I think I'd reply to that in more detail if I was sure what was being said.

Good information in your post, Clint. I hadn't realized there were attempts to keep records for the Japanese internees, or that attempts at reparation were made earlier in the U.S.

bf109 emil - do a search on the Forum or online, and you will find information on the Canadian internment of Japanese-Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians, and some German-Canadians. Unfortunately, it is true that a lack of understanding and unfamiliarity with certain cultures who were newer to North America made it easier to isolate them, vs the German ethnic group which had a history within in North America for generations. Also, you need to recall that Germany did not attack the U.S. (its merchant navy yes); Japan did attack the U.S. It couldn't help but influence the attitudes of people and the bureaucracy.

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Regards, Michelle

Oliver Goldsmith, "I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines."

[quote=macrusk;305631
bf109 emil - do a search on the Forum or online, and you will find information on the Canadian internment of Japanese-Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians, and some German-Canadians. Unfortunately, it is true that a lack of understanding and unfamiliarity with certain cultures who were newer to North America made it easier to isolate them, vs the German ethnic group which had a history within in North America for generations. Also, you need to recall that Germany did not attack the U.S. (its merchant navy yes); Japan did attack the U.S. It couldn't help but influence the attitudes of people and the bureaucracy.[/quote]

Perhaps he might like to check out the posts #'s 4,5 and 11 where I posted the links and some info on Japanese Canadians . LOL

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I posted this elsewhere but thought they would be relevent here also.

An Internment Camp Within an Internment Camp


Remembering Japanese-American Forced Labor on an American Indian Reservation






By FRANK MASTROPOLO
Feb. 19, 2008



For Japanese-Americans, Feb. 19 marks the Day of Remembrance. That's the day in 1942 when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 and put into motion the government's forced removal and imprisonment of more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry — 60 percent of whom were American citizens.
Photos
PHOTOS: A Rare View of Auschwitz

Military officials considered anyone of Japanese descent, whether a U.S. citizen or not, to be a potential spy and a security risk.
With little notice, Japanese were gathered up and ordered to leave their homes, businesses and friends to be incarcerated without trial. They could only take what they could carry and were moved to 10 internment camps spread across some of the nation's most inhospitable terrains.

In "Passing Poston: An American Story," a documentary premiering this month, filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile disclose a surprising and little-known secret about the Poston internment camp in the Arizona desert. Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation for a specific reason: Japanese detainees were brought to the desolate location to provide free, forced labor for the American government.
Ruth Okimoto, who spent her childhood years locked up in Poston, was haunted decades later by the experience. Cameras tracked her journey as she traveled back to Poston and research its beginnings.
"There was a different purpose for Poston besides just being an internment camp. I think the first discovery that absolutely startled me was finding out that the Office of Indian Affairs [now the Bureau of Indian Affairs] was in charge of running the Poston camp, along with the War Relocation Authority, who ran the nine other internment camps."
The Japanese were ordered to build the infrastructure — schools, dams, canals and farms — so the U.S. government could consolidate scattered American Indian tribes from smaller reservations in one place after the war.
Okimoto learned that the U.S. government had been trying unsuccessfully for decades to bring water from the Colorado River to the reservation. Historian Michael Sosi, of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, said it was a government official named John Collier who figured out an ingenious way to accomplish the task.

ABC News: WWII Internment Camp: Secret Emerges

The rest of the article,

ABC News: WWII Internment Camp: Secret Emerges
ABC News: WWII Internment Camp: Secret Emerges

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Celebrating a shared history


Email Picture

Former internee Ruth Okimoto visits the burned-out remains of the auditorium at the Poston internment camp. She was among more than 17,000 people of Japanese ancestry who were held at the camp during WWII. The camp was south of Parker, Ariz.



POSTON, ARIZ. -- On an uninviting swatch of arid desert, marked by sagebrush and mesquite trees just east of the California border, the winds of war blew together the fates of two beleaguered peoples.

In a now familiar tale, 120,000 Japanese Americans were removed from the West Coast and relocated to internment camps after Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent U.S. entry into World War II. But in a little known piece of that history, the U.S. government sent nearly 20,000 of them to three camps on a Colorado River Indian Tribe reservation at Poston with an explicit plan to use Japanese Americans -- most of them Californians skilled in farming -- to help develop tribal lands for later Indian use.





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Under the plan, the Japanese Americans helped clear lands and build irrigation systems, started farms and built schools from handmade adobe bricks. Their work in developing a reservation that previously had no electricity, running water or modern homes -- many families lived in mud huts -- laid the foundation for the tribe to jump-start its standard of living and thrive financially, said Michael Tsosie, director of the tribal museum.

Now, 66 years ago today after then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the relocation, the two peoples are deepening their shared bonds.

