Chapter One: Day of Infamy CHAPTER ONE Day of Infamy All of a sudden, three aircraft flew right overhead. They were pearl grey with red dots on the wing--Japanese. I knew what was happening. And I thought my world had just come to an end. --The Honorable Daniel "Dan" Ken Inouye , male, Nisei, Honolulu, Hawaii, age 17 when Pearl Harbor was attacked2 Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, just before 8:00 a.m. Hawaii time. A pearl-gray Mitsubishi A6M Zero "Reisen" carrier-borne naval fighter and a Nakajima B5N "Kate" carrier-borne torpedo bomber with red dots on the wings launched from one of six Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carriers.
As soon as they reached the US Navy''s Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor--a natural lagoon on the island of Oahu--they began dropping bombs and torpedoes. Minutes later Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, sent out a radiogram to all navy ships in Hawaii: "AIRRAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NO DRILL." But Kimmel''s urgent alert could not stop the onslaught of approximately 360 Imperial Japanese bombers from raining down on Pearl Harbor and nearby army bases and airfields for almost two hours. Kimmell and the other commanders watched helplessly as the daring Japanese raid devastated the Pacific Fleet and crippled the defense of the naval base in a single attack. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers had been anticipating imminent war because diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States had completely deteriorated. But no one had imagined Pearl Harbor to be Japan''s likely first strike.
Everyone had assumed that Japan would hit closer targets first, like the Philippines or the Malay Peninsula; they''d discounted Japan''s capacity to carry out a long-range assault on Hawaii''s fortified naval base. Believing that the US Navy''s Pacific Fleet would be needed at full strength against the Japanese in the Pacific, the US military had amassed eight of the nation''s battleships and other support ships together at Pearl Harbor. Likewise, Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, the local army commander, had ordered the planes at nearby Hickam and Wheeler airfields to be clustered together on the ground. He figured the planes could be more easily guarded against sabotage by local Japanese residents this way. But those fears were unfounded, and the battleships and aircraft in Hawaii were sitting ducks. As a consequence, the Japanese forces were able to hit all eight battleships at once, destroying the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma , along with 149 American airplanes. And the human toll was gruesome: 2,340 Americans killed and 1,178 others wounded.
Among the American servicemen who gave their lives that day was Japanese American Private Torao Migita of Company D, 298th Infantry Battalion, killed tragically not by Japanese bombs, but by friendly fire as he was reporting for duty. Japanese American civilians were also among those killed in the attack, most by friendly fire. In contrast, Japan lost only 29 planes and 64 servicemen. Around the same time on the mainland, ten-year-old Sam Yoshimura was riding his bicycle in his small hometown of Florin, California. Twenty-one-year-old Miyo Senzaki was working at her family''s produce stand in Los Angeles. Twenty-two-year-old Fred Korematsu was relaxing in the Oakland hills with his girlfriend. And ten-year-old Norman Mineta had just come home with his family from services at their Methodist church in San Jose when they heard the radio blasting news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was the first time Norm had ever seen his father cry.
"I can''t understand why the land of my birth attacked the land of my heart," his father said. Then Joyce Hirano, his neighbor and close friend, came running over, "yelling, screaming and crying that the FBI was there to take her father away." Norm''s father rushed over to the Hirano home next door, but by the time he got there, Joyce''s father was gone. I was attending St. Mary''s Episcopal church on the Sunday morning that the war broke out. When I reached home later that day, I found my mother in hysterics, crying and trying to pick up after the FBI had searched the house. "They took Papa!" Mama shouted. "They chained him and numbered him like an animal!" --Mitsuo "Mits" Usui , male, Nisei, Los Angeles, California, incarcerated age 25, Santa Anita Assembly Center, Granada (Amache) Relocation Center3 On a peaceful Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Henry, Sumi and I were at choir rehearsal singing ourselves hoarse in preparation for the annual Christmas recital of Handel''s "Messiah.
