Japanese internment in the United States during World War II
From time to time I will write about interesting and not always well-known events from US history. In today's article I will talk about what happened to Japanese Americans during the Second World War. I think you will be interested in reading about this, because... Sometimes in the media you can find a completely incorrect presentation of those events.
It all started with a surprise attack on December 7, 1941 by Japanese forces on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack was carried out by 353 Japanese warplanes in two waves, which launched from six aircraft carriers. As a result of this attack, all eight battleships were damaged, four of them sank. Three cruisers, three destroyers, a minelayer and a training ship were also damaged or sunk. In addition, 188 aircraft were destroyed. 2,402 Americans were killed and 1,282 wounded. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft, 5 midget submarines and 65 people killed and wounded during the attack. One Japanese sailor was captured.
The attack came as a shock to the entire American people. Public opinion, previously categorically opposed to America's entry into the war, instantly changed to the opposite. Accordingly, on December 8, the US government declared war on Japan. On December 11, after Italy and Germany officially declared entry into war against the United States, America immediately responded in kind.
The government feared a possible Japanese invasion of the West Coast of the United States and that Japanese Americans might support such an invasion, as well as sabotage by members of the Japanese community. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which allowed military commanders to designate areas from which Japanese Americans were to be removed.
Based on this decree, 110 thousand people, 62% of them American citizens, from California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona were moved to camps, mostly located in the California desert. At the same time, only 1,200 to 1,800 of the 150,000 Japanese Americans who lived there were interned in Hawaii. Similar measures did not affect Americans of German and Italian descent.
The book “Farewell to Manzanar”, written by the spouses Jeanne and James Wakatsuki Houston, was published in America. At the time of her placement in the Manzanar camp, Jeanne was only seven years old. You can read this book, it is written in fairly simple language and is easy to understand. This book is required reading in many schools.
Life in the camps was certainly not easy, because... Barrack-type houses were built in haste. There were also problems with teaching children. There were not enough teachers, with an average of 35 to 48 students per teacher. People had no right to leave the camp without permission from the administration. At the same time, a considerable number of volunteers went to serve in the US Army from these camps.
It was not until December 1944 that the process of revising the policy towards Japanese Americans placed in these camps began. During 1945-46, all camps were closed and people received the right to free travel. The government paid for their tickets home and allocated $25 for each person.
By the way, throughout the war, there was no serious evidence that would confirm fears about possible support for Japan in the war against the United States from Japanese Americans.
In subsequent years, the US government officially recognized the illegality of these actions. So in 1988, President Reagan formally apologized on behalf of the US government and said that these actions were based on racial prejudice and war hysteria. More than US$1.6 billion was paid out in compensation to people who were interned.
A memorial sign has been erected at the Manzanar camp, which is located 230 miles (370 km) from Los Angeles, and tours are available there for everyone.
Americans really don't like to remember March 17, 1942. On this day, 120 thousand US citizens - ethnic Japanese or half-breeds - began being sent to concentration camps.
A good Japanese is a dead Japanese
Not only ethnic Japanese were subject to forced deportation, but even those American citizens who had only a great-grandmother or great-grandfather of Japanese ethnicity among their ancestors. That is, who had only 1/16th of the “enemy” blood.
Families were given two days to get ready. During this time, they had to settle all material matters and sell their property, including cars. It was impossible to do this in such a short time, and the unfortunate people simply abandoned their houses and cars.
© AP Photo
Their American neighbors took this as a signal to plunder the “enemy’s” property. Buildings and shops went up in flames, and several Japanese were killed - until the army and police intervened. The inscriptions on the walls “I am an American” did not help, under which the rioters wrote: “A good Japanese is a dead Japanese.”
All Japanese living in three western American states - Washington, Oregon and California - were subject to placement in concentration camps. They were subject to an emergency decree issued by US President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.
The document gave the Ministry of Defense the right to move and isolate any group of people within the country - without any judicial decision, guided only by military necessity. The decree was part of the 32nd US President's long-standing anti-Japanese policy.
The war has been preparing for a long time
Roosevelt began to eliminate a powerful competitor in the Pacific region from the moment when in 1932 the Japanese created the puppet state of Manchukuo in northern China and squeezed out American companies from there. After this, the American president called for the international isolation of aggressors who encroached on the sovereignty of China (or rather, on the interests of US business).
