What Do You Think Of The Japanese Civilans In American Concentration Camps

The general understanding of the evacuation of Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast in WW II is historically one-sided to say the least. The "approved" version of the event has been propagated by expenditure of millions, yes millions, of taxpayer dollars over the last twenty years. As far as I know not one cent has been spent trying to get the real story out.

For a brief review of the situation I recommend those interested go to Internment Archives where you can review some of the primary documentation as well as get some otherwise unavailable information.

See www.internmentarchives.com/smithsonian for a critique of how that institution perverted history to tell the approved story.

 

And get rid of the 16th amendment at the same time....

 

Little quiz for you all, no matter where you may stand on this issue....

Which unit recieved more decorations than any other single unit in the combined U.S. Armed services?

Answer- The 100th Infantry Battalion......composed of JAPANESE AMERICANS entirely.

Many of the 100th serving soldiers had families interned....

 

Something to keep in mind here is that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was composed of not just Japanese-Americans from the relocation camps, but from states which were outside the exclusion zone, some already in the military and serving with other Americans before Japan went to war with us, many from Hawaii’s National Guard, and other places.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was actually composed of two distinct units: the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion. These two units were formed independently at different times and do not share a common lineage. The 100th Battalion would eventually become the 442nd's 1st battalion in June 1944.

The 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) was the first U.S. Army unit of Japanese Americans activated in World War II. The 100th Battalion began its existence as the Hawaiian Provisional Infantry Battalion that was activated on June 5, 1942 in Hawaii. The soldiers of the Hawaiian Provisional Battalion came from various units of the Hawaiian National Guard. The Hawaiian Provisional Infantry Battalion was transferred to the mainland and arrived in San Francisco on June 12, 1942. The unit was then designated the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate). The 100th Battalion trained at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and then at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. The 100th Battalion left Camp Shelby on August 11, 1943 bound for Oran, North Africa. On September 22, 1943 the 100th Battalion landed at Salerno, Italy while attached to the 133rd Infantry Regiment, 34th Division. (emphasis mine)

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was activated on February 1, 1943 at Camp Shelby Mississippi. The 442nd was comprised of the 442nd Infantry Regiment; the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion; the 232nd Combat Engineer Company. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was composed of Japanese American volunteers from the internment camps, Hawaii, states outside of the west coast exclusion zone, and Japanese American soldiers who were already serving in the U.S. Army when the war broke out. These Japanese American soldiers already in the Army would become the cadre for the new 442nd RCT.

The 442nd RCT trained at Camp Shelby and left on April 22, 1944 bound for Italy. During its training at Camp Shelby the 442nd supplied the 100th Battalion with replacement personnel which depleted the ranks of the regiment. When the 442nd left Camp Shelby for Italy it was comprised of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions as it left the reduced staffed 1st Battalion at Camp Shelby to train replacements for the regiment.

The 442nd arrived in Italy in June 1944 and was attached to the 34th Division on June 10, 1944. On this same day the 100th Battalion was attached to the 442nd to take the place of the regiment's missing 1st Battalion. On August 2, 1944, the 100th Battalion was formally redesignated and reorganized as the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry. For unit "morale and historical significances", the 100th Battalion was allowed to retain its original designation instead of being redesignated as the 1st Battalion.

The designation of the unit remained the 442nd Regimental Combat Team which was comprised of the 100th Battalion, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, and the 232nd Combat Engineer Company. Thus, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed and its first day in combat was on June 26, 1944. By this date the 100th Battalion had already been in the Mediterranean Theater for over 9 months and had been involved in many significant battles including the Battle of Casino. After the two units merged, the 442nd RCT and the 100th Battalion were a single infantry regiment with a single history.


See:

442nd Regimental Combat Team Facts

Few of those men in the 100th had family memebers in "relocation camps", since on Hawaii only the upper echelon of the Issei were arrested and placed on outlying islands. There were a few of the "nastiest" outspoken Japanese (who weren't US citizens by law) who were transferred to the Tule Lake camp in California. Tule Lake was (I believe) the only real "prison camp" style facility in the system.

 

Brndirt1 gets the nod here for research, and a nice salute from myself and 2 others.

