

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Japanese Internment Camps: WWII, Life & Conditions | HISTORY

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Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt through his Executive Order 9066. From 1942 to 1945, it was the policy of the U.S. government that people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, be incarcerated.

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Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25

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Japanese-American immigrants first coming to America.

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Japanese-American immigrants first coming to America.

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This article explains the first Japanese citizens to  come to America. telling you about what they did when they first came and how they became American citizens.

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Significance: Fromthe 1880's, Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the western states made the Japanese one of the largest Asian ethnic groups in the United States. Though mostly blocked by legislation between 1924 and 1965, some Japanese immigration continued through those years. Japanese Americans completely integrated and became very successful in government, business, the sciences, and cultural enterprises.

Japanese immigrants awaiting processing at the federal government's immigrant reception center on San Francisco Bay's Angel Island during the 1920's. (NARA)

The first immigrants from Japan began to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands between 1885 and 1895, following on the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Plantation owners who were forbidden from hiring Chinese workers hired thousands of Japanese citizens to work in the sugar cane and pineapple fields. About half of these Japanese eventually migrated to California, Oregon, and Washington State. More than 100,000 Japanese people made the journey across the Pacific to Hawaii before 1900, making the Japanese the dominant immigrant group in the islands. The new Meiji emperor of Japan had opened up the country and finally allowed citizens to emigrate. The working conditions were not good in Hawaii, but Japanese laborers were lured to the islands by the prospects of earning ten times more than was possible in their home country.

Profile of Japanese immigrants

*Immigrants who obtained legal permanent resident status in the United States.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 2008.

Life in Hawaii

During the 1880's, Hawaii was technically still a monarchy but was mostly controlled by American businessmen and plantation owners who farmed sugar cane, coffee, and pineapple on large estates throughout the islands. This required huge workforces. The native Hawaiians had fled or died out due to the diseases brought by American and European missionaries and white settlers, thus creating a labor market for the Chinese and Japanese. As a part of its new openness to foreign trade, the Meiji government formulated an agreement with Hawaii that made it easier for agricultural workers to leave Japan to work in the plantations. The agreement took the form of a labor contract that allowed American plantation owners to pay for transportation costs to Hawaii. The Japanese were required to work for up to a year to repay the debt.

In 1885, approximately 30,000 Japanese workers immigrated to Hawaii. The first-generation Japanese born outside America were known as the Issei. They had few chances for education or goodpaying jobs at home and hoped to save some of the money they earned working in Hawaii. Almost all the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii worked the sugar cane fields and were paid low wages. Some returned to Japan after one year, but many stayed in Hawaii until the opportunity arose to immigrate to the West Coast of the United States.

The number of Japanese moving to Hawaii through labor contracts and also through repayment arrangements made between immigrants and their home villages greatly increased during the last years of the nineteenth century. The official census of Hawaii counted 12,610 Japanese citizens in 1890, and that number had increased to more than 60,000 by the turn of the century. The new Japanese residents of Hawaii set up communities that resembled Japanese villages around the boundaries of plantations. The influx of Japanese to the islands was mutually beneficial because it provided jobs to those displaced by the Meiji Restoration. The thousands of new workers helped increase the productivity of the sugar cane and pineapple fields. The working conditions were unsurprisingly not good: The plantation workers spoke only English and treated the Japanese workers like horses or cattle, forcing them to get up at 4:00 a.m. to begin working the fields at 6:00 a.m., seven days a week.

In 1900, Hawaii became a U.S. territory, which meant that it would be governed by U.S. law, under which contract labor arrangements were illegal. When the Japanese who came to Hawaii under such a contract finished their obligation with the plantation owner, they were free to return to Japan. Many chose to go to California to look for better opportunities, while about one-third decided to remain in Hawaii and continue in agricultural labor. Since the majority of Japanese workers were men, some had to wait for future wives to be sent from Japan through arranged marriages, which were still common during the early years of the twentieth century. Some women traveled to Hawaii to join brothers or husbands already working there.