In 1939, the United States unilaterally denounced a trade treaty with Japan that had been in force for 28 years and stopped attempts to conclude a new one. This was followed by a ban on the export of American aviation gasoline and scrap metal to Japan, which, in the context of the war with China, is in dire need of fuel for its aviation and metal raw materials for the defense industry.
© AP Photo
Then American troops were allowed to fight on the side of the Chinese, and soon an embargo was announced on all Japanese assets in the formally neutral United States. Left without oil and raw materials, Japan had to either come to an agreement with the Americans on their terms, or start a war against them.
Since Roosevelt refused to negotiate with the Japanese Prime Minister, the Japanese attempted to act through their ambassador, Kurusu Saburo. In response, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented them with counterproposals resembling an ultimatum. For example, the Americans demanded the withdrawal of Japanese troops from all occupied territories, including China.
Revenge for Pearl Harbor
In response, the Japanese went to war. After on December 7, 1941, the naval aviation of the Land of the Rising Sun sank four battleships, two destroyers and one minelayer in Pearl Harbor, destroying about 200 American aircraft, Japan overnight gained supremacy in the air and in the Pacific Ocean as a whole. .
Roosevelt understood perfectly well that the economic potential of the United States and its allies left Japan no chance of winning a major war. However, the shock and anger from Japan's unexpectedly successful attack on the States was too great in the country.
Under these conditions, the government was required to take a populist step that would demonstrate to citizens the irreconcilable determination of the authorities to fight the enemy - external and internal.
Roosevelt did not reinvent the wheel and in his decree relied on an ancient document of 1798, adopted during the war with France - the Hostile Alien Law. It allowed (and still allows) US authorities to place any person in prison or a concentration camp on suspicion of being associated with a hostile state.
The country's Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of internment in 1944, declaring that if "public necessity" required it, the civil rights of any national group could be limited.
Ordinary racism of the American military
The operation to evict the Japanese was entrusted to General John DeWitt, commander of the Western Military District, who told the US Congress: “It makes no difference whether they are American citizens - they are still Japanese. We should always be concerned about the Japanese as long as they not wiped off the face of the Earth."
He repeatedly emphasized that there was no way to determine the loyalty of a Japanese American to the Stars and Stripes, and therefore in time of war such people were a danger to the United States and should be immediately isolated. In particular, after Pearl Harbor, he suspected immigrants of communicating with Japanese ships via radio.
DeWitt's views were typical of the US Army leadership, which was openly racist. Responsibility for the movement and maintenance of deportees was the responsibility of the War Relocation Administration, which was led by Milton Eisenhower, the younger brother of the commander of the Allied forces in Europe and future US President Dwight Eisenhower. This department built ten concentration camps in the states of California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Arkansas, to which displaced Japanese were transported.
© AP Photo
Shoot anyone who tries to run
The camps were located in difficult-to-reach areas - usually on Indian reservations. Moreover, this became an unpleasant surprise for the inhabitants of the reservations, and subsequently the Indians did not receive any monetary compensation for the use of their lands.
The created camps were surrounded by a barbed wire fence around the perimeter. The Japanese were ordered to live in hastily put together wooden barracks, where it was especially difficult in winter. It was strictly forbidden to go outside the camp; the guards shot at those who tried to break this rule. All adults were required to work 40 hours a week, usually in agricultural work.
The largest concentration camp was considered Manzanera in California, where more than 10 thousand people were exiled, and the most terrible was Tul Lake, in the same state, where the most “dangerous” - hunters, pilots, fishermen and radio operators - were placed.
© AP Photo
Newspapers and people are united
Japan's almost lightning-fast conquest of vast territories in Asia and the Pacific Ocean made its army and navy an almost invincible force in the eyes of American citizens and greatly inflated anti-Japanese hysteria, which was actively fueled by newspapermen. Thus, the Los Angeles Times called all Japanese vipers and wrote that an American of Japanese descent will definitely grow up Japanese, but not American.
There were calls to remove the Japanese as potential traitors from the east coast of the United States and inland. At the same time, columnist Henry McLemore wrote that he hated all Japanese.
