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WWII INTERNMENT TIMELINE

August 18, 1941
In a letter to President Roosevelt, Representative John Dingellof Michigan suggests incarcerating 10,000 Hawaiian Japanese Americansas hostages to ensure "good behavior" on the part of Japan.

November 12, 1941
Fifteen Japanese American businessmen and community leaders inLos Angeles Little Tokyo are picked up in an F.B.I. raid. A spokesmanfor the Central Japanese Association states: "We teach the fundamentalprinciples 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."

December 7, 1941
The attack on Pearl Harbor. Local authorities and the F.B.I. beginto round up the leadership of the Japanese American communities.Within 48 hours, 1,291 Issei are in custody. These men are heldunder no formal charges and family members are forbidden fromseeing them. Most would spend the war years in enemy alien internmentcamps run by the Justice Department.

February 19, 1942
President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 which allows military authorities to exclude anyone from anywherewithout trial or hearings. Though the subject of only limitedinterest at the time, this order set the stage for the entireforced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

February 25, 1942
The Navy informs Japanese American residents of Terminal Islandnear Los Angeles Harbor that they must leave in 48 hours. Theyare the first group to be removed en masse.

February 27, 1942.
Idaho Governor Chase Clark tells a congressional committee inSeattle that Japanese would be welcome in Idaho only if they werein "concentration camps under military guard." Some credit Clarkwith the conception of what was to become a true scenario.

March 2, 1942
Gen. John L. DeWitt issues Public Proclamation No. 1 which createsMilitary Areas Nos. 1 and 2. Military Area No. 1 includes thewestern portion of California, Oregon and Washington, and partof Arizona while Military Area No. 2 includes the rest of thesestates. The proclamation also hints that people might be excludedfrom Military Area No. 1.

March 18, 1942
The president signs Executive Order 9102 establishing the WarRelocation Authority (WRA) with Milton Eisenhower as director.It is allocated $5.5 million.

March 21, 1942
The first advance groups of Japanese American "volunteers" arriveat Manzanar, CA. The WRA would take over on June 1 and transformit into a "relocation center."

March 24, 1942
The first Civilian Exclusion Order issued by the Army is issuedfor the Bainbridge Island area near Seattle. The forty-five familiesthere are given one week to prepare. By the end of October, 108exclusion orders would be issued, and all Japanese Americans inMilitary Area No. 1 and the California portion of No. 2 wouldbe incarcerated.

March 28, 1942
Minoru Yasui walks into a Portland police station at 11:20 p.m.to present himself for arrest in order to test the curfew regulationsin court.

May 1, 1942
Having "voluntarily resettled" in Denver, Nisei journalist JamesOmura writes a letter to a Washington law firm inquiring aboutretaining their services to seek legal action against the governmentfor violations of civil and constitutional rights and seekingrestitution for economic losses. He was unable to afford the $3,500fee required to begin proceedings.

May 13, 1942
Forty-five-year-old Ichiro Shimoda, a Los Angeles gardener, isshot to death by guards while trying to escape from Fort Still(Oklahoma) internment camp. The victim was seriously mentallyill, having attempted suicide twice since being picked up on December7. He is shot despite the guards' knowledge of his mental state.

May 16, 1942
Hikoji Takeuchi, a Nisei, is shot by a guard at Manzanar. Theguard claims that he shouted at Takeuchi and that Takeuchi beganto run away from him. Takeuchi claims he was collecting scraplumber and didn't hear the guard shout. His wounds indicate thathe was shot in the front. Though seriously injured, he eventuallyrecovered.

May 29, 1942
Largely organized by Quaker leader Clarence E. Pickett, the NationalJapanese-American Student Relocation Council is formed in Philadelphiawith University of Washington Dean Robert W. O'Brien as director.By war's end, 4,300 Nisei would be in college.

June 1942
The movie "Little Tokyo, U.S.A." is released by Twentieth CenturyFox. In it, the Japanese American community is portrayed as a"vast army of volunteer spies" and "blind worshippers of theirEmperor, " as described in the film's voice-over prologue.