Last week, Native Americans and two dozen former Japanese American internees gathered in Poston to memorialize their experiences and view a new documentary about it, "Passing Poston," by New York filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile. They also discussed plans to restore some of the barracks, seek national historical landmark status for the site and build a museum about their shared history.

"The basis of our present-day wealth is the result of the activities during the war years by the Japanese," Tsosie said. "Maybe if they knew that all of their suffering and hard work did make a remarkable difference in the lives of so many tribal people, it might bring them some peace."

The lasting effect of their fateful desert encounter remained largely hidden for decades by elders in both communities who declined to talk much about it, both sides say. In 2000, however, Berkeley artist and researcher Ruth Okimoto, 71, began researching Poston in a personal quest to understand the experience that had torn her life apart.

Okimoto, a Tokyo native brought to San Diego as an infant by her Christian missionary parents in 1937, was only 6 when she arrived at Poston in 1942. Her memories of the time are sketchy: a German neighbor making her family split pea soup before soldiers with rifles and bayonets took them away. Shame at having to share latrines and showers with so many strangers. Hunting for petrified wood and scorpions in the vast, forbidding landscape.

Other, older former internees who journeyed to Poston last week shared their memories. Kiyo Sato, a Sacramento retired school nurse who was 19 at the time, remembered fainting from the blistering desert heat, which climbed as high as 125 degrees.

San Pedro resident Mary Hayashi, also 19 at the time, remembered arriving at the dust-filled barracks bereft of any furniture but an oil stove. She collapsed to the floor in tears.

Okimoto was chased and spit on, rocks heaved at her by schoolmates when she returned to her San Diego elementary school in 1945. As she became an artist in the 1970s, dark and troubling images began to surface in her work -- a two-faced portrait of herself, the American flag covering her child's eyes and adult mouth. That began her journey of self-discovery that, in 2000, led back to Poston.

"I needed to go deep into my subconscious to see who I am," Okimoto said.

For their part, the tribal people had no say over the mass encroachment on their land, museum director Tsosie said. Only when government trucks began rolling in to build the barracks did leaders begin to ask questions.

"The other Indians didn't like them coming in," recalled Gertrude B. Van Fleet, 83, who used to visit the camps with her father, the Mohave tribe's first Presbyterian preacher who ministered to the internees. "They were worried because people were always coming in to take land from the Indians. Some spoke out real hard. Some wanted to chase them out."

But the Indians were told: "It's part of the war effort. Don't ask questions. Do your patriotic duty and accept it," Tsosie said.

The Japanese American population, peaking at 19,000 scattered over three camps, dwarfed the 1,200 Mohave and Chemehuevi Indians living on the reservation at the time. But the encounters were limited, both sides say. An armed guard was posted at a canal that divided the populated upper reservation with the lower reservation where the internment camps were placed. And the Indians were told not to mingle with them.

Still, Tsosie said his own family remembered renting them horses and trading fish they caught from the nearby canals and Colorado River for camp provisions of sugar and flour. There were basketball games between Japanese Americans in Poston and American Indians from a nearby high school in Parker.

Dennis Patch, who heads the tribal education department, said many Indians felt empathy for the Japanese Americans. The tribes themselves had been herded up and forced onto the Colorado River Indian Tribe reservation when it was established in 1865 to open land for white settlers, he said.

"They saw people captured and put some place they didn't want to be, and they understood that," Patch said.

At least some tribal students were aware that the Japanese Americans had begun to transform the barren reservation. In one school essay, a student wrote that the bountiful fruits and vegetables they grew -- cantaloupe, lettuce, spinach and the like -- "were as good as can be grown anyplace. They have shown that this valley has great possibilities as a vegetable growing center," according to documents unearthed by Okimoto.

What the Berkeley researcher would discover was that the U.S. government had deliberately selected Japanese Americans with farming experience from California Central Valley towns like Sacramento, Bakersfield and elsewhere, to help develop the reservation's agricultural potential, Okimoto said. Researching documents in the National Archives, along with Colorado River Indian tribal archives and other sources, Okimoto discovered the then-named Office of Indian Affairs partnered with the War Relocation Authority to develop an internee labor plan..

Commissioner John Collier of the Indian Affairs office had long sought federal funds to bring irrigation and other projects to the reservation to make it self-sufficient so the government could bring in other tribes. World War II finally gave him an opening to offer the land up as an internment camp in exchange for permanent infrastructure improvements.






Among other documents, Okimoto discovered an April 1942 letter from William Zimmerman, the Indian office's assistant commissioner, to the House of Representatives that outlined the plan. Zimmerman proposed using the Japanese to transform 10,000 acres -- clearing it and constructing canals, drainage ditches and flood levees -- and then cultivate it "as rapidly as possible."

The projects were never fully completed, but the reservation ended up with new roads, electricity, irrigation systems, housing and the like.