Scientists: Google searches have proven to be a reliable indicator of racism in the USSociologists analyzed statistics on Google use by residents of different parts of the United States and found that the number of racist queries in the search engine quite accurately reflects the number of deaths among black residents of these regions.The shameful decree was canceled only many years later - in 1976 by then US President Gerald Ford. Under the next head of state, Jim Carter, the Wartime Civilian Relocation and Internment Commission was created. In 1983, she concluded that the deprivation of Japanese Americans' freedom was not due to military necessity.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued a written apology on behalf of the United States to survivors of internment. They were paid 20 thousand dollars. Subsequently, under Bush Sr., each of the victims received another seven thousand dollars.
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, giving the Secretary of War the power to designate military zones within the United States from which “any citizens may be removed.” Although the decree was not aimed at any specific group of people, it became the basis for the mass relocation of 110 thousand people of Japanese descent, both US citizens and people without US citizenship. In March 1942, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, commander of the U.S. Army Western Air Defense Command, officially declared a exclusion zone along the country's west coast and required all residents of Japanese descent to report to designated civilian centers. Thousands of Japanese were forced to close their businesses, abandon their farms and homes, and move to remote internment camps, also called relocation centers. Some Japanese were returned to their homeland, some moved to other US states that were not part of the restricted zone, and some even enlisted in the US Army. But most simply resigned themselves to their status as outcasts. In January 1944, the US Supreme Court suspended the detention of citizens without cause. The decree was lifted, and Japanese Americans began to leave the camps, gradually returning to their old lives. The last camp closed in 1946, and by the end of the 20th century, the U.S. government had paid out approximately $1.6 billion to Japanese victims and their descendants.
Other parts of issues about the Second World War can be seen.
(Total 45 photos)
1. Tom Kobayashi on the southern fields of the Manzanar military relocation center, located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the Owens Valley, California. Famed photographer Ansel Adams came to Manzanar in 1943 to document life as Japanese internees at the camp. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
2. This Japanese-owned Oakland, California store was closed in April 1942 after an eviction order was issued. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a store owner put up a sign that read, "I'm an American." (AP Photo/Dorothea Lange)
3. Japanese are evicted from their homes on Terminal Island in Los Angeles on February 3, 1942. On the morning of February 2, 1942, 180 federal, city and county police officers evicted approximately 400 Japanese living on the island. (AP Photo/Ira W. Guldner)
4. An eviction order on the wall next to a poster of a bomb shelter in San Francisco, explaining the removal of the Japanese from the city. The order was issued on April 1, 1942 by Lieutenant General J.L. DeWitt. According to this order, the internment of Japanese from the area was to be completed by noon on April 7, 1942. (NARA)
5. A line of Japanese family heads and single Japanese men at the civil control station in San Francisco. (NARA)
6. These photos are a great illustration of how empty the local school was after the Japanese internment from Seattle, Washington, on March 27, 1942. Upstairs the class is overcrowded, downstairs is the same class without Japanese students. (AP Photo)
7. A farmhouse in Mountain View, California, where farmers of Japanese descent grew vegetables and fruits for sale. Residents of this and other military areas were later relocated to military relocation centers. (NARA)
8. Many interned children attended the Raphael Vale School in San Francisco. Rachel Karumi was one of them. (NARA)
9. A farewell letter on the window of a Japanese importer in San Francisco's Chinatown in April 1942 before the Japanese internment began. The last paragraph says: “Now, in times of internment, when the innocent suffer along with the villains, we bid you farewell, our dear friends, with a quotation from Shakespeare: - PARTING IS A SWEET TORMENT.” (NARA)
10. Friends play their last game before internment in San Francisco in early 1942. (NARA)
11. Business district on Post Street in San Francisco, where the Japanese lived before the resettlement began in 1942. (NARA)
12. A soldier with his mother in a strawberry field near Florin, California, May 11, 1942. The 23-year-old soldier enlisted in the Army on July 10, 1941, and was assigned to Camp Leonard Wood, Missouri. He was given leave to help his mother and family prepare for the move. He is the youngest of six children, two of whom enlisted in the US Army. The 53-year-old mother came here from Japan 37 years ago. Her husband died 21 years ago, leaving her with six children. She worked in a strawberry field, but then her children rented part of the field to her "so she wouldn't have to work for someone else." (NARA)
