Pearl Harbor
Before the attack on Pearl Harbor the U.S. had maintained a policy of neutrality-that is they chose not to get directly involved in the war in Europe. However, on December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor, a U.S. naval base on the island of Oahu, was attacked by the Japanese. The U.S. had stopped trade with Japan because of their continued military expansion. The goal of the Japanese was to cripple the U.S. fleet so that they would be able to further expand into Asia. While U.S. and Japanese diplomats met in Washington, the Japanese were initiating their attack. At 7:55 AM 350 airplanes were launched from aircraft carriers off of the northern coast of Oahu. The attack killed 2,388 and wounded 2,000 along with 21 damaged or destroyed American ships and over 300 American planes. This map shows the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor.
This political cartoon by Dr. Seuss was published on May 22, 1941. It portrays how the U.S. policy of neutrality was seen as ignorance by those who thought the U.S. should become involved in the war. The U.S. was turning a blind eye to the destruction taking place in Europe unaware that the conflict would affect them as well.
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This political cartoon, also by Dr. Seuss, was published on December 9, 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a wake up call to the U.S. that they could not go through World War II unaffected. The attack essentially woke the U.S. up from a "nap" and ended the policy of neutrality. From the cartoon it is also evident the prejudice held against the Japanese. Dr. Seuss portrays them in an unflattering manner with glasses and buck teeth.
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Japanese Internment Camps
Through out World War II prejudice against Italian Americans and German Americans grew, but Japanese Americans experienced the worst persecution. After the attack on Pearl Harbor the Anti-Japanese paranoia spread throughout the US, especially on the west coast where there were large populations of Japanese Americans. In February of 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that would relocate Japanese Americans into internment camps. Forced to sell property and homes, the Japanese Americans rarely received fair payment (2). There were ten camps throughout the US and living conditions were terrible. They were put in barracks and shared common areas for washing and eating. The climate was harsh: very hot in the summer and very cold in the in winter. They were guarded by soldiers and forced to take a loyalty oath though most of them were Nisei, second generation Japanese Americans born in the US (1). Even once the interns were allowed to return home, hostility towards Japanese Americas remained. Few were able to return to their old homes and communities.
The Armed Services
Once America had officially joined the war 5 million men signed up to fight. Yet this was not enough to meet the demand for men. The Selective Services drafted 10 million more soldiers to fight. Though the need for men was great, minorities were discriminated against by not being allowed to serve in the army. Some were reluctant to serve at all considering the way the had been treated. In general, however, most felt that it would be more beneficial to support America, despite the discrimination, than to allow the Germans and Japanese to conquer. Several minorities joined including Mexican Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Native Americans. One the most famous minority groups to serve was the 100th Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd was made up of Japanese American which were U.S. born citizens. Many of them volunteered to avoid going to internment camps. The 442nd was the first activated U.S. army unit of Japanese Americans to fight during World War II. The five major campaigns that the 442nd were involved in were the Naples-Foggia Campaign, Rome-Arno Campaign, Rhineland Campaign-Vosges, Rhineland Campaign-Maritime Alps, and Po Valley Campaign. During the Rhineland Campaign-Voges the 442nd was sent to rescue the Lost Battalion (141st Battalion) that had become surrounded by German armies. It was a bloody rescue. Out of the approximately 3,000 soldiers sent 1,000 became casualties. They ended up losing more men than they saved but in the process of rescuing the 141st battalion they also liberated the towns of Bruyeres, Belmont, and Biffontaine. For their courage and bravery the 442nd received many honors. There were 21 individual medals of honor, over 4,000 Purple Hearts, 29 Distinguished Service Crosses, 588 Silver Stars, and more than 4,000 Bronze Stars awarded. They became nicknamed the Purple Heart Battalion.
Meet Nelson Akagi
Nelson Akagi was 18 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. His family was living in Lindsay, California at the time and he was away attending Cal Poly. The follow is a segment of an interview with Nelson and his sisters Betty, Marie, and May (only Nelson is quoted in this segment).
