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HOW JAPANESE-AMERICANS WERE SENT TO CAMPS ACROSS THE US IN WW2

Just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. 

The attack killed over 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors and wounded 1,000 others.  Nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes were destroyed. The next day President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan to which they agreed. 

Three days later, Japanese allies Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States, and again Congress reciprocated. More than two years into the conflict, America had finally joined World War II.

America's fight with Japan prompted what is considered one of the biggest ever civil rights violations in the country's history. 

Two months after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt as commander-in-chief, issued Executive Order 9066, which had the effect of relocating all persons of Japanese ancestry, both citizens and aliens, inland, outside of the Pacific military zone. 

The Executive order was designed to prevent espionage and to protect persons of Japanese descent from harm at the hands of Americans who had strong anti-Japanese attitudes, although the latter has been contested by prisoners. 

Roosevelt's order affected some 117,000 people of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were native-born citizens of the United States. The Colorado government claims that even those of 1/16 of Japanese origin were also forced in the camps.

Relocation centers were situated many miles inland, often in remote and desolate locales. Sites included Tule Lake, California; Minidoka, Idaho; Manzanar, California; Topaz, Utah; Jerome, Arkansas; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Poston, Arizona; Granada, Colorado; and Rohwer, Arkansas.

In 1943 and 1944 the government assembled a combat unit of Japanese Americans for the European theater. It became the 442d Regimental Combat Team who fought in Europe against Nazi Germany, become highly decorated, in World War II. 

The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the relocation order in Hirabayashi v. United States in 1943 and Korematsu v. United States in 1944.

Early in 1945, Japanese-American citizens of undisputed loyalty were allowed to return to the West Coast, but not until March 1946 was the last camp closed.

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