13. Japanese from San Pedro, California arrived at the Santa Anita Center in Arcadia, California in 1942. The internees lived in this center at the railway station until they were moved to other centers. (NARA)
14. Scene during one of the many relocations of 1942. (LOC)
15. Japanese are vaccinated upon arrival at the center in Arcadia in 1942. (NARA)
16. A Japanese farmer and his daughter are in a strawberry field that they must leave. Photo taken at Bainbridge Island in Washington on March 23, 1942. (LOC)
17. A crowd of onlookers in an overpass came to watch the mass transfer of Japanese from Bainbridge Island, Washington, on March 30, 1942. 225 confused but unresisting men, women and children were put on ferry, bus and train to the camps in California. (AP Photo)
18. A bus carrying Japanese internees near Poston, Arizona in 1942. (NARA)
19. Japanese in military relocation centers were not allowed to use cars. Vehicles brought to the Manzanar camp were confiscated. Photo taken on April 2, 1942. (NARA)
20. Santa Anita Park Speedway in Arcadia was part of an internment camp for Japanese who lived in barracks in the background. (AP Photo)
21. Salinas, California, 1942. The Japanese search for their belongings in the center before moving to the next military relocation center. (NARA)
22. Japanese Americans evicted from their homes in Los Angeles stand in line at the Manzanar Center in California on March 23, 1942. The menu includes rice, beans, prunes and bread. (AP Photo)
23. Photos and personal items on the radio in Yonemitsu's house. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
24. Women at a hair salon at the Tulle Lake military relocation center in Newell, California. (LOC)
25. General view of the camp in Newell. (LOC)
26. Japanese Americans at the center in Newell, California. (LOC)
27. Portraits of Japanese internees at the Manzanar camp in California in 1943. Clockwise from top left: Mrs. Kei Kageyama, Toyo Miyatake (photographer), Miss Tetsuko Murakami, Mori Nakashima, Joyce Yuki Nakamura (eldest daughter), Colonel Jimmy Shohara, Aiko Hamaguchi (nurse), Yoshio Muramoto (electrician). At one time, more than 10 thousand people were in the Manzanar camp. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
28. Four young Japanese from Sacramento read comic books at a newspaper stand at a camp in Newell, California, July 1, 1942. (NARA)
29. Japanese women in the process of making camouflage nets for the military department of the Manzanar center in California. (NARA)
30. Dust storm in the center of Manzanar. (Dorothea Lange/NARA)
31. These 48 Japanese Americans at the Granada War Relocation Center near Lamar, Colorado, await medical examination on February 22, 1944. (AP Photo)
32. Farmers working on a semi-automatic seeder at the Tulle Lake Center in Newell, California, July 1, 1945. (NARA)
33. A San Francisco newspaper reporter photographs field work at a military relocation center on May 26, 1943. (NARA)
34. Outdoor scene at Camp Manzanar in the winter of 1943. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
35. Artist S.T. Hibino at Camp Manzanar in 1943. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
36. Rhythmic gymnastics at the Manzanar Center in 1943. (Ansel Adams/LOC)
37. Japanese internees at a dance at Camp Manzanar, California, March 23, 1942. (AP Photo)
38. A judge in traditional attire at a sumo match at Camp Santa Anita, California. (LOC)
39. Children play with models of the barracks of their new home at the Tulle Lake Center in Newell on September 11, 1942. (NARA)
40. Funeral of James Wacasa at the Topaz Evacuation Center on April 19, 1943 in Utah. A policeman shot and killed James Wakasa near a barbed wire fence on April 11, 1943. The Japanese protested the killing and demanded the right to hold a public funeral at the site of the murder. The soldier who killed Wakasa was tried but later declared “not guilty.” (NARA)
41. After the Japanese internment and arrest order ceased to apply, people began to return home, and the camps were gradually closed. In this October 15, 1945 photo, Shuichi Yamamoto, the last Japanese evacuee, leaves Camp Granada in Amache, Colorado, bidding farewell to project director James G. Lindley. Yamamoto, 65, returned to his home in Marysville, California. (NARA)
42. A special seven-car train brought 450 Japanese Americans back to their homes after three years at the Rower War Relocation Center in McGee, Arkansas. (Hikaru Iwasaki/LOC)
43. A crowd of Japanese behind a fence with barbed wire waves to friends leaving by train from downtown Santa Anita in California. (LOC)
44. A Japanese family returned home from a camp in Hunt, Idaho, to find their home destroyed and covered in anti-Japanese graffiti. Photo taken in Seattle on May 10, 1945. (AP Photo)
45. Japanese internees from a military camp in Arizona line up for books and bus tickets before heading home in September 1945. (NARA)
To the question How did the Americans distinguish themselves in the Aleutian Islands in 1942? given by the author Wife the best answer is Do you know how the Americans captured the Aleutian Islands in 1942? No, you don't. Because the books don’t write about this heroic operation. The Japanese captured two islands in the Aleutian Islands after Pearl Harbor, as one operation in the Battle of Midway. Islands with many mountains and ice. 60 aborigines lived on one, 40 on the other. Desert. The Americans did not know for a month that the Japanese were there.