Many tribal members were able to receive parts of the old barracks as their first modern homes, including Van Fleet. Before the Japanese came, she recalled, she lived in a mud hut and used kerosene lamps for lighting. Other wartime buildings were maintained and used for such purposes as tribal schools, youth centers and alcohol-rehabilitation programs. The buildings, now shuttered, were visited last week by several of the former internees and form the heart of the application for national historical landmark status.

Overall, the improvements gave the Colorado River Indians a "step ahead" on postwar progress compared to other tribes, Patch said.

They began leasing land for commercial agriculture and started their own farming enterprises as well. The tribal budget has grown from an annual $7,000 in 1952 to $28 million today.

"Much of this would not have happened without the Japanese laying the groundwork," Tsosie said.

Last week, on a wind-swept patch of desert, where Japanese Americans erected a stone memorial monument in 1992, Tsosie delivered his thanks to several former internees. Tribal youth performed traditional Indian songs and dances. A Japanese Buddhist priest burned incense and said prayers.

For Okimoto, the tribal progress has allowed her to find meaning in her personal saga of suffering.

"Here were two minority groups struggling," she said. "If what we did helped them, then I guess it was worth the suffering the Japanese endured during the war."

Celebrating a shared history - Los Angeles Times

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Members may be interested in this very famous event in Australia.


The Cowra Breakout

Cowra breakout - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Many POW camps were established in the Shepparton area in central Victoria. They were generally kept in separate camps for each nationality.

My grand-father was the 'funeral director' in Shepparton, then my home town also, and I remember him relating soon after the war that he OFTEN had to go out to the near-by japaneses POW camps at Murchison and Tatura to attend to the burial of the jap soldiers who had suicided the previous night.

There was an Italian POW camp near the town of Tatura, and it had an irrigation channel running beside one fence. Australia treated the POWs in very strict accordance with the Geneva Convention, and this document stated that the prisoners were to be fed with "the same standard of rations as the general population". The Italians thought this was too good to be true, and expected that the good times would end at any moment. With this in mind they gradually built up a supply of canned food that they tossed over the fence into the irrigation channel with some plan to retrieve it all later. At wars end, they told the Army about it, and they fished out FIVE TONS of canned food from the water.

After the war the Italian POWs were repatriated back to the old country, and they immediately set in train applications to migrate back to Australia. There is now a VERY large Italian community in the Shepparton area.

OJ

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"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". - Voltaire.

A brutal policy. The japanese were americans

I love it when people that have no experience of the cruel ways of life, make such judgements about things they have no personal knowledge of.

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Lord, let me be the person my dog thinks I am.

I found an old article in the Time magazine archives that address this issue in "real time". Makes for interesting reading.

Few wartime problems have remained as puzzling to the average U.S. citizen as that of the West Coast's uprooted Japanese. This week, in a new book, The Governing of Men, Lieut. Commander Alexander H. Leighton, a Navy Medical Corps psychiatrist, suggested a key to better understanding. After 15 months at Arizona's vast Poston Relocation Center as a social analyst, Commander Leighton concluded that many an American simply fails to remember that U.S. Japanese are human beings.

The Governing of Men (Princeton University Press; $3.75) is a full report on Poston, which—because of censorship —was the subject of many a wild rumor in the early days of the war. To Commander Leighton's detached eye, the war was only a minor cause of Poston's troubles. Many of those troubles sprang from the universal resentment men feel at being confined against their will, and from the universal conflict which results when different types of people are thrown closely together. For the 18,000 Japs at Poston were of all types. There were Christians and Buddhists, bankers and fishermen, farmers and shopkeepers. By birth and background they fell into three basic groups:

¶The oldest, the Japanese-born Issei, were reserved, puritanical people, who clung to an old country belief in hard work, personal integrity and obedience to tradition. They felt a sense of loyalty to Japan and had grave misgivings about the flipness, the new and careless attitudes of U.S.-born Nisei. Pearl Harbor had filled them with indecision. Many wanted Japan to win the war, but they did not want the U.S.—the country in which their children would go on living—to lose.

¶The Nisei had grown away from the Japanese beliefs that they had been taught as children, felt superior to their parents and a little ashamed of the Issei's bowing manners and broken English. They were full of protest at the idea of evacuation, afraid they were being stripped of their rights as citizens. Their faith in U.S. fairness was shaken. But they were still unconvinced by their parents' talk of the greatness of Japan.

¶The Kibei, young Japanese born in the U.S. but educated in the old country, found themselves in conflict with both Issei and Nisei. Most older Japanese considered them dissolute, domineering upstarts. Nisei, fresh from U.S. schools, considered them foreign-minded people.

