Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians

2. Executive Order 9066

2 Executive Order 9066 At dawn on December 7, 1941, Japan began bombing American ships and planes at Pearl Harbor. The attack took our forces by surprise. Japanese aircraft carriers and warships had left the Kurile Islands for Pearl Harbor on November 26, 1941, and Washington had sent a war warning message indicating the possibility ofattack upon Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Thailand or the Malay Peninsula. Nevertheless, the Navy and Army were unprepared and unsuspecting. After a few hours of bombing, Japan had killed or wounded over 3,500 Americans. Two battleships were destroyed, four others sunk or run aground; a number ofother vessels were destroyed or badly damaged. One hundred fortynine American airplanes had been destroyed. Japan lost only 29 planes and pilots.l That night President Roosevelt informed his Cabinet and Congressionalleaders that he would seek a declaration of war.2 On December 8 the President addressed a joint session of Congress and expressed the nation's outraged shock at the damage which the Japanese had done on that day of infamy. The declaration of war passed with one dissenting vote.3 Germany and Italy followed Japan into the war on December 11. At home in the first weeks ofwar the division between isolationists and America Firsters, and supporters of the western democracies, was set aside, and the country united in its determination to defeat the Axis powers. Abroad, the first weeks ofwar sounded a steady drumbeat 47 48 PERSONAL JUSTICE DENIED of defeat, particularly as the Allies retreated before Japanese forces in the Far East. On the same day as Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck the Malay Peninsula, Hong Kong, Wake and Midway Islands, and attac~d the Philippines, destroying substantial numbers ofAmerican aircraft on the ground near Manila. The next day Thailand was invaded and within days two British battleships were sunk off Malaysia. On December 13 Guam fell, and on Christmas the Japanese captured Wake Island and occupied Hong Kong. In the previous seventeen days, Japan had made nine amphibious landings in the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur, commanding Army forces in the islands, evacuated Manila on December 27, withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula, and set up headquarters on Corregidor. With Japan controlling all sea and air approaches to Bataan and Corregidor, after three months the troops isolated there were forced to surrender unconditionally in the worst American defeat since the Civil War. On February 27 the battle ofthe Java Sea resulted in another American naval defeat with the loss of thirteen Allied ships.4 In January and February 1942, the military position of the United States in the Pacific was bleak indeed. Reports of American battlefield deaths gave painful personal emphasis to the war news. * Pearl Harbor was a surprise. The outbreak of war was not. In December 1941 the United States was not in the state ofwar-readiness which those who anticipated conflict with the Axis would have wished, but it was by no means unaware ofthe intentions ofJapan and Germany. The President had worked for some time for Lend-Lease and other measures to support the western democracies and prepare for war. In *Some have argued that mistreatment of American soldiers by the Japanese Army-for instance, the atrocities of the Bataan Death March-justifies or excuses the exclusion and detention of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident Japanese aliens. The Commission firmly rejects this contention . There is no excuse for inflicting injury on American citizens or resident aliens for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The conduct ofJapan and her military forces is irrelevant to the issues which the Commission is considering . Congressman Coffee made the point eloquently on December 8, 1941: "It is my fervent hope and prayer that residents ofthe United States ofJapanese extraction will not be made the victim ofpogroms directed by self-proclaimed patriots and by hysterical self-anointed heroes.... Let us not make a mockery ofour Bill ofRights by mistreating these folks. Let us rather regard them with understanding, remembering they are the victims ofa Japanese war machine, with the making ofthe international policies ofwhich they had nothing to do." Congressional Record, 77th Cong., 1st Sess. (Dec. 8, 1941), p. A5554. EXECUTIVE ORDER 9066 49 1940, he had broadened the political base of his Cabinet, bringing in as Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, the publisher of the Chicago Daily News who had been Alfred M. Landon's vice-presidential candidate in 1936...