As soon as they found out, they began bombing day and night and planning how to take it back. At this time, the Japanese lost at Midway, lost a bunch of aircraft carriers and decided that their forces were needed elsewhere. At night, 5,000 soldiers were evacuated in an hour and left.
During this time, the valiant B-17s and B-24s continued to bomb the islands. The cruisers fired from cannons day and night from 80 miles away. They bombed, of course, from a great height - so that the anti-aircraft guns would not reach us. It lasted a month. Finally, three thousand Marines prepared to land. As in D-Day, they bombed the coast in earnest, as well as shot from ship batteries. We landed. A couple of soldiers were blown up by mines. They decided it was artillery. They started shooting. Others, landed on the other side, also began to shoot into the fog. The fighting began. Everyone called for support. Let's move forward slowly...
All that was on the islands were six hungry dogs left behind by the Japanese. 75 people were lost killed and wounded, plus many aircraft in accidents.
And after this you will say that there are not enough heroes in the USA?!..
Attu is the westernmost and largest island of the Middle Islands group of the Aleutian Islands archipelago. Attu is also the westernmost point of Alaska and the entire United States. The only populated area on the island is Attu Station, whose population according to the 2000 census was 20 people.
The distance to the Kamchatka Peninsula is about 1200 km, to the mainland of Alaska - 1700 km.
Admiral Hosogaya abandoned the original plan for landing troops on Adak, fearing the actions of American aircraft from the nearby Umnak airfield. Therefore, it was decided to land troops on two western islands in the Aleutian Islands - Attu and Kiska. These two islands were so remote that the Americans did not immediately learn that the Japanese were already in control there until an American patrol plane was fired upon from the ground in the area on June 10, 1942. A Japanese expeditionary force of 1,250 men landed on Kiska on the morning of June 7. By this time, only a group of ten American meteorologists was on the island. A few hours later, a similar landing landed on the island of Attu, where in the small village of Chichagov they were captured and then transported to a concentration camp in Otaru, Hokkaido, 42 Aleuts and with them two white missionaries.
The reaction of the American leadership, from General Buckner to President Roosevelt, to the invasion of the United States by Japanese invaders was unequivocal: expel the invaders! But considering the weather, the terrain, the distance from the main bases in the Anchorage area, on Kodiak Island, and even from the Cold Bay and Dutch Harbor airfields, this was easier said than done.
Regular American bomber raids on Kiska were immediately launched. General Buckner, meanwhile, personally supervised the transfer of additional forces and equipment necessary for the defense of Nome - according to radio interceptions, the next Japanese attack was aimed here.
But in fact, by this time the Japanese forces were already so dispersed that they tried in vain to hold on to what they had captured. The build-up of occupation forces on the occupied islands took place very slowly - manpower and weapons were delivered here only by sea. And this was a weak point - one night the US Navy submarine Growler sneaked into the harbor of Kiska Island and, with precise torpedo strikes, sank one Japanese destroyer and damaged two more.
However, by the end of the summer of 1942, the main attention of the opponents was concentrated in another region: the battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands b
Source:
Marina Savina
(17036)
That’s why there are two answers because I don’t know what answer they want to get and the links are given.