Nelson: After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all kinds of rumors started creeping up because the newspapers would print real bad stories about the Japanese American—that we were spies and that we were going to bomb California and all that kind of stuff so that created hardship on us in the way of discrimination, and so we were discriminated against so hard. The first thing they did after Dec. 7 was they picked up all the Isseis (Japanese immigrants) they thought were pro-Japan and that included Dad (Otoemon) too, so I guess I was away at college at that time—Dec. 7, but I guess my sisters can testify that Dad probably didn't go out of the house thinking that the FBI would pick him up because the other Isseis in Lindsay were being picked up. Because like Mr. Iwamoto he was probably just irrigating his strawberry field and the FBI just picked him up and took him away without even having him a chance to say goodbye to the family... Lindsay was 200 miles inland so we weren't afraid of being evacuated. So we just continued normally farming and while the coast people, Japanese-American were being evacuated out of the towns they lived in...And so here we were in Lindsay just farming like nothing had happened, except for travel restriction and curfew... some of the Japanese American families lived more than 2 miles from Lindsay so they had to get Caucasian friends to help them buy clothing and stuff like that.
Anyway, I was at Cal Poly on December 7. I was in the dormitory studying and one Caucasian fellow that was in my dormitory said, “Hey Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.” I didn’t believe him; I said, “Oh no, that’s just a false rumor.” Until I went to class Monday and the Physics professor said, “Now I want all you guys to leave Nelson alone because he’s one of us.” And that’s the way it was, you know. Just like before the war, nobody bothered me and we were all friends, but when April came...I was the only Japanese American left on the campus and I called home and Thomas answered the phone and he said, “Come home right away.” I didn’t know why, but anyway he gave me instructions so I went over to the police department, walked from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo to the police department to get a travel permit. They made me get a travel permit but instead they made me sign a convict’s paper stating that I would never return to San Luis Obispo. In other words, I was a convict and I was getting kicked out of San Luis Obispo. And then after that I walked to the bus depot and bought my own ticket and by that time I was broke... Another thing I found out after coming home in April, I guess by then, Lindsay being 200 miles inland, we always thought that we wouldn’t be evacuated out, but when I came back in April, they had found out that they had to evacuate..We started selling our property and we had a 40-acre farm on the hillside and then a 10-acre farm in the valley about a mile away and the home that we lived in was on that 10-acre piece. We had a pool hall. Dad had a pool hall and a combination pool hall and a beer parlor. Then we had a 3-acre piece south of Lindsay that we raised nursery trees on and that 3-acre piece we sold it to a Japanese American family that evacuated out of the coast and went to Lindsay to start a new life. So that’s how much we thought we weren’t going to be evacuated. The Japanese American from the coast came and bought our 3-acre piece. And it had a pretty nice home on it, but our cousin, we let them stay in it and they burned it down...
the 40-acre piece went for $2000. We panicked. We said once we evacuated out, amongst ourselves, we are never going to be able to come back. So we said, we’re not going to try renting it out or just let anybody take care of it. We said we’re going to just sell everything so that we don’t lose it. So the 40-acre piece went for $2000. In those days it was still in depression so nobody had money so we had to rely upon Dad’s nurseryman that was buying all the trees from Dad. So that went for $2000 and it had 15,000 nursery trees on that that were worth $1 a piece. That was $15,000 if we had been able to sell it. Then the farm, half of the farm, we already had 20 acres of orange trees planted and we lost all that and the only thing we had sold before evacuation was strawberry and that was in April and May. Let’s say it was in May and something that we just barely made money off of 5 acres of strawberries, we were able to make something like $4000. And then like I said we were getting prepared to evacuate so we had already sold the property and everything..., the morning of June 18, Harry and I went to the Japanese American Co-op where we had a big warehouse and brought all our produce there and shipped them. Put them on the freight box and shipped them back East or wherever the market was. Harry and I went to the Co-op to pick up the boxes because we were going to pick the tomatoes. Tomatoes were ready to harvest on the 19th, the day after we distributed the boxes. Harry and I distributed boxes and at 3:00 that same day in the afternoon, the WRA, War Relocation Authority, they had the authority, they had the job of evacuating all the Japanese American, so the war relocation authority man came out and said, “Tomorrow you are going to leave at 8:00 in the morning.” OK, so here we