WWII Japanese American Internment Timeline

Letter to President Roosevelt

In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingell of Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americans as hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan.

Japanese American business and leaders in Los Angeles picked up by F.B.I.

Fifteen Japanese American businessmen and community leaders in Los Angeles Little Tokyo are picked up in an F.B.I. raid. A spokesman for the Central Japanese Association states: "We teach the fundamental principles of America and the high ideals of American democracy. We want to live here in peace and harmony. Our people are 100% loyal to America."

Attack on Pearl Harbor

On the morning of December 7, 1941 a surprise military strike was conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.

Executive Order 9066

President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywhere without trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limited interest at the time, this order set the stage for the entire forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Resident of Terminal Island

The Navy informs Japanese American residents of Terminal Island near Los Angeles Harbor that they must leave in 48 hours. They are the first group to be removed en masse.

Governor Chase Clark

Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee in Seattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they were in "concentration camps under military guard." Some credit Clark with the conception of what was to become a true scenario.

Public Proclamation No. 1

Gen. John L. DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 which creates Military Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 includes the western portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and part of Arizona while Military Area No. 2 includes the rest of these states. The proclamation also hints that people might be excluded from Military Area No. 1.

Executive Order 9102

The president signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the War Relocation Authority (WRA) with Milton Eisenhower as director. It is allocated $5.5 million.

Manzanar, CA

The first advance groups of Japanese American "volunteers" arrive at Manzanar, CA. The WRA would take over on June 1 and transform it into a "relocation center."

Civilian Exclusion Order

The first Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the Army is issued for the Bainbridge Island area near Seattle. The forty-five families there are given one week to prepare. By the end of October, 108 exclusion orders would be issued, and all Japanese Americans in Military Area No. 1 and the California portion of No. 2 would be incarcerated.

Minoru Yasui

Minoru Yasui walks into a Portland police station at 11:20 p.m. to present himself for arrest in order to test the curfew regulations in court.

James Omura

Having "voluntarily resettled" in Denver, Nisei journalist James Omura writes a letter to a Washington law firm inquiring about retaining their services to seek legal action against the government for violations of civil and constitutional rights and seeking restitution for economic losses. He was unable to afford the $3,500 fee required to begin proceedings.

Fort Still (Oklahoma) Internment Camp

Forty-five-year-old Ichiro Shimoda, a Los Angeles gardener, is shot to death by guards while trying to escape from Fort Still (Oklahoma) internment camp. The victim was seriously mentally ill, having attempted suicide twice since being picked up on December 7. He is shot despite the guards' knowledge of his mental state.

Hikoji Takeuchi

Hikoji Takeuchi, a Nisei, is shot by a guard at Manzanar. The guard claims that he shouted at Takeuchi and that Takeuchi began to run away from him. Takeuchi claims he was collecting scrap lumber and didn't hear the guard shout. His wounds indicate that he was shot in the front. Though seriously injured, he eventually recovered.

National Japanese-American Student Relocation Council

Largely organized by Quaker leader Clarence E. Pickett, the National Japanese-American Student Relocation Council is formed in Philadelphia with University of Washington Dean Robert W. O'Brien as director. By war's end, 4,300 Nisei would be in college.

Little Tokyo, U.S.A.

The movie "Little Tokyo, U.S.A." is released by Twentieth Century Fox. In it, the Japanese American community is portrayed as a "vast army of volunteer spies" and "blind worshippers of their Emperor, " as described in the film's voice-over prologue.

Milton Eisenhower resigns

Milton Eisenhower resigns as WRA director. Dillon Myer is appointed to replace him.

Toshiro Kobata and Hirota Isomura

Two Issei -- Brawley, CA farmer Toshiro Kobata and San Pedro fisherman Hirota Isomura -- are shot to death by camp guards at Lourdsburg, New Mexico enemy alien internment camp. The men had allegedly been trying to escape. It would later be reported, however, that upon their arrival to the camp, the men had been too ill to walk from the train station to the camp gate.

Riot

A routine search for contraband at the Santa Anita "Assembly Center" turns into a "riot." Eager military personnel had become overzealous and abusive which, along with the failure of several attempts to reach the camp's internal security chief, triggers mass unrest, crowd formation, and the harassing of the searchers. Military police with tanks and machine guns quickly end the incident. The "overzealous" military personnel are later replaced.

Minidoka, Idaho

The first inmates arrive at Minidoka, Idaho.

Heart Mountain, Wyoming

The first 292 inmates arrive at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Granada, Wyoming

The first inmates arrive at Granada, or Amache, Colorado.

Topaz, Utah

The first inmates arrive at Central Utah, or Topaz.

Rohwer, Arkansas

The first inmates arrive at Rohwer, Arkansas.

President Roosevelt calls the "relocation centers" "concentration camps" at a press conference. The WRA had consistently denied that the term "concentration camps" accurately described the camps.

Mass strike

An attack on a man widely perceived as an informer results in the arrest of two popular inmates at Poston. This incident soon mushrooms into a mass strike.

Fred Tayama

Fred Tayama is attacked and seriously injured by a group of inmates at Manzanar. The arrest of the popular Harry Ueno for the crime triggers a mass uprising.

Prison at Moab, Utah

The WRA establishes a prison at Moab, Utah for recalcitrant inmates.

442nd Regimental Combat Team

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is activated, made up entirely of Japanese Americans.

James Hatsuki Wakasa

James Hatsuki Wakasa, a sixty-three-year-old chef, is shot to death by a sentry at Heart Mountain camp while allegedly trying to escape through a fence. It is later determined that Wakasa had been inside the fence and facing the sentry when shot. The sentry would stand a general court-martial on April 28 at Fort Douglas, Utah and be found "not guilty."