I would give the second one.
Answer from (Masha)[guru]
Naval Battle of Midway Atoll After inflicting a number of major defeats on the American fleet, Japan sought to subjugate and hold a large part of the Pacific Ocean by capturing and holding important strongholds. Strategically, Midway Atoll occupied such an important position in the Pacific Ocean. The most important sea and air communication routes for the United States, which connected the United States with Asian countries, intersected here. The atoll was located in the northern part of the ocean near the international date line west of Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese political and military leadership accurately assessed the importance of Atoll for further advancement. The development of the operation was entrusted to the headquarters of the United Fleet (the fleet united all naval forces in the region). At the end of April 1942, the operation plan was completed and approved by Admiral Yamamoto. On May 5, the Japanese Imperial Headquarters issued a directive in which the operation was entrusted to the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet. According to the plan, the coordinated actions of the fleet and ground forces were supposed to capture Midway Atoll, the islands of Kiska and Attu (Aleutian islands). In the area of the operation, the Japanese wanted to carry out two stages of the operation: on June 3, to capture the Aleutian Islands, thereby diverting the American fleet to the north, and then to capture the atoll itself on June 4.
The command of the United Fleet divided the maximum number of forces into two directions. 11 battleships, 8 aircraft carriers, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers, 21 submarines, as well as a significant number of transport ships were involved - about 200 ships in total. About 700 aircraft supported the operation from the air. These forces were consolidated into six formations: four main formations, an advanced submarine formation, and a base aviation formation. The entire group was commanded by Admiral Yamamoto.
An aircraft carrier strike force was created in the central direction under the command of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. The formation included 4 heavy aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 12 destroyers. The vice admiral also commanded the immediate invasion force at Midway under the command of Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo. This formation consisted of 15 transport ships (about 5 thousand paratroopers), a light aircraft carrier, 2 air transports, 2 battleships, 10 cruisers, 21 destroyers.
The group of Vice Admiral Moshiro Hosogoya operated in the northern sector. The group included 4 transport ships (about 2,500 landing soldiers), 2 light aircraft carriers, 6 cruisers, 12 destroyers, 6 submarines.
The main forces were under the direct command of Admiral Yamamoto. Under his command were 7 battleships, a light aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers, 21 destroyers, and 2 air transports. The group had the task of providing support to two other groups.
There was also a covering force, which included 4 battleships, 2 cruisers, 12 destroyers. The formation had the task of covering the actions of a group of Japanese forces in the Aleutian region.
As a result, after a series of crushing blows, the Japanese lost: 4 aircraft carriers, a heavy cruiser, 332 aircraft (280 of them were based on sunken aircraft carriers). Heavily damaged: battleship, heavy cruiser, 3 destroyers, transport ship. Already on June 5, Admiral Yamamoto canceled the landing on Midway, recalled troops from the Aleutian Islands and turned the fleet back.
The Americans lost: a heavy aircraft carrier, a destroyer, 150 aircraft (30 of them were based at Midway).
After the failure of the operation and serious losses, Japan could no longer carry out major offensive operations in the Pacific.
Answer from electric welding[newbie]
yes a lot died
Answer from Neurologist[guru]
The Japanese captured two islands in the Aleutian Islands after Pearl Harbor, as one operation in the Battle of Midway. Islands with many mountains and ice. 60 aborigines lived on one, 40 on the other. Desert. The Americans didn’t know for a month that the Japanese were there. As soon as they found out, they began bombing day and night and planning how to take it back. At this time, the Japanese lost at Midway, lost a bunch of aircraft carriers and decided that their forces were needed elsewhere. At night, 5,000 soldiers were evacuated in an hour and left. During this time, the valiant B-17s and B-24s continued to bomb the islands. The cruisers fired from cannons day and night from 80 miles away. They bombed, of course, from a great height - so that the anti-aircraft guns would not reach us. It lasted a month. Finally, three thousand Marines prepared to land. As in D-Day, they bombed the coast in earnest, as well as shot from ship batteries. We landed. A couple of soldiers were blown up by mines. They decided it was artillery. They started shooting. Others, landed on the other side, also began to shoot into the fog. The fighting began. Everyone called for support. Let's go slowly forward... All that was on the islands were six hungry dogs left behind by the Japanese. 75 people were lost killed and wounded, plus many aircraft in accidents. And after this you will say that there are not enough heroes in the USA?! .
