The Japanese in World War II, Part One and Two

Hello readers. As promised at the end of the previous blog post, this is going to be the first in a series about the Japanese in World War II and the Pacific Theatre of the war. In New York State, schools don't put too much focus on the role of the Japanese in the war; all that seems to be discussed in schools is the attack on Pearl Harbor, interment camps, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the surrender on the USS Missouri. I'm going to examine the role Japan played in World War II in as much depth as possible. So, let's get started.

Sino-Japanese Relations

Before Japan's role in World War II can be examined, we must first take a, brief, I-ok at the relationship between Japan and China.

Japan, from 600 to 838, was very heavily influenced by Chinese culture. From China, Japan adopted a written language, Buddhism, Confucianism, liter­ature, music, and architecture. The Chinese heritage was so embedded Japanese life and culture that some of the skills that disappeared in China over time were preserved in Japan.

As time went on and Japan embraced modernization and Westernization via the Meji Restoration, China lagged behind (and would continue to lag behind Japan through the 1970s). Due, in large part, to China's failure to modernize, Japan and China fought in two wars with Japan's goal being to seize land and resources. These wars, the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), continue to influence modern Sino-Japanese re­lations. Japan wanted to be viewed as a major superpower, on par with the Western world; in order to do that, Japan engaged in imperialism just like their Western counterparts, first invading Korea in the 1890s and then attempting to invade Mancuria in 1931. Japan invaded Korea because it was rich in iron and coal, which newly (and rapidly) industrializing Japan needed; Japan was successful in their invasion. Japan invaded Mancuria to protect the railroads and leased land, eventually engaging with China in a second full- scale war in 1937.

The Second Sino-Japanese War drained Japan of resources necessary to maintain its army such as rubber, iron, and oil. As a result, the Imperi­al Japanese Navy began attacking the already-colonized South Pacific, with bombings and invasion attempts in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philipoines, Malaya, and Pearl Harbor.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy ", was the day the Im­perial Japanese Navy attacked the Am­erican naval base at Pearl Harbor on Honolulu, Hawaii.

Just before 8am on December 7, I 941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the naval base where they destroyed or damaged nearly 20 Ameri­can naval vessels, which included eight battleships and over 300 planes. More than 2, 400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and I, 000 more had been wounded. The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Congress to declare war on Japan.

Edging Towards War

Although the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base was a surprise, Japan and the United States had been edging towards wa-with one another for decades.

In response to Japan's aggression towards China, particularly after the Nanking Massacre (more commonly known as the Rape of Nanking) in 1937, the United States placed a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes on Imperial Japan. Ameri­can officials reasoned that without access to money and goods, especially supplies such as oil, Japan would be forced to slow its rate of expansionism. However, those sanctions made Japan more de­termined to stand their ground and to continue their rate of imperial expansionism.

American military leaders knew trouble was coming to the South Pacific, expecting Japan to attack one of the Europe un colonies in the area. Due to not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval base at Pearl Harbor was relatively undefended. For this reason, Pearl Harbor was an easy target for the Jabanese, whose goal was to destroy America's Pacific Fleet.

With the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base, Japan haa found itself at war with the United States. Japan had wanted to goad the U-S. into relieving the economic sanctions against them, but instead pushed the U.S. into a second global conflict, one that would result in the occupation of Japan by a foreign country for the first time.

On December 8, 1941, Congress app­roved Roosevelt's declaration of war against Japan; on December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy, Japan's allies, de­clared war against the U.S. In turn, Congress declared war on Germany and Italy.

• • •

The Japanese in World War II, Part 2

As a result of the December 7, 1941 attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii by Imperial Japan's navy, the U.S. enacted Exec­utive Order 9066, allowing for the intern­ment of Japanese-Americans for the duration of World War II. This post will examine what conditions were like for those who were interred.

Executive Order 9066

On February 12, 1942, shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law. Executive Order 9066 was meant + prevent espionage on American soil, military zones were created in the Pacific States (California, Washington, and Oregon) due to their sizeable Asian populations, and the Executive Order called for the relocation of Americans of Japanese descent.

