In people's general perception, Japanese people during World War II are often associated with aggression and brutality, arousing deep hatred. However, in the historical panorama, there is such a special group of Japanese people. In a strict sense, they are Americans. Their story is little known but full of twists and hardships.
The Pearl Harbor Incident: The Outbreak of War and Yamamoto Isoroku's Worries
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the United States, was suddenly attacked by the Japanese navy. Yamamoto Isoroku, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, made a breathtaking gamble in this operation and won. With only a small cost of losing 29 aircraft, the Japanese army sank four American battleships (another four were paralyzed by bombing) and also destroyed 18 other large ships, resulting in 2,403 American soldiers killed and 1,178 injured. This "surprise attack on Pearl Harbor" officially opened the curtain of the "Pacific War" in World War II.
When the news of victory reached Yamamoto Isoroku's combat command room, the room was filled with jubilation. However, Yamamoto Isoroku looked indifferent. He deeply knew that although this action was successful tactically, from a strategic perspective, it might have awakened a sleeping giant. The United States, a country with strong industrial and military potential, would surely launch a cruel retaliation, and the Japanese military and civilians would also be plunged into endless flames of war. But at that time, he might not have expected that a group of special compatriots on the other side of the ocean - hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans living on the American mainland - would also encounter an unprecedented fate due to this war. Among these Japanese Americans, many had obtained American citizenship. They took root and sprouted on this land but were pushed to the forefront due to Japan's act of aggression.
Discrimination and Persecution Suffered by Japanese Americans on the Mainland
The day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Japanese Americans in California (adjacent to the Pacific Ocean) on the west coast of the United States began to feel the pressure like a storm. At that time, Cabot Olson, the governor of California, and Earl Warren, the state attorney general, made a shocking decision: all first- and second-generation immigrants from Japan in the United States were dismissed from public office. This was just the beginning. Their lawyer's licenses and medical licenses were mercilessly revoked. Japanese fishermen who made a living by fishing were prohibited from going out to sea.
It is worth noting that in California, the first- and second-generation immigrant population from Japan only accounts for 1% of the total state population (about 100,000 people). In Hawaii, which is closer to the front line, the Japanese population accounts for one-third (150,000) of the local population but did not suffer such a serious impact.
At first, the American people still had some sympathy for Japanese Americans. The Los Angeles Times once commented, describing these Japanese citizens as "educated from birth to be very good Americans." However, as time passed, a month later, Japan achieved successive victories on the Southeast Asian battlefield, while the American Pacific Fleet was still paralyzed. Panic began to spread on the American continent. State Attorney General Warren called Washington and said, "Judicial officials in this state unanimously believe that Japanese Americans born in the United States are more dangerous than Japanese immigrants."
Under the instigation of public opinion, the lives of Japanese Americans fell into a desperate situation. Insurance companies canceled their policies. Milkmen refused to deliver milk. Grocery stores refused to sell food to them. Gas stations refused to refuel them. Banks froze their assets. The window of a barbershop read: "If a Jap comes in to shave, there will be no responsibility for any accidents." The window of a restaurant read: "This store will poison rats and Japs." Even in some places, Japanese Americans were prohibited from entering public toilets.
Politicians also joined the anti-Japanese camp one after another. The governor of Idaho, Chase, compared Japanese Americans to rats, claiming that "Japs live like rats, breed like rats, and move like rats." The governor of Arkansas, Holm, said, "Our people are not used to the customs or rather quirks of the Japanese." The governor of Kansas, Payne, was even more extreme. He not only declared that "Kansas does not want Japs and does not welcome Japs," but also asked state police to prohibit Japanese cars from driving on highways. More and more states began to oppose Japanese Americans. They hoped to centrally manage the Japanese in their states. Whether this idea could be realized depended on the decision of the president of the United States.
Roosevelt Signs an Executive Order and Japanese Americans Are Forcibly Detained
At that time, President Roosevelt of the United States was busy dealing with many complex situations of the war against Japan and had no time to pay attention to the growing anti-Japanese sentiment at home. So, he left this matter to his subordinates to handle. After several twists and turns, Lieutenant General DeWitt, the commander of the Western Defense of the United States, became the actual decision-maker. DeWitt firmly advocated concentrating and detaining Japanese people for management. He believed that "In the United States, I don't want any Japanese. They are a risk factor. There is no way to prove their loyalty."
On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which was undoubtedly an inglorious moment in Roosevelt's presidential career. According to this decree, the president authorized the War Department to establish a "military area" and could order "anyone or everyone" to evacuate. This decree legalized the act of expelling and centrally detaining and managing Japanese Americans.