June 17, 1942
Milton Eisenhower resigns as WRA director. Dillon Myer is appointedto replace him.

July, 27 1942
Two Issei -- Brawley, CA farmer Toshiro Kobata and San Pedro fishermanHirota Isomura -- are shot to death by camp guards at Lourdsburg,New Mexico enemy alien internment camp. The men had allegedlybeen trying to escape. It would later be reported, however, thatupon their arrival to the camp, the men had been too ill to walkfrom the train station to the camp gate.

August 4, 1942
A routine search for contraband at the Santa Anita "Assembly Center"turns into a "riot." Eager military personnel had become overzealousand abusive which, along with the failure of several attemptsto reach the camp's internal security chief, triggers mass unrest,crowd formation, and the harassing of the searchers. Militarypolice with tanks and machine guns quickly end the incident. The"overzealous" military personnel are later replaced.

August 10, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Minidoka, Idaho.

August 12, 1942 The first 292 inmates arrive at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

August 27, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Granada, or Amache, Colorado.

September 11, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Central Utah, or Topaz.

September 18, 1942 The first inmates arrive at Rohwer, Arkansas.

October 20, 1942
President Roosevelt calls the "relocation centers" "concentrationcamps" at a press conference. The WRA had consistently deniedthat the term "concentration camps" accurately described the camps.

November 14, 1942
An attack on a man widely perceived as an informer results inthe arrest of two popular inmates at Poston. This incident soonmushrooms into a mass strike.

December 5, 1942
Fred Tayama is attacked and seriously injured by a group of inmatesat Manzanar. The arrest of the popular Harry Ueno for the crimetriggers a mass uprising.

December 10, 1942
The WRA establishes a prison at Moab, Utah for recalcitrant inmates.

February 1, 1943
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is activated, made up entirelyof Japanese Americans.

April 11, 1943
James Hatsuki Wakasa, a sixty-three-year-old chef, is shot todeath by a sentry at Heart Mountain camp while allegedly tryingto escape through a fence. It is later determined that Wakasahad been inside the fence and facing the sentry when shot. Thesentry would stand a general court-martial on April 28 at FortDouglas, Utah and be found "not guilty."

April 13, 1943
"A Jap's a Jap. There is no way to determine their loyalty...This coast is too vulnerable. No Jap should come back to thiscoast except on a permit from my office." Gereral John L. DeWitt,head, Western Defense Command; before the House Naval AffairsSubcommittee.

June 21, 1943
The United States Supreme Court rules on the Hirabayashi and Yasuicases, upholding the constitutionality of the curfew and exclusionorders.

September 13, 1943
The realignment of Tule Lake as a camp for "dissenters" begins.After the loyalty questionnaire episode, "loyal" internees beginto depart to other camps. Five days later, "disloyal" interneesfrom other camps begin to arrive at Tule Lake.

November 4, 1943
The Tule Lake uprising caps a month of strife. Tension had beenhigh since the administration had fired 43 coal workers involvedin a labor dispute on October 7.

January 14, 1944
Nisei eligibility for the draft is restored. The reaction to thisannouncement in the camps would be mixed.

January 26, 1944
Spurred by the announcement of the draft a few days before, 300people attend a public meeting at Heart Mountain camp. Here, theFair Play Committee is formally organized to support draft resistance.

March 20, 1944
Forty-three Japanese American soldiers are arrested for refusingto 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 andserve prison time before being paroled in 1946.

May 10, 1944
A Federal Grand Jury issues indictments abgainst 63 Heart Mountaindraft resistors. The 63 are found guilty and sentenced to jailterms on June 26. They would be granted a pardon on December 24,1947.

May 24, 1944
Shoichi James Okamoto is shot to death at Tule Lake by a guardafter stopping a construction truck at the main gate for permissionto pass. Private Bernard Goe, the guard, would be acquitted afterbeing fined a dollar for "unauthorized use of government property"--a bullet.

June 30, 1944
Jerome becomes the first camp to close when the last inmates aretransferred to Rohwer.