were ready to pick the tomatoes—another $4000—we lost it all because we had to leave the day that we were supposed to pick the tomatoes. Now, another thing, the Akagi family was the only one that took the privilege of leaving Lindsay before being evacuated out to go to camp and I’ve been trying to find out when the rest of the Lindsay people were evacuated out. Half of the Lindsay people went to Postum, Arizona and the other half went to Gerome, Arkansas. I still can’t understand to this day if we had stayed we would have had to go to Postum. Anyway, June 18, we were getting ready to harvest our tomatoes and that was the day we had to leave so at 3:00 in the afternoon and we had to leave the following morning at 8:00. I can’t even remember if we had breakfast that morning...We lost everything! All our belongings, cars, house, furniture, name it, tractors. And the tractor was just coming into replace the horse and the mules on the farm. And we lost all that. We knew we were going to Idaho because the U & I Sugar Company came over to Lindsay and said we want some of you Japanese American family to go to Idaho to work on the sugar beet farm. And there were 3. Dad (Otoemon) never wanted to go to camp so he said, “Now’s our chance to leave Lindsay without having to go to camp although we were destined to go to camp, so we more or less detoured camp. So we were the only family that said, OK, let’s go to Idaho. The other 3 reported back to the rest of the Japanese American families, but nobody wanted to go to Idaho.
In 1943 after we were evacuated, the Nisseis up till then were all classified 4C enemy alien. We could not get drafted. So in 1943, January, President Roosevelt says, “Oh, how about you Nissei volunteer for an army?” And so when he said that all the camp people and the people in Hawaii, the Nissei, were able to volunteer for the Army and I walked in the snow and I was the only one out of the family that was picked out by the draft board asking me to volunteer. So I went and walked through the snow in January or February of 1943 to volunteer for the service. I walked 7 miles to the draft board, which was in St. Anthony and walked back 7 miles. In those days the gasoline was rationed, so I didn’t see a single car pass by me except when I was going back. My neighbor, who I said was an alcoholic and hated the Japanese American, he went by and didn’t even pick me up. So that was my experience of volunteering for the service. I was sent from St. Anthony draft board directly to Salt Lake City for induction under what they called a Special.
That was a hidden blessing for not going to camp and the other hidden blessing was me volunteering for the 442nd. If it hadn’t been for the 442nd, we would not, the Japanese American wouldn’t be what they are today if we failed in all our assignments. But we were superior over Caucasian units in rescuing our own troops, etc. So we made a name for us which, after the war, was able just by our record of the 442nd, we were able topple all the discriminary laws against the Japanese American. There were thousands, if you want to call it, little bitty ___ like you cannot join the Boy Scouts or you cannot go swimming in the community pool. All those laws were toppled just because of our record & the 442nd. So any time you hear about the 442nd, you stick up for the 442nd. And you think, oh yeah, that’s the unit that received the most commendations for it’s size and length of time in the service. The 442nd only fought for one year; the 100th Battalion fought for 2 years, but it was a Japanese American unit too. So the 100th Battalion and the 442nd combined opened up all the opportunity that the Japanese American have today. Otherwise, you’d still be 2nd class citizens, & probably being called Japs today. Well, we are still be called Japs, but anyone calls us Japs will have to account for it and get reprimanded, so it was a hidden blessing, both ways.
Nelson: After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all kinds of rumors started creeping up because the newspapers would print real bad stories about the Japanese American—that we were spies and that we were going to bomb California and all that kind of stuff so that created hardship on us in the way of discrimination, and so we were discriminated against so hard. The first thing they did after Dec. 7 was they picked up all the Isseis (Japanese immigrants) they thought were pro-Japan and that included Dad (Otoemon) too, so I guess I was away at college at that time—Dec. 7, but I guess my sisters can testify that Dad probably didn't go out of the house thinking that the FBI would pick him up because the other Isseis in Lindsay were being picked up. Because like Mr. Iwamoto he was probably just irrigating his strawberry field and the FBI just picked him up and took him away without even having him a chance to say goodbye to the family... Lindsay was 200 miles inland so we weren't afraid of being evacuated. So we just continued normally farming and while the coast people, Japanese-American were being evacuated out of the towns they lived in...And so here we were in Lindsay just farming like nothing had happened, except for travel restriction and curfew... some of the Japanese American families lived more than 2 miles from Lindsay so they had to get Caucasian friends to help them buy clothing and stuff like that.