The longer the Japanese stayed in Hawaii, the more likely they were to marry and have children, thereby increasing the size of their community. As fear of the immigrants increased, in 1908 Japanese workers staged protests against the long hours and harsh conditions, demanding better wages and safer working conditions. The strike did not change the plantations' working conditions but served as a testament to increased immigrant political power and community action. With little prospect of change in Hawaii, Japanese workers left the islands to search for better jobs, mostly in California. About 40,000 Japanese traveled from Hawaii in the years after the labor strike of 1908, becoming the first large group of Japanese immigrants to reach the mainland.

Journey to the Mainland

By 1908, a labor shortage had been created by anti-immigrant laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited Chinese from becoming U.S. citizens, making it easy for the Japanese workers to find jobs. Chinese workers had taken many of the lowest-paying jobs in railroad construction, farming, logging, mining, and fishing, but now those jobs were available to new immigrants. Some Japanese looked for work in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, but many had grown up on farms in Japan or Hawaii, so they decided to pursue agricultural work. They were especially keen on the possibility that they might eventually be able to buy the land themselves. The large and productive valleys of California presented unlimited possibilities.

Japanese workers, like the Chinese before them, soon developed the reputation for accepting physically demanding work for low pay. They took to the fields and factories, working long hours and putting up with challenging conditions. Farmworkers who harvested produce were paid by the bushel of produce picked. Japanese workers proved that they could earn twice the pay of others because they were quick and efficient. They came from a small country with limited farm resources, so they were accustomed to getting the most produce from the lowest-quality farmland. In California, where the land was fertile and abundant, Japanese farmers could outproduce other farmers with techniques such as growing strawberries between rows of grapevines. They were also good at saving their earnings, so eventually farmworkers could combine their individual savings and buy land for the benefit of one another.

Immigration from Japan, 1860-2008

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, 2008. Figures include only immigrants who obtained legal permanent resident status.

Pressure Builds to Exclude Japanese

The Japanese immigrants' willingness to work long hours and work together in order to purchase farmland made them one of the most successful ethnic groups, but some Americans resented their success. Some people felt that the Japanese were taking away jobs from white Americans. Labor unions such as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) refused to allow Japanese workers to join their organizations. Businesspeople and farmers were afraid of the Japanese workers' success, and they began to pressure the government to take action. In 1905, the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) was formed in California to prevent more immigrants from coming to the United States from Japan. The AEL and other racist groups pressured President Theodore Roosevelt to stop further immigration, but Roosevelt did not want to needlessly irritate the Japanese government. Roosevelt vetoed several new laws modeled after the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, but he did accept the Gentlemen's Agreement with Japan in 1907, which prohibited male workers from emigrating to Hawaii or the mainland. While new immigration was banned, the agreement allowed the Japanese to send family members (children, wives, or parents) of workers already living in the United States to join them.

More anti-Japanese laws were passed in the years after the Gentlemen's Agreement because of ethnocentrism and negative attitudes about immigrants from places other than northern Europe. The Immigration Restriction League (IRL) was led by Prescott Hall, who argued that people from northern Europe were energetic, free, and progressive while southern Europeans, Jews, and Asians were downtrodden, primitive, and lazy. These racist attitudes were common during the early twentieth century. Both the AEL and the IRL posited that the Japanese were taking away unskilled, low-paying jobs from Euro-Americans, but in fact the industrious Japanese were rapidly leaving agricultural work and beginning to own land and lease it to others.

In 1913, however, California enacted its first Alien Land Law, which made it illegal for noncitizens to purchase land. A Japanese immigrant named Takao Ozawa resented this law and fought against it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declared in 1922 that naturalized citizenship was limited to whites and African Americans. However, children of Japanese immigrants born in the United States would be considered citizens. The Immigration Act of 1924 prevented almost all immigration from Japan for three decades. Despite these barriers, Japanese immigrants continued to work hard and prosper, combining resources to create social organizations such as savings and loans, banks, and social assistance groups. The slew of anti-Japanese laws was not completely effective because the new laws did not apply to those born in the United States.