Not being a "Googler", and having not very much in my library on the 100th, this was quite informative. My only knowledge of the 100th comes as sketchy stuff from reading Manchester's "Goodbye Darkness", and a Sven Hassel fiction novel I read years ago when Sven's unit were supposedly sent to Salerno, and noticed Japanese Americans walking up the Beach, mopping up. Sven described them as "Wielding Samuarai swords"....it could only BE the 100th Batt. Small snippets in Sven Hassels books were obviously based on more than a bit of research....

Or was he actually there?

 

Well, since I actually know a couple of guys whose fathers were members of the 442nd, but not from the "camps" pool it has always been a sort of favorite subject of mine. All of them were great guys.

Not to take anything away from the 442nd, or the 100th, just to put it in perspective. And in fact that they stayed loyal to America through the "trial time" is more impressive to myself than the idea they came out of the "camps" to fight for America.

While we (America) must recognise there were super patriots from this community, we must also remember ther were also a number of Japanese-Americans who wouldn't either accept conscription into the military service nor volunteer for same. That is because at the beginning of the war, the instances of the only American citizens asking for renunciation of their citizenship were of Japanese ancestry.

Nobody wishes to remember that 5,620 of these renunciants, who had asked to be repatriated to Japan, were not included in the general internment totals. Or that 19,000 Japanese actually applied to be returned to Japan during the war.

94% of military-aged Japanese/American males (born in America) said they would NOT serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, the famous "no-no boys" are in this group. Approximately 20,000 Japanese-Americans who were also in Japan at the start of the war actually joined the Japanese war effort in both the Imperial Army, but also as official interpreters at camps holding allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The so-called "no-no boys", were Japanese-American males who answered no to two questions on the new "loyalty questionnaire" when they were interviewed (# 27 & 28). Question 27 asked; "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered or called?" Question 28 asked; "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?" It was these two questions to which they answered "NO" which gave them their nickname.

While the service of the Japanese-Americans who served is to be admired and lauded, those of their own age group may be slightly less so. One must always balance the argument with those who served with distinction, and those who refused to serve at all for personal (not religious) grounds. As Americans they too have the right not to do so, but their positions must also be remembered in the "whole" picture of the moment.

 

It was the right thing to do. Even the Japanese that were loyal revealed those that were not. We should be grateful to our WWII leaders for taking appropraite action in the protection of Americans. There is little or no mention of MAGIC messages that revealed espionage among the Japanese. There were hundreds of Japanese 'Clubs' that pledged to do harm to our country and membership was for the Japanese only. Internment was also legal per the Enemy Alien Act and per the US Supreme Court decision was not a violation of civil or constitutional rights! The revision of history by the Japanese has been accomplished in school text books to tarnish the good names of our WWII leaders. Japanese have no relationship with truth as has been proven with facts time and time again. The CWRIC has been the greatest farce in American history and allowed a Kangaroo court to pay monetary reparations to those relocated and opened the door for the looting of our treasury for generations to come.

One could compare the relocation and potential lives saved in this country during WWII to NO reloaction and lives lost to the new terrorists of our country now. Arkansas, Ft. Hood, NYC, Pennsylvania, The Pentagon all come to mind.

June Thresher, Director
AMERICANS for HISTORICAL ACCURACY
http://americansforhistoricalaccuracy.com

 

I am very sorry for raising up this old thread. And let me apologize before hand as my post is off topic, but I feel that I need to say this.

You know something, reading an intenet thread like this only reinforces my belief that I will never be an American. And believe me, there are a lot of other people like you out there as well. Not in 1,000 years will I ever be thought of as an American. Just look at your language and post. You reffer to these people as Japanese - and not Americans. Let me explain this a little more carefully. You see, there is this baseline assumption that somehow Asian people - whether they are Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Koreans - that such people will never become American.

While the other day someone asked me where I was from - they blantantly assumed that I was from China. I never felt so depressed in my life, but I politely told them I was from New Jersey. They sort of looked at me strangely and said, "No where are you really from?"

Do you see what I am trying to get at?

About ten years ago I built a beautiful 1/350 scale model of the USS Missouri. One day I decided to visit the USS New Jersey parked at the Camden waterfront. After all, both the Missouri and New Jersey are Iowa Class BBs.

And you know what happened?

People assumed I was Japanese.
So I took a few pictures of BB62 and left quickly.