Anyway, I was at Cal Poly on December 7. I was in the dormitory studying and one Caucasian fellow that was in my dormitory said, “Hey Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.” I didn’t believe him; I said, “Oh no, that’s just a false rumor.” Until I went to class Monday and the Physics professor said, “Now I want all you guys to leave Nelson alone because he’s one of us.” And that’s the way it was, you know. Just like before the war, nobody bothered me and we were all friends, but when April came...I was the only Japanese American left on the campus and I called home and Thomas answered the phone and he said, “Come home right away.” I didn’t know why, but anyway he gave me instructions so I went over to the police department, walked from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo to the police department to get a travel permit. They made me get a travel permit but instead they made me sign a convict’s paper stating that I would never return to San Luis Obispo. In other words, I was a convict and I was getting kicked out of San Luis Obispo. And then after that I walked to the bus depot and bought my own ticket and by that time I was broke... Another thing I found out after coming home in April, I guess by then, Lindsay being 200 miles inland, we always thought that we wouldn’t be evacuated out, but when I came back in April, they had found out that they had to evacuate..We started selling our property and we had a 40-acre farm on the hillside and then a 10-acre farm in the valley about a mile away and the home that we lived in was on that 10-acre piece. We had a pool hall. Dad had a pool hall and a combination pool hall and a beer parlor. Then we had a 3-acre piece south of Lindsay that we raised nursery trees on and that 3-acre piece we sold it to a Japanese American family that evacuated out of the coast and went to Lindsay to start a new life. So that’s how much we thought we weren’t going to be evacuated. The Japanese American from the coast came and bought our 3-acre piece. And it had a pretty nice home on it, but our cousin, we let them stay in it and they burned it down...
the 40-acre piece went for $2000. We panicked. We said once we evacuated out, amongst ourselves, we are never going to be able to come back. So we said, we’re not going to try renting it out or just let anybody take care of it. We said we’re going to just sell everything so that we don’t lose it. So the 40-acre piece went for $2000. In those days it was still in depression so nobody had money so we had to rely upon Dad’s nurseryman that was buying all the trees from Dad. So that went for $2000 and it had 15,000 nursery trees on that that were worth $1 a piece. That was $15,000 if we had been able to sell it. Then the farm, half of the farm, we already had 20 acres of orange trees planted and we lost all that and the only thing we had sold before evacuation was strawberry and that was in April and May. Let’s say it was in May and something that we just barely made money off of 5 acres of strawberries, we were able to make something like $4000. And then like I said we were getting prepared to evacuate so we had already sold the property and everything..., the morning of June 18, Harry and I went to the Japanese American Co-op where we had a big warehouse and brought all our produce there and shipped them. Put them on the freight box and shipped them back East or wherever the market was. Harry and I went to the Co-op to pick up the boxes because we were going to pick the tomatoes. Tomatoes were ready to harvest on the 19th, the day after we distributed the boxes. Harry and I distributed boxes and at 3:00 that same day in the afternoon, the WRA, War Relocation Authority, they had the authority, they had the job of evacuating all the Japanese American, so the war relocation authority man came out and said, “Tomorrow you are going to leave at 8:00 in the morning.” OK, so here we were ready to pick the tomatoes—another $4000—we lost it all because we had to leave the day that we were supposed to pick the tomatoes. Now, another thing, the Akagi family was the only one that took the privilege of leaving Lindsay before being evacuated out to go to camp and I’ve been trying to find out when the rest of the Lindsay people were evacuated out. Half of the Lindsay people went to Postum, Arizona and the other half went to Gerome, Arkansas. I still can’t understand to this day if we had stayed we would have had to go to Postum. Anyway, June 18, we were getting ready to harvest our tomatoes and that was the day we had to leave so at 3:00 in the afternoon and we had to leave the following morning at 8:00. I can’t even remember if we had breakfast that morning...We lost everything! All our belongings, cars, house, furniture, name it, tractors. And the tractor was just coming into replace the horse and the mules on the farm. And we lost all that. We knew we were going to Idaho because the U & I Sugar Company came over to Lindsay and said we want some of you Japanese American family to go to Idaho to work on the sugar beet farm. And there were 3. Dad (Otoemon) never wanted to go to camp so he said, “Now’s our chance to leave Lindsay without having to go to camp although we were destined to go to camp, so we more or less detoured camp. So we were the only family that said, OK, let’s go to Idaho. The other 3 reported back to the rest of the Japanese American families, but nobody wanted to go to Idaho.