" Suddenly Chuck Mizuno, a young University of Washington student, burst into the chapel, gasping as if he had sprinted all the way up the stairs. "Listen, everybody!" he shouted. "Japan just bombed Pearl Harbor. in Hawaii! It''s war!" The terrible words hit like a blockbuster, paralyzing us. Then we smiled feebly at each other, hoping this was one of Chuck''s practical jokes. Miss Hara, our music director, rapped her baton impatiently on the music stand and chided him, "Now Chuck, fun''s fun, but we have work to do. Please take your place. You''re already half an hour late.
" But Chuck strode vehemently back to the door. "I mean it, folks, honest! I just heard the news over my car radio. Reporters are talking a blue streak. Come on down and hear it for yourselves." With that, Chuck swept out of the room, a swirl of young men following in his wake. Henry was one of them. The rest of us stayed, rooted to our places like a row of marionettes. I felt as if a fist had smashed my pleasant little existence, breaking it into jigsaw puzzle pieces.
An old wound opened up again, and I found myself shrinking inwardly from my Japanese blood, the blood of an enemy. I knew instinctively that the fact that I was an American by birthright was not going to help me escape the consequences of this unhappy war. One girl mumbled over and over again, "It can''t be, God, it can''t be!" Someone else was saying, ". Do you think we''ll be considered Japanese or Americans?" A boy replied quietly, "We''ll be Japs, same as always. But our parents are enemy aliens now, you know." A shocked silence followed. --Monica Kazuko Itoi (Sone), female, Nisei, Seattle, Washington, incarcerated age 23, Puyallup Assembly Center, Minidoka Relocation Center4 I still remember turning on the radio Sunday morning [and] heard the announcer say, "We have been attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, we are at war." I thought, hold on, this must be another radio play.
Have you ever heard of that Orson Welles "The War of the Worlds"? It was so realistic, people running all over, getting their guns ready to fight the Martians. Well, I thought it was one of those radio plays, so I didn''t pay much attention to it. --Frank Seishi Emi , male, Nisei, Los Angeles, California, incarcerated age 26, Pomona Assembly Center, Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Leavenworth Penitentiary5 The news hit us like a bomb. --David Masao Sakai , male, Nisei, San Jose, California, incarcerated age 25, Santa Anita Assembly Center, Heart Mountain Relocation Center6 The wreckage in Pearl Harbor was still smoldering a few hours later when FBI agents fanned out all along the West Coast. The FBI had already targeted thousands of Japanese Issei men for arrest: prominent community and business leaders, members of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Buddhist and Shinto priests, newspaper editors and reporters, leaders of flower-arranging and bonsai societies, principals and teachers of Japanese-language schools, martial arts instructors, farmers, business executives, travel agents, donors to Japanese charities, those who had recently visited Japan, and those who''d been denounced as potential traitors by neighbors they might never have met. The agents knew exactly where these Issei men lived. The full impact of this day was realized that night when my grandfather was taken away by the FBI without reason or cause. This gentle man was a scholar, poet, and educated as a librarian.
He had bookcases full of books. He was a master calligrapher, and I used to sit by his side and watch him paint with a [Japanese] paintbrush. He won the Emperor''s poetry contest. He could write beautiful poetry. --Aiko Grace Shinoda (Nakamura), female, Nisei, Los Angeles, California, incarcerated age 15, Manzanar Reception Center, Manzanar Relocation Center7 They got [Papa]. FBI deputies had been questioning everyone, ransacking houses for anything that could conceivably be used for signaling planes or ships or that indicated loyalty to the Emperor [of Japan]. Most of the houses had radios with a short-wave band and a high aerial on the roof so that wives could make contact with the fishing boats during those long cruises. To the FBI, every radio owner was a potential saboteur.
The confiscators were often deputies sworn in hastily during the turbulent days right after Pearl Harbor, and these men seemed to be acting out the general panic, seeing sinister possibilities in the most ordinary household items: flashlights, kitchen knives, cameras, lanterns, toy swords.