I happen know a surgeon who spent about 15 or 16 years in the Marines, and you know what? People assume he's not an American because his last name is: Nguyen. So whenever I see a thread like this, it makes me incredibly depressed.

An incredible number of the posters in this thread have made the assumption that because someone was of a certain ethnic group [in this thread, Americans who were unfourtunately of Japanese decendants] you immediately called them Japanese and didn't even give this a second thought what so ever. Believe me, for many years I tried to be an American. And now I have almost given up completely given up because so many people have this attitude.

Maybe some people do it unintentionally on the internet, but there are some who have willfully put me down in person - and believe me it hurts a lot. And in the end I walked away quietly saying to myself that no matter how bad it was, or how humuliating it can be - I will still love you and forgive you and pray for you.

Godbless you Skipper. If you were in my town I would take you to the finest coffee shop and buy you the coffee of your choice.

 

It's interesting from an outsiders point of view that someone born and raised in America but of Asian descent is not accepted as an American even though they feel strongly American, whereas someone who may be the third or fourth generation of their family born in America makes a big thing of being Irish or Italian but people have no trouble accepting them as Americans. So does it mean to be accepted as an American in your multi cultural melting pot of a nation even now you have to be of European descent or Black? Or is Catsandcradles just unlucky to have encountered a few uneducated bigots? It is sad that a native born, raised, and educated person is still regarded as a foreigner whereas I, who was born on a different continent, raised in a different country, would probably fit right in if only I could get the accent right. Catsandcradles mentions how previous posters called certain American citizens Japanese, now maybe this was an unconscious example of Asians not be accepted as Americans, or maybe it was just example of how people are still regarded as being from their ancestors nationality as in the aforementioned Italians and Irish. Funny how you never get the impression of a large English American community, no St George's Day celebrations, no English bars flying the Cross of St George, maybe the English Americans had no desire to remember the old country and threw themselves into being Americans. Of course we were the evil Empire oppressing the world so maybe thats why. Now I'm just rambling so I will stop.

 

I suppose it should be remembered that by 1880, just 148 Japanese persons lived legally in the United States. And ten years later, by 1890, only 2,038 Japanese legally resided in the entire continental United States (Hawaii is a different matter), and they were not eligible for naturalization due to the ambiguity of the "free white male" clause of the American naturalization procedure/laws which existed post Civil War.

They were obviously not "white", and not "African", and they themselves disavowed any connection to the "Mongolians" which allowed some persons of Chinese decent to apply for naturalization at the behest of the "China lobby" who were vocal Christian missionaries to China.

A landmark ruling was on Nov. 13, 1922 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Ozawa case, definitively prohibiting Japanese from becoming naturalized citizens on the basis of race/national origin alone. This directly led to the Immigration Act of 1924. This total ban on Japanese immigration lasted until 1952.

It was in 1952 that 100 immigrants from Japan itself per year were allowed, after the ratification of the San Francisco Treaty which ended WW2. A few refugees entered the country during the mid-1950s, as did quite a few Japanese wives of United States servicemen who had been occupation troops in Japan proper.

Now, while this is only a portion of "why" any Japanese-Americans were/are viewed with suspicion, it should be remembered that in less than my own life-time (I was born in 1949) all Japanese were suspected of being "not American". Even if they were born on American soil, they were (possibly) the children of "illegal" immigrants who couldn’t have been legally naturalized.

Now while this sounds pretty lame, at least the children of illegal immigrants of other nations/races didn’t have the naturalization process closed to them specifically.

The Japanese did have to overcome these legal obstacles, and as "catsandcradles" has pointed out this odd discrimination remains. Is it a good thing? NO!

Can it be understood? Perhaps if one looks at the mindset of the entire 20th Century, not just post Pearl Harbor.

 

What bearing does that have on America? If the enemy does it, then it's ok for us to throw our morals away, the morals that made this country?

Kid, you're heading for an F.

 

A little light comment on the subject, George Takei (Sulu in the original Star Trek) was in a internment camp as a small boy. He recounts a story from that time when older boys told him to go to the stop line and yell at the top of his lungs as fast as he could "Sagami Beach!". The guards thought they heard son of a B***h and just fell over laughing as a 7 or 8 year old called them SOB. He himself said he didn't get it till much later.