In 1943 after we were evacuated, the Nisseis up till then were all classified 4C enemy alien. We could not get drafted. So in 1943, January, President Roosevelt says, “Oh, how about you Nissei volunteer for an army?” And so when he said that all the camp people and the people in Hawaii, the Nissei, were able to volunteer for the Army and I walked in the snow and I was the only one out of the family that was picked out by the draft board asking me to volunteer. So I went and walked through the snow in January or February of 1943 to volunteer for the service. I walked 7 miles to the draft board, which was in St. Anthony and walked back 7 miles. In those days the gasoline was rationed, so I didn’t see a single car pass by me except when I was going back. My neighbor, who I said was an alcoholic and hated the Japanese American, he went by and didn’t even pick me up. So that was my experience of volunteering for the service. I was sent from St. Anthony draft board directly to Salt Lake City for induction under what they called a Special.
That was a hidden blessing for not going to camp and the other hidden blessing was me volunteering for the 442nd. If it hadn’t been for the 442nd, we would not, the Japanese American wouldn’t be what they are today if we failed in all our assignments. But we were superior over Caucasian units in rescuing our own troops, etc. So we made a name for us which, after the war, was able just by our record of the 442nd, we were able topple all the discriminary laws against the Japanese American. There were thousands, if you want to call it, little bitty ___ like you cannot join the Boy Scouts or you cannot go swimming in the community pool. All those laws were toppled just because of our record & the 442nd. So any time you hear about the 442nd, you stick up for the 442nd. And you think, oh yeah, that’s the unit that received the most commendations for it’s size and length of time in the service. The 442nd only fought for one year; the 100th Battalion fought for 2 years, but it was a Japanese American unit too. So the 100th Battalion and the 442nd combined opened up all the opportunity that the Japanese American have today. Otherwise, you’d still be 2nd class citizens, & probably being called Japs today. Well, we are still be called Japs, but anyone calls us Japs will have to account for it and get reprimanded, so it was a hidden blessing, both ways.
In 2011 Nelson Akagi along with other surviving members of the 442nd received the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award.
Current day pictures of Linsay, California. This is the farm that the Akagi family had to leave. At the time it was worth at least $15,000 but they sold it for $2,000
Betty Mori and Marie Miyagishima in 2010. Betty was 12 years old and Marie was 8 when the war broke out. Their sister May (not pictured) was 16 at the time.
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Left to Right: Betty, Marie (back), May (front), Nelson 2008
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Left to Right: Otoemon, Yasuye, Utaka, Shizuyo (Suzie), Masano, Tamotsu
Front: Mark, Pauline, Aki, Roy
This picture was taken in 1950 but all the adults pictured were relocated from California to Idaho during the war.
Front: Mark, Pauline, Aki, Roy
This picture was taken in 1950 but all the adults pictured were relocated from California to Idaho during the war.
The Akagi house in Draper, Utah. They moved here after the war and began rebuilding their lives.
Definitions
Kibeis Japanese born in US and educated in Japan and come back
Issei is first generation, born in Japan and migrated to America
Nissei is 2nd generation.
Kibeis Japanese born in US and educated in Japan and come back
Issei is first generation, born in Japan and migrated to America
Nissei is 2nd generation.
*Disclaimer Note*
There is an Akagi aircraft carrier that took part in the bombing of Pearl Harbor but that was not related to this family.
There is an Akagi aircraft carrier that took part in the bombing of Pearl Harbor but that was not related to this family.