World War II and Japanese Immigrants

During the 1930's, as the United States struggled through the Great Depression, Japan's government became increasingly militaristic. With Emperor Hirohito on the throne, Japanese leaders elevated the traditional Shinto religion, transformed the emperor into a religious figure, and demanded total obedience to the state. Japan turned away from the path of modernization and democracy, spreading a doctrine of world domination and propaganda about its racial superiority. Japan's army invaded China's Manchuria region in 1931 to begin a path of destruction that would not end until the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. After the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan and its allies, including Adolf Hitler's Germany and Benito Mussolini's Italy.

Like other Americans, the Japanese Americans in the western states viewed the rise of the military government in 1930's Japan with savage indignation, and they could not understand the godlike reverence for Hirohito. After many years of anti- Japanese laws in California, some people were still suspicious of the Japanese citizens who worked hard, owned houses and farms, and attended churches and schools like other Americans. Soon after Pearl Harbor, western states enforced curfews that required Japanese Americans to stay inside their homes between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went to work arresting suspicious "enemy aliens" who might be leaders in the Japanese community such as Shinto and Buddhist priests, businesspeople, teachers, and professionals. In 1942, California fired all state employees of Japanese ancestry without reason or due process of law. Most were American citizens with rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of War Henry Stimson believed that Japanese American citizens were more loyal to their race than to their adopted country.

In February, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which empowered the military to remove any persons from any area in the country where national security was at risk. Even though the executive order did not mention the Japanese by name, it was effectively designed to contain Japanese Americans in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Roosevelt's order displaced some 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, relocating the immigrants to internment camps for the duration of the war. About 70,000 of this group were U.S. citizens. Most of the Japanese were surprised by the forced resettlement because they thought of themselves as Americans. The Army's Western Defense Command set up makeshift assembly centers at old fairgrounds, horse racetracks, rodeo grounds, and farm labor camps, fromwhich internees were later transferred to permanent detention camps in scattered locations throughout the United States, from Manzanar, California, to Rohwer, Arkansas.

As the tide of World War II began to change and the Allies won battles in Europe and in the Pacific, Americans started to reconsider the internment camps and their view of Japanese Americans. Many Japanese Americans stayed in the camps from 1942 until the end of 1944, but some took a loyalty test and were allowed to leave as long as they resettled away fromtheWest Coast. Some Japanese Americans were disgusted by the loyalty tests and refused to submit to them since they were already legal citizens.

From the 1950's Through the 1970's

With the tragic conclusion ofWorldWar II, a difficult period for Japanese Americans ended. The Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 allowed Japanese Americans who had lost property during the internment to claim 10 percent of every dollar lost, but this small amount of compensation was difficult to obtain. During the 1950's, many Japanese immigrants had dispersed to other cities, but the majority still lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose, which had their own Little Toykos. The largest group of new Japanese immigrants was made up of "war brides," women who had married American soldiers during the occupation of Japan. In some ways, the war brides had a more difficult time than the first Japanese immigrants because they lacked a social network and moved to places where few if any Japanese people were living.

During the early 1960's, John F. Kennedy called for reform of exclusionary immigration policies, namely those of the Immigration Act of 1924. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson carried out Kennedy's wishes with the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which resulted in more than doubling Japanese immigration to the United States from less than 2,000 to about 4,500 per year. The Civil Rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., also influenced Japanese Americans, as they began to question the violation of their rights by the government during the 1940's. Some Japanese Americans published memoirs about their experiences in the internment camps and made a pilgrimage to Manzanar. Bowing to pressure from Japanese Americans, Gerald R. Ford signed a proclamation in 1976 admitting that internment had been a "national mistake."

Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries

According to the 1980 U.S. Census, more than 600,000 Japanese Americans were living in the United States, still mostly in the western states. Third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans were well integrated into American society. Surveys revealed that about half of the married Japanese Americans living in large California cities were married to non-Japanese. Japanese Americans were successful in many professional careers and were represented at many levels of local, regional, and national politics. In 1980, Congress established the Commission onWartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to hold hearings, allowing many Japanese Americans to speak about their experiences in the internment camps for the first time. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that gave payments of $20,000 to each surviving Japanese American detainee, and the law also provided money for education of their descendants. Although it took more than forty years, justice was finally realized.

The 2000 U.S. Census documented about 800,000 citizens who claimed Japanese ancestry. Most Japanese who came to the United States during the late twentieth century tended to be either university students or high school students who stayed about five years, or Japanese businessmen, who stayed for a shorter time. In the early twentyfirst century, the number of Japanese immigrants to the United States is relatively small compared with the influx in the early twentieth century, but the impact of Japanese culture has been tremendous. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Japanese corporations started to build factories in the United States as car companies such as Honda, Toyota, and Nissan became increasingly popular. Japanese consumer electronics companies such as Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Panasonic became household names in America. Japanese popular culture, including anime and manga, and Japanese cuisine also became widely popular with Americans. The rapid acceptance of Japanese culture is all the more astonishing given the rampant racism and anti-immigration laws of the 1920's and 1930's. Japanese Americans have become one of the most assimilated and successful groups of immigrants in the United States.

Jonathan L. Thorndike
Further Reading
Daniels, Roger. Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States Since 1850. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988. Well-written, scholarly account of the experiences of Japanese and Chinese immigrants in America.

Duus, Peter, ed. The Twentieth Century. Vol. 6 in The Cambridge History of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Essays discuss the rise of Japanese nationalism and the push toward colonial expansion and World War II.

Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. An excellent overview of Japan in relation to world history and immigration.

Ingram, W. Scott. Japanese Immigrants. New York: Facts On File, 2005. Juvenile book with goodquality photographs and sidebars about Japanese culture and individuals' stories.

Jansen, Marius B., ed. The Nineteenth Century.Vol. 5 in The Cambridge History of Japan. New York:Cambridge University Press, 1989. Standard scholarly work that chronicles Japan's transformation from a feudal society to a modern democratic state during the Meiji Restoration.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989. An account of the systematic racism and discrimination that Chinese, Japanese, and later immigrants from East Asia and Southeast Asia faced in the West.

See also: Anti-Japanese movement; Asiatic Exclusion League; Gentlemen's Agreement; Gospel Society; Issei; Japanese American Citizens League; Japanese American internment; Japanese Peruvians; Little Tokyos; North American Free Trade Agreement; Ozawa v. United States; "Yellow peril" campaign.

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Significance: Fromthe 1880's, Japanese immigration to Hawaii and the western states made the Japanese one of the largest Asian ethnic groups in the United States. Though mostly blocked by legislation between 1924 and 1965, some Japanese immigration continued through those years. Japanese Americans

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this explains the hardship the japanese went through in america after pearl harbor.

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Child waiting to be sent to internment camp, 1942

Japanese immigrants began their journey to the United States in search of peace and prosperity, leaving an unstable homeland for a life of hard work and the chance to provide a better future for their children. However, before the first generation of immigrants could enjoy the fruits of their labor, they had to overcome hostile neighbors, harsh working conditions, and repeated legislative attacks on their very presence in the country. Acceptance came only after the immigrants and their children were forced to endure one of the 20th century's worst crimes against civil liberties, and from that crucible fought to claim their place in the life of the nation.

An Open Door

In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy sailed gunships into Tokyo harbor, forcing a reclusive nation to open itself up to trade with the U.S., and incidentally providing the people of Japan with an unprecedented glimpse of an alien culture.

Osaka street scene

Since 1639, Japan had maintained an official policy of isolation from Europe and most of its colonies, and emigration was strictly controlled. However, in the years that followed Perry's arrival, Japan underwent a tremendous social transformation, and for many Japanese the U.S. increasingly became a model not only of modern military might, but also of a desirable way of life.