March 27 was the final deadline for "voluntary relocation" as stipulated by the decree. Just three days later, on March 30, starting from dawn, the "Civilian Exclusion Order No. 20" for forced evacuation was posted on the door of every Japanese American family. Japanese Americans who were forcibly evacuated were only allowed to bring personal belongings. Blades and liquor were confiscated, and investments and bank deposits were also confiscated. All appeals and protests were ignored. Transport trucks stopped in front of Japanese families. Soldiers shouted on the sidewalk: "Come out! Jap!" This scene was exactly the same as that of German soldiers driving Jews in Europe. In this way, Japanese American families, dragging their children and carrying their luggage, boarded trucks and were sent to "wartime resettlement centers" established by various states on the most desolate land.
According to statistics, in this persecution, the first-generation Japanese immigrants suffered heavy losses. The value of farmland and equipment reached 70 million US dollars, the loss of fruits and vegetables was 35 million US dollars (at that time, half of the fruits in California were produced by Japanese Americans), the annual income decreased by 500 million US dollars, and the losses of other deposits, stocks, bonds, etc. were countless.
Difficult Life in Concentration Camps and the Tenacity of Japanese Americans
Those Japanese families placed in "wartime resettlement centers" lived an extremely hard life. A Japanese family of six or seven people could only be allocated an "apartment" of about 40 square meters in the resettlement center - a small wooden house built with felt. There is only one stove (in some places there is none), a pendant lamp and beds in the house. Other furniture basically needs to be made by themselves with waste wood. There is no running water here. Each area of the barracks shares a laundry room, cafeteria, toilet and open-air shower room. When women take a bath, they have to endure the gaze of guards standing on high watchtowers. When they raise objections, the guards actually ask: "Are you Americans now?"
What is even more unacceptable is that barbed wire is pulled around the resettlement center and electrified. Fully armed soldiers patrol day and night and strictly prohibit them from going out. At night, the strong searchlight will shine into the windows of every family. This place is more like a concentration camp than a resettlement center. It is just that the food and accommodation conditions are slightly better than those in Nazi concentration camps, without crematoriums and abuse.
However, after being treated so obviously unequally, Japanese Americans did not resist at all. In fact, there has never been a single riot in all camps. Instead, they would gather every morning to raise the star-spangled banner and salute under the accompaniment of bugles and drums played by boy scouts (there is only one in each camp), which greatly surprised the camp guards. Every Saturday night, Japanese Americans in the camp would sing "Beautiful America" loudly. Among the courses offered in the camp, the most popular ones are English and American history courses. In the harsh environment, they still try to express their love and loyalty to this country. Moreover, they are eager to do more for this country rather than just endure silently in the camp.
Outstanding Contributions of Japanese Americans in the War
In 1943, the United States and Japan were locked in a bitter battle on the Pacific battlefield. At the same time, landing forces began to be dispatched on the European battlefield, and there was a serious shortage of soldiers. At this time, Japanese Americans got the opportunity to join the army and participate in the war. Although the second-generation young immigrants of Japanese Americans had many complaints about the unfair treatment suffered by their families and parents, in the face of this opportunity, they still rushed to sign up. They held a belief that as long as they performed well on the battlefield, their relatives in the camp might get better care.
A group of Japanese Americans entered the US military intelligence system and were responsible for deciphering Japanese military codes. On April 14, 1943, the US military intercepted a confidential Japanese telegram. This telegram used a new code that the Japanese army thought was "impossible to decipher" at that time. However, the Japanese American code expert group of the US military, relying on their familiarity with Japanese grammatical habits, successfully deciphered the code in just six hours. On April 18, Yamamoto Isoroku, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet who launched the "surprise attack on Pearl Harbor", was ambushed on his flight to inspect Japanese bases because the US military learned of his itinerary through deciphering the code. In the end, his plane was shot down in the primeval jungle and was destroyed with people dead. In July 1944, Japanese intelligence agents deciphered Japanese intelligence materials that had previously been marked as "of no military value" and found out the "inventory list of the armaments of the Greater Japanese Empire", which enabled the US B-29 bombers to accurately bomb and greatly shortened the war process.
More Japanese Americans directly threw themselves into the frontline battlefield. They were integrated into the famous 100th Battalion and 442nd Regiment of the US Army. After the "Pearl Harbor Incident" broke out, Japanese Americans who were originally serving in the US military were immediately isolated. The US military was not at ease about letting these well-trained officers and soldiers participate in the war, nor did they dare to easily remove their active status and restore them to civilian status. After weighing, it was decided to form them into the 100th Battalion and put them into the European battlefield (and later the 442nd Regiment was formed).
