Roosevelt’s decision
First of two articles
on AJAs in HawaiiFIFTY-SIX years ago there was a lot of dithering going on in Washington about what to do with the Japanese in Hawaii. It was 1942. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor the previous Dec. 7.
The decision already had been made to send West Coast Japanese off to relocation camps. But what about Hawaii, even closer to the war front?
It wasn't an easy question. Hawaii's Japanese made up one-third of the territory's population and were the bulk of the work force. They couldn't be spared as easily from the war effort as the West Coast Japanese. But could they be trusted?
High-level Washington correspondence about this is finally being pulled together by the American of Japanese ancestry veterans organizations that performed heroically in the war while other Japanese were being interned.
Attorney Ted Tsukiyama is spark-plugging this effort. He is the historian for the 442nd Veterans Club, which has amassed about 30 shelf feet of records with the help of Washington friends who go searching through the now-declassified files back there.
He also works on behalf of the Military Intelligence Service veterans. He was one of them, too. And he coordinates, with the original AJA fighting group, the 100th Infantry Battalion, and with the AJA veterans of the 1399th Construction Battalion assigned to Schofield Barracks.
Tsukiyama was in the University of Hawaii Reserve Officer Training Corps on Dec. 7. He and his pals were soon kicked out for no better reason than that they were of Japanese ancestry, even though U.S.-born citizens.
The biggest find in the declassified files may be a Feb. 26, 1942, memo on White House stationery initialed F.D.R. to the secretary of the Navy (Frank Knox):
"Like you," the memo says, "I have long felt that most of the Japanese should be removed from Oahu to one of the other islands. This involves much planning, much temporary construction and careful supervision of them when they get to the new location.
"I do not worry about the constitutional question -- first, because of my recent order and, second, because Hawaii is under martial law. The whole matter is one of immediate and present war emergency.
"I think you and (Secretary of War Henry) Stimson can agree and then go ahead and do it as a military project. Ask the director of the Budget how we can finance it. -- F.D.R."
THIS plan apparently was modified later. A March 13, 1942, order from the president approved the following policy:
"That the Japanese residents of the Hawaiian Islands (either U.S. citizens or aliens) as are considered by the appropriate authority in the Hawaiian Islands to constitute a source of danger be transported to the U.S. mainland and placed under guard in concentration camp."
On March 18 the commanding general in Hawaii was directed to carry out this order, a memo shows.
But things didn't happen as planned because a group of 13 citizens of Japanese extraction screwed things up for the U.S. Army when they were sent to the mainland.
More on that in my column Thursday.
Read the second article