General John L. DeWitt

"A Jap's a Jap. There is no way to determine their loyalty... This coast is too vulnerable. No Jap should come back to this coast except on a permit from my office." General John L. DeWitt, head, Western Defense Command; before the House Naval Affairs Subcommittee.

United States Supreme Court Ruling

The United States Supreme Court rules on the Hirabayashi and Yasui cases, upholding the constitutionality of the curfew and exclusion orders.

Tule Lake

The realignment of Tule Lake as a camp for "dissenters" begins. After the loyalty questionnaire episode, "loyal" internees begin to depart to other camps. Five days later, "disloyal" internees from other camps begin to arrive at Tule Lake.

Tule Lake Uprising

The Tule Lake uprising caps a month of strife. Tension had been high since the administration had fired 43 coal workers involved in a labor dispute on October 7.

Nisei Eligibility for Draft

Nisei eligibility for the draft is restored. The reaction to this announcement in the camps would be mixed.

Fair Play Committee Organized

Spurred by the announcement of the draft a few days before, 300 people attend a public meeting at Heart Mountain camp. Here, the Fair Play Committee is formally organized to support draft resistance.

Refusal to Participate in Combat Training

Forty-three Japanese American soldiers are arrested for refusing to participate in combat training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, as a protest of treatment of their families in U.S. camps. Eventually, 106 are arrested for their refusal. Twenty-one are convicted and serve prison time before being paroled in 1946.

Federal Grand Jury Indictments

A Federal Grand Jury issues indictments against 63 Heart Mountain draft resistors. The 63 are found guilty and sentenced to jail terms on June 26. They would be granted a pardon on December 24, 1947.

Shoichi James Okamoto

Shoichi James Okamoto is shot to death at Tule Lake by a guard after stopping a construction truck at the main gate for permission to pass. Private Bernard Goe, the guard, would be acquitted after being fined a dollar for "unauthorized use of government property" --a bullet.

Closing of Jerome Camp

Jerome becomes the first camp to close when the last inmates are transferred to Rohwer.

Members of Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee Arrested

Seven members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee are arrested, along with journalist James Omura. Their trial for "unlawful conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet violators of the draft" begins on October 23. All but Omura would eventually be found guilty.

442nd Regimental Combat Team

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescues an American battalion which had been cut off and surrounded by the enemy. Eight hundred casualties are suffered by the 442nd to rescue 211 men. After this rescue, the 442nd is ordered to keep advancing in the forest; they would push ahead without relief or rest until November 9.

Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu

The Supreme Court decides that Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was indeed guilty of remaining in a military area contrary to the exclusion order. This case challenged the constitutionality of the entire exclusion process.

Restrictions Changed

Restrictions preventing resettlement on the West Coast are removed, although many exceptions continue to exist. A few carefully screened Japanese Americans had returned to the coast in late 1944.

Violence against Dio family

The packing shed of the Doi family is burned and dynamited and shots are fired into their home. The family had been the first to return to California from Amache and the first to return to Placer County, having arrived three days earlier. Although several men are arrested and confess to the acts, all would be acquitted. Some 30 similar incidents would greet other Japanese Americans returning to the West Coast between January and June.

Germany Surrenders

The surrender of Germany ends the war in Europe.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. The war in the Pacific would end on August 14.

Tule Lake Closes

Tule Lake closes, culminating "an incrediblle mass evacuation in reverse." In the month prior to the closing, some 5,000 internees had to be moved, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, or mentally ill and with no place to go.

442nd Regimental Combat Team is received on the White House lawn

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is received on the White House lawn by President Truman. "You fought not only the enemy but you fought prejudice -- and you have won," remarks the president.

Release from Crystal City and Seabrook Farms

U.S. District Judge Louis E. Goodman orders that the petitioners in Wayne Collins' suit of December 13, 1945 be released; native-born American citizens could not be converted to enemy aliens and could not be imprisoned or sent to Japan on the basis of renunciation. Three hundred and two persons are finally released from Crystal City, Texas and Seabrook Farms, New Jersey on September 6, 1947.

Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act

President Truman signs the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act, a measure to compensate Japanese Americans for certain economic losses attributable to their forced evacuation. Although some $28 million was to be paid out through provision of the act, it would be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in which it operated.

Reparations

A resolution is announced by the Japanese American Citizen League's Northern California-Western Nevada District Council calling for reparations for the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. This resolution would have the JACL seek a bill in Congress awarding individual compensation on a per diem basis, tax-free.

World War II Japanese-American Human Rights Violations Act

Representative Mike Lowry (D-WA) introduces the World War II Japanese-American Human Rights Violations Act (H.R. 5977) into Congress. This NCJAR-sponsored bill is largely based on research done by ex-members of the Seattle JACL chapter. It proposes direct payments of $15,000 per victim plus an addtional $15 per day interned. Given the choice between this bill and the JACL-supported study commission bill introduced two months earlier, Congress opts for the latter.

Formal Recommendations

The CWRIC issues its formal recommendations to Congress concerning redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. They include the call for individual payments of $20,000 to each of those who spent time in the concentration camps and are still alive.

Public Hearing

The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) holds a public hearing in Washington, D.C. as part of its investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during Workd War II. Similar hearings would be held in many other cities throughout the rest of 1981. The emotional testimony by more than 750 Japanese American witnesses about their wartime experiences would prove cathartic for the community and a turning point in the redress movement.

H.R. 442

H.R. 442 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides for individual payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee and a $1.25 billion education fund among other provisions.

Redress payments

The first nine redress payments are made at a Washington, D.C. ceremony. One-hundred-seven-year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angeles is the first to receive his check.