The Internment of Japanese Americans in United States History (7 page)

By now, the camp was hopelessly divided into two factions. Those who registered were considered to be
inu
(dogs). They were isolated at mess hall tables. Children made barking sounds when they saw them. Some were beaten by Kibei.

The lack of cooperation embarrassed army officials at Tule Lake because the army was not meeting its quota of registrants here. They offered a compromise: Anyone who registered and answered No to 27 or 28 would not have to enter the military. This offer also failed. When the registration period ended, only one third of Tulean men and half of the women had registered. More than three thousand people refused to sign the loyalty oath.

Camps would be in turmoil if “loyal” Yes-Yes and “disloyal” No-No Japanese and Japanese Americans were kept together. Senator Albert “Happy” Chandler suggested to Myer in April that “disloyal” enemies be separated from residents of other WRA centers. Project directors, meeting in May, unanimously backed Chandler’s suggestion.

They chose Tule Lake as the site of the segregation camp. The California camp was large enough to accommodate all of the so-called disloyals from the other camps. Besides, far more opposition came from Tule Lake than from any other camp. If Tule Lake was made the segregation camp, these rebels need not be moved.

In the summer of 1943, the transfers took place. Many but not all “loyal” Tule Lake residents went to other camps. They were replaced by “disloyal” residents of other camps and their families. Fifteen thousand people were moved in and out of Tule Lake. There were other additions to Tule Lake as well: a new eight-foot fence around the camp, six new tanks, and new barracks built to house one thousand additional military troops.

An unhealthy mix of people now inhabited the camp. Some were people who wished to return to Japan. Others wrote No or refused to register because they did not wish to serve in the military. Some remained embittered at being detained by the United States government. Some wrote No because they did not wish to be separated from their families. In some cases, aging Issei parents who counted on their children for support did not want to risk having sons killed in combat. They urged their children to write No.

Basically “loyal” people also inhabited Tule Lake. Some were family members who came along with their No-No relatives. Some were neutral but wrote No under pressure from family or friends. There were also Tule Lake residents who wrote Yes to questions 27 and 28 but did not feel like moving from the camp.

Martial Law at Tule Lake

Conditions were already ripe for trouble at Tule Lake. Thoughtless administrators and bad luck only made them worse.

In October 1943, the administration fired forty-three workers who protested the discharge of three colleagues for insubordination. These firings led to a strike. The administration rehired the fired workers, and the strike stopped. Soon afterward, a farm truck returning to camp turned over. One man was killed and five were injured. Camp workers blamed the careless driver. The accident led to a work stoppage of eight hundred people.

Tuleans wanted a large public funeral for the dead worker, but project director Ray Best refused. Despite his refusal, the funeral went on as planned. When mourners snatched a camera from an administration officer ordered to photograph funeral organizers, Best shut off electricity to the assembly hall where the funeral was taking place.

Meanwhile, Best made arrangements to harvest the crops. He announced that striking farmhands were fired and arranged for loyal farmers to be brought in from other camps. These unknowing strikebreakers were paid the prevailing local wage, one dollar an hour. Tule Lake farmhands had been paid only sixteen dollars a month.

Furthermore, the strikebreakers received food stolen from the warehouses at Tule Lake. The theft enraged Tule Lake residents, who had faced food shortages.

WRA director Dillon Myer was scheduled to visit Tule Lake on November 1, 1943. After he entered the administration building, five to ten thousand demonstrators surrounded it. He agreed to meet with the camp’s negotiating committee.

Meanwhile, a different group went to the camp’s medical office and attacked a doctor. This renegade group had nothing to do with the negotiating committee, but when Best heard of the attack, he suspended negotiations. He refused to discuss termination of workers, their replacement by workers from other camps, and the use of food from Tule Lake warehouses to feed the strikebreakers. Myer addressed the crowd, then left. Two days later, an order was issued that prohibited large public gatherings.

Japan and the United States had no diplomatic relations because they were at war. The Spanish consul handled Japan’s diplomatic affairs. The consul met with Tule Lake officials to try to resolve camp problems. The November 4 meeting was interrupted when someone reported that white camp employees were moving more food out of the camp. That news started fights between them and the evacuees. Best called in the army.

The army took over and declared martial law. An already repressive atmosphere became worse. A Nisei girl wrote, “After the Army came in, I really felt like a prisoner. . . . There were no activities. Everything stopped. We had a curfew . . . we got baloney for Thanksgiving.”
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Word of the martial law reached Japan. Japanese radio reported, “The American Army has entered the Tule Lake Center with machine guns and tanks and is intimidating the residents.”
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The army sought out and arrested anti-administration leaders. Rebels in the camp passed around a petition supporting the negotiating committee. A young Nisei who signed against her will remembered, “If you didn’t sign it the next thing you know, you’d be beaten to a pulp.”
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In early December, Tuleans voted on a general strike by all camp members. The general strike was defeated, but those already striking stayed away from their jobs. After the Spanish consul had no luck with the administration, he suggested to the negotiating committee that they give up. Instead of getting the original detainees released, more rebels were being rounded up every day.

On January 11, 1944, Tule Lake residents voted on whether to continue the partial strike. Busy soldiers rounded up dozens of people known to favor the strike who might have made the difference in the election. By a margin of 473, Tule Lake residents voted to end the strike. After that vote, the army ended martial law and returned the camp to civilian control.

Chapter 7

THE 442
ND
REGIMENT

Some Nisei found military combat to be an impossible idea, given their prisoner status at home. Others, who considered military service their patriotic duty, joined all-Nisei units which became legendary.