Japan's bold attack on Pearl Harbor forced the United States into World War II. Never before has the American nation been so unanimous in its patriotism. However, the history of America in those difficult years also has its dark pages, which not everyone knows about. For example, modern history textbooks say nothing about the concentration camps in the United States that existed during the war.
“I don't want any of them (people of Japanese descent) here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty... It doesn't matter whether they are American citizens - they are still Japanese. American citizenship does not mean loyalty. We must always be concerned about the Japanese until they are wiped off the face of the Earth,” General John DeWitt, who commanded the Western Military District after the defeat of Pearl Harbor, said at an emergency meeting of Congress. It was from him that the initiative came to search and detain all Japanese in the United States. He justified these measures by the fact that people could transmit secret information to Japanese ships by radio.
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Emergency Order 9066, which allowed the military to decide who could be moved into “removal zones.” The reason for such unmotivated cruelty towards its own citizens was Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and its attempt to take a dominant position in the Pacific Ocean. In the eyes of many Americans, the Japanese who lived next door became potential spies and traitors, even if they were U.S. citizens. American propaganda also played a significant role in this. The authorities openly expressed concern about the loyalty of the Japanese. But to a greater extent it was racial prejudice that posed a serious threat to thousands of ordinary people.
General Karl Bendetsen developed the most severe version of the internment of the Japanese. The military was allocated special “eviction zones”, which included more than a third of the country’s territory. They were mostly located in deserts or Indian reservations.
The first citizens of Japanese origin were faced with the fact of eviction on March 2. They were sent to the first zone, located 100 miles from the west coast. Soon, the Office for the Protection of the Property of Foreign Citizens was formed, which could dispose of all the property of interned people as it saw fit. As a result, accounts worth millions of dollars were frozen. Real estate has depreciated, people have lost all sources of income.
Two days were given for preparations. During this time, families had to sell all their properties. Naturally, it was impossible to settle their affairs in such a short period of time. As a result, people abandoned their homes, which were subsequently looted by looters.
There were several types of camps. There were “collection centers” created for temporary detention, and “relocation centers” for permanent detention of people, where they were transported by trucks and buses. These were a kind of concentration camps. They were barracks with no heating, sewerage or running water. In addition to the Japanese, German emigrants and some Latin Americans were accused of sympathizing with the enemy.
The War Relocation Authority was headed by Milton Eisenhower, who opened ten camps in seven states within a year. More than 100 thousand Japanese and those who had at least 1/16 of Japanese blood were sent there. The camps were hastily erected by civilian contractors during 1942. They looked like military barracks; entire families had to live in them. These buildings were not suitable for the residence of children, old people and women. People froze in winter and suffocated in summer. Indeed, at times in Wyoming the temperature dropped to -20 degrees. 45 cents were allocated per day for food for each resident of the camp.
The perimeter of the camps was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and the guards were allowed to shoot people if they went outside the camp. There were known cases where entire Japanese families were shot for attempting to escape. The phrase “shikata ga nai,” which can be roughly translated as “nothing can be done,” became a symbol of the tragedy of the Japanese people, who found themselves unwittingly captive in the hands of a powerful and merciless government.
People were kept in these camps until 1945. On January 2, they finally received their long-awaited freedom and the right to return to their homes. As compensation, each was given $25 and a train ticket. The last camp was closed in 1946. The Indians, on whose lands the “relocation centers” were located, hoped that the buildings would go to them, but the military razed the camps to the ground.
According to official data, more than 120 thousand people were imprisoned in American concentration camps. But the Japanese believe that there were twice as many people.
Liberal America, so concerned about freedom of speech, tried to hide the fact of deportation. The same as the number of Japanese deaths in the camps.
After the war, more than 5 thousand people demonstratively renounced American citizenship and left the territory of the United States. After 40 years, the government tried to repair the damage. Congress passed a law that recognized blatant injustice against Japanese American citizens. All internees were paid 20 thousand dollars. However, this will not compensate for the hardships that people once endured in the camps.