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan's rapid urbanization and industrialization brought about great social disruption and agricultural decline. As farmers were forced to leave their land, and workers were left jobless by foreign competition, they looked more and more for a better life outside the islands of their homeland. As Japanese wages plummeted, and word of a booming U.S. economy spread, the lure of the United States became difficult to resist.

Woman with child, Tokyo

Some of the earliest Japanese immigration to lands that would later become part of the United States was illegal. In 1868, the Hawaiian consul general secretly hired and transported 148 contract laborers to Hawaii. Beginning in the 1880s, however, legal barriers to emigration began to drop, and major emigration soon followed. The Japanese government showed significant interest in the process, often selecting emigrants from a pool of applicants, favoring ambitious young men with good connections. Many prospective emigrants enlisted the support of prominent citizens to underwrite their expensive journey to the U.S. At first, most emigrants planned to return home eventually, and saw their sojourn as a quick path to wealth and respectability.

Between 1886 and 1911, more than 400,000 men and women left Japan for the U.S. and U.S.-controlled lands, and significant emigration continued for at least a decade beyond that. The two most popular destinations were the archipelago of Hawaii and America's Pacific coast. In both places, the immigrants would discover a new and radically different way of life, but the two destinations each responded to, and were shaped by, the newcomers in a unique and distinctive way.

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Japanese | Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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Child waiting to be sent to internment camp, 1942 Japanese immigrants began their journey to the United States in search of peace and prosperity, leaving an unstable homeland for a life of hard work and the chance to provide a better future for their children.

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"Japs" was a term that Americans used to abbreviate Japanese and insult them and their culture.

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Women in WW2 decided to the the WAC's, (women's army corps), and this article shows tells you about their story, and how the women's army corps operated.

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Creation of the Women's Army Corps

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC)

With war looming, U.S. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced a bill for the creation of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in May 1941. Having been a witness to the status of women in World War I, Rogers vowed that if American women served in support of the Army, they would do so with all the rights and benefits afforded to Soldiers.

Spurred on by the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Congress approved the creation of WAAC on May 14, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law on May 15, and on May 16, Oveta Culp Hobby was sworn in as the first director. WAAC was established "for the purpose of making available to the national defense the knowledge, skill, and special training of women of the nation."

WAAC adopted Pallas Athene, Greek goddess of victory and womanly virtue - wise in peace and in the arts of war - as its symbol.

Pallas Athene and the traditional "U.S." were worn as lapel insignia. Cap insignia was an eagle, adapted from the design of the Army eagle. The WAAC eagle, later familiarly known as "the Buzzard," was also imprinted on the plastic buttons of the uniform.

Recruitment and Training

Hobby immediately began organizing the WAAC recruiting drive and training centers. Fort Des Moines, Iowa, was selected as the site of the first WAAC Training Center. Over 35,000 women from all over the country applied for less than 1,000 anticipated positions.

The first women arrived at the first WAAC Training Center at Fort Des Moines on July 20, 1942. Among them were 125 enlisted women and 440 officer candidates (40 of whom were black), who had been selected to attend the WAAC Officer Candidate School, or OCS. Their arrival and subsequent training brought considerable public interest surrounding civil rights, as this corps presented the biggest opportunity to test integration in the Army. After OCS, black officers and white officers were segregated.

After training, the WAAC officer or enlisted person was assigned to a 150-woman table of organization company, which only had spaces for clerks, typists, drivers, cooks and unit cadre. Women primarily worked in four fields: baking, clerical, driving and medical. Within one year of the WAAC establishment, over 400 jobs were open to women.

Since to the WAAC law did not women an integral part of the Army, they could not be governed by Army regulations or the Articles of War. Stateside, enlisted women and men received the same basic rate of pay. However, women could not receive overseas pay and were ineligible for government life insurance. If they were killed, their parents could not collect the death gratuity.