July 21, 1944
Seven members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee are arrested,along with journalist James Omura. Their trial for "unlawful conspiracyto counsel, aid and abet violators of the draft" begins on October23. All but Omura would eventually be found guilty.

October 27-30, 1944
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescues an American battalionwhich had been cut off and surrounded by the enemy. Eight hundredcasualties are suffered by the 442nd to rescue 211 men. Afterthis rescue, the 442nd is ordered to keep advancing in the forest;they would push ahead without relief or rest until November 9.

December 18, 1944
The Supreme Court decides that Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu was indeedguilty of remaining in a military area contrary to the exclusionorder. This case challenged the constitutionality of the entireexclusion process.

January 2, 1945
Restrictions preventing resettlement on the West Coast are removed,although many exceptions continue to exist. A few carefully screenedJapanese Americans had returned to the coast in late 1944.

January 8, 1945
The packing shed of the Doi family is burned and dynamited andshots are fired into their home. The family had been the firstto return to California from Amache and the first to return toPlacer County, having arrived three days earlier. Although severalmen are arrested and confess to the acts, all would be acquitted.Some 30 similar incidents would greet other Japanese Americansreturning to the West Coast between January and June.

May 7, 1945
The surrender of Germany ends the war in Europe.

August 6, 1945
The atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a secondbomb is dropped on Nagasaki. The war in the Pacific would endon August 14.

March 20, 1946
Tule Lake closes, culminating "an incrediblle mass evacuationin reverse." In the month prior to the closing, some 5,000 interneeshad to be moved, many of whom were elderly, impoverished, or mentallyill and with no place to go.

July 15, 1946
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is received on the White Houselawn by President Truman. "You fought not only the enemy but youfought prejudice -- and you have won," remarks the president.

June 30, 1947
U.S. District Judge Louis E. Goodman orders that the petitionersin Wayne Collins' suit of December 13, 1945 be released; native-bornAmerican citizens could not be converted to enemy aliens and couldnot be imprisoned or sent to Japan on the basis of renunciation.Three hundred and two persons are finally released from CrystalCity, Texas and Seabrook Farms, New Jersey on September 6, 1947.

July 2, 1948
President Truman signs the Japanese American Evacuation ClaimsAct, a measure to compensate Japanese Americans for certain economiclosses attributable to their forced evacuation. Although some$28 million was to be paid out through provision of the act, itwould be largely ineffective even on the limited scope in whichit operated.

July 10, 1970
A resolution is announced by the Japanese American Citizen League'sNorthern California-Western Nevada District Council calling forreparations for the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.This resolution would have the JACL seek a bill in Congress awardingindividual compensation on a per diem basis, tax-free.

November 28, 1979
Representative Mike Lowry (D-WA) introduces the World War II Japanese-AmericanHuman Rights Violations Act (H.R. 5977) into Congress. This NCJAR-sponsoredbill is largely based on research done by ex-members of the SeattleJACL chapter. It proposes direct payments of $15,000 per victimplus an addtional $15 per day interned. Given the choice betweenthis bill and the JACL-supported study commission bill introducedtwo months earlier, Congress opts for the latter.

July 14, 1981
The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians(CWRIC) holds a public hearing in Washington, D.C. as part ofits investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans duringWorkd War II. Similar hearings would be held in many other citiesthroughout the rest of 1981. The emotional testimony by more than750 Japanese American witnesses about their wartime experienceswould prove cathartic for the community and a turning point inthe redress movement.

June 16, 1983
The CWRIC issues its formal recommendations to Congress concerningredress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Theyinclude the call for individual payments of $20,000 to each of those who spent timein the concentration camps and are still alive.

August 10, 1988
H.R. 442 is signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It provides forindividual payments of $20,000 to each surviving internee anda $1.25 billion education fund among other provisions.

October 9, 1990
The first nine redress payments are made at a Washington, D.C.ceremony. One-hundred-seven-year-old Rev. Mamoru Eto of Los Angelesis the first to receive his check.

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