Japanese American troops mainly participated in the operations against Italy on the European battlefield (the opponents were mainly Nazi Germany). At first, this unit composed of Japanese Americans was discriminated against and called the "groundhog unit". Even Eisenhower refused to accept them. But these Japanese soldiers, who were determined to fight to the death for their families and prove their loyalty, soon shocked the Allies with their fearless fighting stance. In the face of the fierce Nazi German army, the Japanese soldiers of the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regiment seemed to forget life and death. When the battle was fierce, many people shouted slogans and directly charged at the German positions, launching suicidal attacks.
These two US military units composed entirely of Japanese Americans fought in northern Italy and southern France and participated in dozens of battles. The 100th Battalion, known as the "Groundhog Battalion", was later praised as the "Purple Heart Battalion" because they received countless Purple Heart medals. In April 1945, the 442nd Regiment was ordered to attack the "Gothic Line" defended by the German army. This line had been attacked by the Allies for six months but had not been conquered. After the 442nd Regiment arrived, it successfully penetrated the line in just one day and drove the German army to the Po River Basin within three weeks, astonishing the US military high command.
The 442nd Regiment had a wartime casualty rate as high as 314%. The number of fatalities reached three times that when it was first formed. Only by continuously supplementing Japanese American soldiers could it maintain its establishment. They became the infantry regiment with the highest casualty rate in the US Army during World War II, but at the same time, they were also the regiment-level unit with the most honors in the entire history of the US Army. The entire 442nd Regiment (later the 100th Battalion was incorporated and the number remained) had 18,143 people awarded various medals, including 7 presidential collective citations (the famous 101st Airborne Division only received 2, and the 1st Marine Division only received 3), 21 Medal of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 560 Silver Star Medals, 22 Legion of Merit Medals, 4,000 Bronze Star Medals and 9,486 Purple Heart Medals, etc.
It is said that after World War II, President Truman of the United States planned to review an army unit that was the most outstanding in the war, but it turned out to be the 442nd Regiment. Considering many complex factors (after all, not only Japanese Americans fought bravely in the entire US military during World War II), the review unit was finally changed.
Injustice After the War and Final Compensation
After World War II, these Japanese American soldiers returned home but still suffered unjust treatment. Even in uniforms, they were still refused by restaurants and barbershops. The War Department tried to take Japanese American military officers on a lecture tour to the west coast to publicize their heroic performance on the battlefield to the American people, but the effect was minimal. Once, a farmer asked a Japanese American lieutenant: "How many Japs died in your company?" The lieutenant replied: "By the end of the war, only two Japanese soldiers in our platoon were left alive." And the farmer actually replied: "What a pity! There are still two left!" The audience present at that time was silent and no one stopped this discriminatory speech. What is even more distressing is that most of the farms, homes and industries of these soldiers' parents were occupied by whites and not returned to them.
However, justice may be late but will never be absent. Since 1945, Japanese Americans have successively filed lawsuits regarding the unjust treatment they suffered during World War II. In 1948, the US Congress passed the "Japanese-American Claims Act." But until 1962, the United States only compensated 36 million US dollars. In 1980, under the continuous pressure of Japanese Americans, President Carter began to reinvestigate this matter and established a special committee. The investigation report showed that at that time, almost no Japanese citizens in the United States had any disloyal behavior, and setting up concentration camps had no military necessity. On February 24, 1983, the US Congress officially admitted that detaining Japanese American citizens during World War II was a mistake. Since then, compensation claims have increased significantly. In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Rights Act, issued an apology on behalf of the US government, and provided $20,000 in compensation to each concentration camp survivor, with a total compensation of $1.6 billion (equivalent to about $3.3 billion now).
Opinion
This period of history makes people feel complicated. It shows us an America and Japan different from our inherent impressions. When collecting photos of the 442nd Regiment and looking at those Japanese people in American military uniforms, the feeling is so strange. They fought for the United States and fought desperately against Nazi Germany. This is a real historical event. This period of history also makes us understand that in Japan, no matter how crazy the extreme right-wing is, there are always batches of anti-war people. They have deeply experienced the pain brought by war and sincerely oppose war and pray for peace. Because they clearly know that once the war machine starts, it is far from just the armies of the warring parties that are involved. There are countless innocent civilians and even compatriots of the same origin. What those Japanese officers and soldiers buried in the European battlefield strive for is the peace and light that all mankind pursues together. War only brings pain and destruction. We should remember history, cherish peace, and never let such tragedies repeat themselves.