In the beginning, WAAC exceeded all its recruiting goals, but by June 1943, recruiting efforts had fallen. Higher paying jobs in civilian industry, unequal benefits with men, and attitudes within the Army itself - which had existed as an overwhelmingly male institution from the beginning - were factors.

Conversion to Army status, Women's Army Corps (WAC)

In January 1943, U.S. Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced identical bills in both houses of Congress to permit the enlistment and commissioning of women in the Army of the United States, or Reserve forces, as opposed to regular enlistments in the U.S. Army. This would drop the "auxiliary" status of the WAAC and allow women to serve overseas and "free a man to fight."

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the legislation on July 1, 1943, which changed the name of the Corps to the Women's Army Corps (WAC) and made it part of the Army of the United States. This gave women all of the rank, privileges, and benefits of their male counterparts.

Women were recruited from all 50 states and territories. A WAC recruiting campaign on the island of Puerto Rico resulted in 200 women being selected out of a pool of 1500. Entrance requirements were rigorous, with each woman required to pass an exam that was entirely in English. Those selected represented many professions: teachers, office workers, translators and even a lawyer.

Women's Army Corps also recruited Nisei women, or second-generation Japanese-American women. Several hundred were selected, and a number of these trained in linguistics at the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Other Nisei WACs received more traditional training in clerical, medical, and supply positions. Eventually, some Nisei WACs found themselves serving as translators and officer workers at Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo.

During World War II, members of WAC were assigned to the Army Air Forces, Army Ground Forces, and the Army Service Forces - comprised of nine service commands, the Military District of Washington and the Technical Services. At first, job opportunities were limited, but soon wide arrays of positions were available to women.

Army Air Forces (AAF)

Assigned as: weather forecasters and observers, electrical specialists, sheet metal workers, link trainer instructors, control tower specialists, airplane mechanics, photo-laboratory technicians and photo interpreters.

Army Ground Forces (AGF)

Assigned to Armor and Cavalry Schools and worked as radio mechanics, took care of records and requisitions involving radio equipment, repaired and installed radios in tanks, bantams and other vehicles - both in camps and in bivouac areas, and trained men in field artillery and code sending and receiving.

Army Service Forces (ASF)

The Signal Corps used women as telephone, radio and teletype operators, cryptographers, cryptanalysts, and photographic experts. The Technical Service, employed under the Transportation Corps, utilized assistance in processing troops and mail. Women served as medical and surgical technicians served within the medical department, and also conducted administrative services for Adjutant General's Corps, Chemical Warfare Service, Quartermaster Corps, finance department, provost marshal and Corps of Chaplains.

In 1944, as Allied forces took the initiative both in Europe and the Far East, WAC units moved into support areas behind the combat troops. January 1944 marked the arrival of the first WAC, in the Pacific theater of operations, at New Caledonia. In May 1944, the first contingent assigned to the Southwest Pacific arrived in Sydney, Australia. Landing crafts put WACs ashore on the Normandy beachhead during July 1944, while others began assuming duties in the China-Burma-India theater. The women of the Corps went where they were needed - to Oro Bay, Hollandia, Casablanca, Chunking, and Manila.

Victory in Europe, victory over Japan and the end of World War II

Victory in Europe was proclaimed when German Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl, of the German High Command, signed the terms of an unconditional surrender in Reims, France, May 7, 1945. Similarly, Victory in Japan was proclaimed on Sept. 2, 1945, to celebrate Japan's acceptance of unconditional surrender terms that occurred on Aug. 14, 1945.

After the war, WAACs had no legal re-employment rights, no peacetime component or even an inactive Reserve. Without these rights, jobs for women would be scarce in peacetime. For this reason, Hobby favored disbanding the WAC as soon as the war ended. Congress provided re-employment rights for WAACs and WACs on Aug. 9, 1946.

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The United States Army honors female Soldiers who have proudly served in honor of defending America's freedom.