Executive Order 9066 affected 117,000 peo­ple, most of whom were American citizens. Canada would follow in America's footsteps and relocated 21,000 of its citizens of Japanese descent.

Anti-Japanese Activity

Weeks prior to the signing of Execu­tive Order 9066, government entities had been arresting Japanese-Americans as a result of the Pearl Harbor attacks.

On December 7, 1941, just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the FBI rounded up nearly 1,300 Japanese com­munity and religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets. The arrestees were trans­ferred to fascilities in Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota; many of these initial arrestees were unable to inform their families of their arrests and forced relocations.

The FBI searched the private homes of thousands of Japanese residents on the Pacific coast, seizing any items they deemed as contraband. Some politicians called for the mass incarceration of the Hawaiian people, as one-third of Hawaii's population was of Japanese descent. Some Japanese residents were arrested and 1,500 people (or one percent of the Japanese population in Hawaii) were sent to intern­ment camps on the American mainland.

War Relocation Authority

After a lot of organizational chaos, about 15,000 Jersanese Americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas ana were met with racist hostilities.

In March 1942, the War Relocation Authority, a civilian organization, was set up to administer the relocation plan of Executive Order 9066. The War Relocation Authority was headed by Milton S. Eisenhower from the Depart­ment of Agriculture. Eisenhower only lasted until June 1942, resigning in protest in what he saw as the incar­ceration of innocent citizens.

Relocation to Assembly Centers

On March 24, 1942, Army-directed evacuations began. People of Japanese descent were given six days notice to dispose of any belongings other than what they could carry. Anyone who was at least 416 Japanese was evacuated, which included 17,000 children under age ten, as well as thousands of el­derly and handicapped individuals.

Japanese Americans reported to centers near their homes. From there, they were transported to a temporary relocation center where they would live for months prior to being transported to a permanent facility. 

Life and Conditions in the Interment Camps

Interment camps were located in remote areas and encompassed large tracts of land. These camps were usually reconfigured fairgrounds or dirt racetracks, featuring buildings not meant for human habitation. For example, in Portland, Oregon, 3,000 people were forced to relocate to the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Facilities where they stayed in the livestock pavilion. The Santa Anita Assembly Center, located near Los Angeles, California had 18,000 people interred there with nearly half of that population living in livestock stables. 

Interment camps, or assembly centers as they were often called, were run like cities. People lived there, worked there, and children went to school there. The work that was offered to those who were detained at the facilities operated un­der the policy that no one should be paid more than an Army private; jobs in these camps ranged from teachers to doc­tors to laborers to mechanics.

There were a total of ten permanent internment camps. Each camp was nearly identical--there was some form of barracks where several families were housed to­gether, common eating areas, schools, post offices, work facilities, farmland, and guard towers all surrounded by barbed wire fen­cing.

Korematsu us. United States

In 1942, a 23-year-old man named Fred Korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to an internment camp. Kore- matsu went f. court over the incident, and his case went all the way t. the United States Subreme Court. In the SCOTUS case Korematsu us. United States, Fred Korematsu's attorney argued that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth Amendment. Korematsu lost the case, but he went on to become a social activist where he advocated for civil nights.

Endo vs. United States

Korematsu vs. United States sought to put an end to the internment of Japanese Americans, but where it failed another SCOTUS case was successful.

In 1945, the internment of Japanese Ameri­cans came to an end with the decision in Endo vs. United States. In the decision, SCOTUS ruled that the War Relocation Authority lacked the authority to subject Japanese Am­ericans to its leave procedures.

The case was brought us by Mitsaye Endo, who was the daughter of Japanese immigrants from Sacramento, CA. After filing a habeas corpus petition, the government offered to free Endo. However, Mitsaye Endo refused, wanting her case to address the entire issue of Japanese internment, not just her own case. Endo won the case and Japanese internment came to an end.

Reparations

The last Japanese internment closed in Uarch 1946, but it wasn't until 1976, during the Gerald Ford administrati-n, that Executive Order 9066 would offic­ially be repealed. In 1988, Congress issued an official apology and passed the Civil Liberties Act awarding $20,000 to over 80, 00 individuals as reparations for their treatment.