During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes on the West Coast because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage. As the war progressed, many of the young Nisei, Japanese immigrants' children who were born with American citizenship, volunteered or were drafted to serve in the United States military. Japanese Americans served in all the branches of the United States Armed Forces, including the United States Merchant Marine. An estimated 33,000 Japanese Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II, of which 20,000 joined the Army. Approximately 800 were killed in action.
During World War II, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated at least 125,284 people of Japanese descent in 75 identified incarceration sites. Most lived on the Pacific Coast, in concentration camps in the western interior of the country. Approximately two-thirds of the inmates were United States citizens. These actions were initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt via Executive Order 9066 following Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
Savage is a suburban city 15 miles (24 km) south-southwest of downtown Minneapolis in Scott County in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city is on the south bank of the Minnesota River in a region commonly called South of the River, comprising the southern portion of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. The population of Savage was 32,465 at the 2020 census.
Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The military site was initially named Fort Saint Anthony, but it was renamed Fort Snelling once its construction was completed in 1825.
The Defense Language Institute (DLI) is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) educational and research institution consisting of two separate entities which provide linguistic and cultural instruction to the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and numerous customers around the world. The Defense Language Institute is responsible for the Defense Language Program, and the bulk of the Defense Language Institute's activities involve educating DoD members in assigned languages, and international personnel in English. Other functions include planning, curriculum development, and research in second-language acquisition.
John Fujio Aiso was an American nisei military leader, lawyer and judge. Aiso was the Director and head instructor of the Military Intelligence Service Language School, and the highest-ranking Japanese American in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was also the first Japanese American appointed as a judge in the contiguous United States.
The Military Intelligence Corps is the intelligence branch of the United States Army. The primary mission of military intelligence in the United States Army is to provide timely, relevant, accurate, and synchronized intelligence and electronic warfare support to tactical, operational and strategic-level commanders. The Army's intelligence components produce intelligence both for Army use and for sharing across the national intelligence community.
Japanese language education in the United States began in the late 19th century, aimed mainly at Japanese American children and conducted by parents and community institutions. Over the course of the next century, it would slowly expand to include non-Japanese as well as native speakers. A 2012 survey of foreign-language learners by the Japan Foundation found 4,270 teachers teaching the Japanese language to 155,939 students at 1,449 different institutions, an increase of 10.4% in the number of students since the 2009 survey. The quality and focus of dialogues in Japanese textbooks meant for English-speakers has changed since the 1970s. As of 2021, according to the Japan Foundation, 161,402 people were learning Japanese in United States.
The Military Intelligence Service was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit and the German-Austrian unit based at Camp Ritchie, best known as the "Ritchie Boys". The unit described here was primarily composed of Nisei who were trained as linguists. Graduates of the MIS language school (MISLS) were attached to other military units to provide translation, interpretation, and interrogation services.
Roy Hiroshi Matsumoto was a Japanese-American soldier who fought with the Merrill's Marauders during World War II. He received several awards for his contribution including the Bronze Star Medal and the Legion of Merit.
Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants. The Nisei are considered the second generation, and the grandchildren of the Japanese-born immigrants are called Sansei, or third generation.
The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), also known as the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service or Allied Translator and Intelligence Service, was a joint Australian/American World War II intelligence agency which served as a centralized allied intelligence unit for the translation of intercepted Japanese communications, interrogations and negotiations in the Pacific Theater of Operations between September 1942 and December 1945. During the last few months of operation ATIS primarily focused on investigation of Japanese war crimes. The section was officially disbanded on April 30, 1946.
Richard Motoso Sakakida was a United States Army intelligence agent stationed in the Philippines at the outbreak of World War II. He was captured and tortured for months after the fall of the country to Imperial Japan, but managed to convince the Japanese that he was a civilian and was released. Employed by the Japanese Fourteenth Army, he gathered and passed along valuable information to the Philippine resistance. He also planned and participated in the mass escape of about 500 Filipino prisoners.
Buddhists make up a small percentage of the United States military, with a 2009 article stating that only 5,287 of 1.4 million military personnel identified themselves as Buddhists.
Masaji Marumoto was the first Japanese American Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. He served from 1956 to 1973. He was the first Japanese American to graduate from Harvard Law School, and the first Japanese American to serve as president of the Hawaii Bar Association.
Bell M. Shimada was an American fisheries scientist. He is noted for his study during the 1950s of tuna stocks in the tropical Pacific Ocean and its important effect on the development of the post-World War II tuna fishery on the United States West Coast.
Asian American women during World War II served many crucial functions that tend to be overlooked, or erased entirely, from modern history books. Women’s roles are under-appreciated or unmentioned in the context of war; these women, however, were tasked with various duties that greatly aided American forces going into combat. Japanese American women, known as “Nisei”, contributed to war efforts by providing medical care as nurses and doctors, as well as serving as military intelligence officials and linguists. These women were also on the front lines of combat in many instances, with Filipino American women fighting as an underground coalition resistance in the Philippines. Asian American women initially began their involvement with the formation of the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) and Women's Army Corps (WAC), serving as linguists and translators at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Their roles became increasingly more prominent and involved, however, with the bombing at Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war against Japan.
Virginia Dare Aderholdt was an Arlington Hall cryptanalyst and Japanese translator. She decrypted the intercepted Japanese surrender message at the close of World War II on August 14, 1945.
Alva Bryan "Red" Lasswell was a United States Marine Corps linguist and cryptanalyst during World War II. In 1942, he contributed to the identification of Midway Atoll as the Japanese military target codenamed AF. In April 1943, Lasswell helped decrypt the coded itinerary of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, leading to his interception by Army Air Forces fighter planes near Rabaul.
The 314th Military Intelligence Battalion is a Military Intelligence Battalion of the United States Army Reserve located in San Diego County and Los Angeles County, California. The organization trains to conduct theater-level interrogation operations, detainee screening, document and media exploitation (DOMEX), target exploitation (TAREX), strategic debriefing, counterintelligence, and analysis in support of the deployed Commander's Theater Interrogation Facility (TIF) or as the Army component of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC).