To all the evacuees Poston (a conglomeration of cheerless wooden barracks on the unshaded desert) seemed like a concentration camp. The sun was cruel; dust was everywhere. The hospital had little medicine, food was often badly cooked; there was overcrowding, lack of privacy, discomfort. The camp's overworked administrative staff had been thrown together as hastily as the buildings.

A New Life. Despite all this, the displaced thousands gradually settled into a new pattern of existence. Clubs, baseball teams sprang up. There were parties at which old-fashioned dancing competed with U.S. jitterbugging—under their flowing robes the Japanese girls wore U.S. saddle shoes (see cut). Thousands of residents worked hard at tilling the soil, manufacturing adobe bricks, making camouflage netting—at wages of $12 to $19 a month. But a great part of Poston's people went on feeling insecure, bewildered, resentful. Many an older Japanese was convinced that Nisei and Kibei were "dogs" (informers). Gangs of men began roaming the camp at night beating suspected "dogs" with clubs and canes.

Torn by dissension, the Japs finally struck against their American warders. When the strike was settled after eight days, the air was cleared. But Poston was never a placid place again. By this week, nearly 13,000 of Poston's inhabitants, still uncertain and bewildered, had gone back to their old homes on the Coast.

Commander Leighton, objective throughout, reaches no conclusions on this U.S. experiment in governing another race behind stockades. But his attitude is aptly expressed in the quotation from which he got his title*: Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than to meddle with the governing of men.

* A remark made by Danton just before he was guillotined in Paris' Terror (1794).

See:

Japs Are Human - TIME

Hope nobody minds my bringing this old thread back to the fore?

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

Mind? Heck no! Thanks, Clint. I'm always learning something new here thanks to you and many other excellent posters.

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"I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did." - Gen. George S. Patton
"In 9 months and 3 days of combat on the Continent the 949th FA Bn had fired 51,000 rounds of ammunition, approximately 2,550 tons." - Unit History

Not at all.. No thread is an old thread in my view, they are just filed awaiting attention.

Well said urqh... just as I'm discovering it now

This thread causes me to reflect on how our Japanese-Americans felt who were serving amongst our U.S. military forces? I imagine that even though the internment camps were for the country's safety... the morale or awkwardness among Japanese-American soldiers must have been a prevalent emotion(s).....

Jem

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I approached everything, my job, my family, my romances, with intensity... Gene Tierney

Following Clint's lead, here is an article from Time Magazine in 1944.


From a cautious experiment the Army had received an unexpectedly rich reward. A group of sinewy oriental soldiers, only one generation removed from a nation that was fighting fanatically against the U.S., was fighting just as fanatically for it. Last week the War Department wrote "proved" on the experiment. It added a unit citation (for "outstanding performance of duty in action") to the already-remarkable collection of medals held by the Japanese-American 100th Battalion.
Chary Beginnings. For almost two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, young Japanese-American soldiers trained hard and all but unnoticed at a camp in the U.S. Then the news began to spread: they looked so good that the War Department began to recruit more from Hawaii.
The first group soon got a real test. Formed up as the 100th Infantry Battalion, they were sent to North Africa, attached to the 34th Division. To keep them a racial unit the War Department sent along 500 reserve Nisei to augment the 100th's normal battalion strength of 800. The reserves were soon needed.
Coming Through. From the day of their first action—in Italy—the 100th had one tough fight after another. The stocky, brown-skinned boys, with their curious Hawaiian English, showed themselves good shots, doggedly resistant in combat.
Fifteen enlisted men won battlefield promotions. After Cassino, where they had spearheaded the crossing of the Rapido River and had clung to a corner of the town for many days, their combat strength was down to 120 men.
In the action at Belvedere, for which the 100th was officially cited, the divisional commander had to commit the battalion sooner than expected, to outflank a tough German position. With little artillery support the Nisei cut behind the position of some 500 Germans, knocked it to pieces, killed, wounded and captured 271 Germans.
After the capture of Rome the 100th was joined by its recently trained counterpart, the 442nd Combat Team, also Japanese-Americans. Both units are exceptionally popular in the Fifth Army, have a wonderful knack for organizing little comforts, cooking up tasty un-Army dishes.
More recently the Japanese-Americans have seen action at San Luce and Pastina. Last week their versatility was further recognized. They had pitched in with the Engineers to help rebuild the port of Leghorn. Said their commander, Major General Charles W. Ryder: they're the best troops in the Division.

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"Faint heart never won fair maiden", so I say "Go for it!"

Lou

I knew a Japanese American who was intered in California. He said at first he was embarrased by being "caged". I, like him find it interesting that the same gov't that locked him up recruited him out of the camp to fight the Germans.

Clint and Lou,

Great articles... sounds like they made quite an impression and showing some meritorious versatility!

Jem

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I approached everything, my job, my family, my romances, with intensity... Gene Tierney