Despite protests that took place at many camps, most Nisei filled out the registration forms and declared Yes-Yes to questions 27 and 28. Army recruiters instantly signed up many of these Nisei. They had several reasons for volunteering. Many felt driven by a sense of patriotism. Others felt that military service was a way of proving their loyalty to America. Some thought that volunteering for the armed forces might improve their families’ chances of leaving the camps. Some just wanted to get out of the camps themselves.

On January 28, 1943, the 442nd Combat Team started operations. It was a six thousand-man, all Nisei unit. Dillon Myer at first did not want a segregated unit, but later admitted that the 442nd had proved to be a good idea. “America’s conscience would not have been so dramatically reawakened on the Japanese American question as it was during the latter part of the war if Nisei had merely been scattered through the armed forces,” he said.
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The 442nd t99rained in Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Soon the 100th Battalion, an all-Nisei National Guard unit from Hawaii, joined them. Then they moved across the Atlantic Ocean.

Both units saw action in Europe in the fall of 1943. The 100th left first and took part in the invasion of Italy. The 100th soon became known as the Purple Heart Battalion because of the many casualties it suffered. Casualties mounted so high that it had to be reinforced by the 442nd.

“Go for broke” was the motto of the 442nd, squad member Daniel Inouye said. Inouye, who later became a United States senator from Hawaii, explained that it meant to give “everything we had; . . . to scramble over an obstacle course as though our lives depended on it; . . . to march quick-time until we were ready to drop . . .”
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DeWitt’s Downfall

The thought of Japanese in the military nearly made General John DeWitt explode. Nisei in service would refute his belief that no person of Japanese ancestry could be loyal to the United States.

Public opinion turned against DeWitt when he did not want Nisei soldiers to visit the West Coast on leave. DeWitt declared, “I don’t want any of them here. They are a dangerous element.”
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The Washington Post
countered, “The general should be told that American democracy and the Constitution of the United States are too vital to be ignored and flouted by a military zealot.”
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After a while, the War Department agreed. By autumn of 1943, the department relieved DeWitt of the Western Defense Command.

Nisei and the Draft

Nisei troops in the 442nd and 100th were so effective that in early 1944, the War Department declared that all male Nisei could be drafted. However, despite the records achieved by the Japanese-American soldiers, the government still would not treat Nisei as the equals of other Americans. Prospective Nisei inductees received different questionnaires than did non-Japanese. They were asked about loyalty to Japan and were made to renounce allegiance to Japan.

Many refused to fill out the insulting documents, and some were arrested for evading the draft. Judge Louis Goodman sympathized: “It is shocking to the [American] conscience that an American citizen be confined on the ground of disloyalty, and then, while so under duress and restraint, be compelled to serve in the armed forces or be prosecuted,” he commented.
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Not all judges held the same view as Goodman. In May 1944, sixty-three Heart Mountain draft resisters were arrested. All were convicted.

European Heroism

Meanwhile, the Nisei troops in Europe continued to serve with honor. After only a few months in Italy, the 442nd had earned more than a thousand Purple Hearts and seventy-four other decorations. By mid-1944, the 100th had become part of the 442nd.

The unit moved up Italy and then traveled to the Vosges Mountains of France. There they had their finest hour. In October 1944, they liberated the Lost Battalion, a Texas unit trapped behind German lines. It took 800 Nisei dead and wounded (a 60 percent casualty rate) to rescue the 211 men.

From there, the 442nd returned to Italy, where they performed another incredible feat. Allied forces had tried to break through the Gothic Line for six months with three divisions—forty thousand men. The 442nd accomplished the feat in less than an hour.

The 442nd also helped liberate prisoners from the concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. They freed others even while their own families were trapped behind barbed wire. A fifteen-year-old blindfolded Polish girl awaited execution when German troops suddenly abandoned the camp. Finally, someone took off her blindfold. What she saw shocked her. “ ‘It’s the Japanese come to kill us,’ she thought. ‘Just kill us,’ she said. ‘Get it over with.’” The Nisei soldier assured her, “You are free.”
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The Asian War

Seven thousand miles from Europe, Nisei troops served as translators, interpreters, and spies for American combat units. Their skills were invaluable. Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir, commander of the Asiatic Theater Intelligence Service, commented, “thousands of American lives were preserved and millions of dollars in material were saved as a result of [Nisei] contribution to the war effort.”
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The Army Intelligence Service needed men who could speak fluent Japanese to serve as scouts and interpreters. Thousands of Nisei volunteered for the assignments. Most volunteers were so Americanized that only one tenth of the first thirty-seven hundred interviewed knew enough Japanese to qualify for the training.

Those who passed the tests went to a language school in Minnesota; then they went to assignments in the Pacific. More than sixteen thousand Nisei served in the Pacific. They were so valuable that white troops were assigned to guard them from Japanese attack.

The Nisei questioned prisoners, translated documents, and intercepted radio messages. They captured documents that revealed the Japanese battle plans for the Philippines. When American troops invaded, they knew the enemy plans by heart.

Some Nisei in the Pacific won notable honors. Ben Kuroki flew fifty-eight combat missions and won three decorations. Kenny Yasui, pretending to be a Japanese colonel, captured sixteen enemy soldiers by ordering them to drop their weapons and surrender to U.S. troops.

Many Gold Stars

Nisei glory came at a high price. More than thirty-three thousand Nisei served in the United States Army. No other similar ethnic group had a greater commitment. More than ninety-four hundred Nisei were dead or wounded by war’s end. “[We] had a heavy burden to prove ourselves,” stated Shigeo Wakamatsu. “World War II changed things for the better—at a great cost of men’s lives.”
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