First, they didn’t have the troops, which were still required for the invasion of SE Asia.
Second, they were already at the end of what was possible for their logistic support to send a carrier task force to Hawaii. They could not have delivered troops, which they didn’t have, across the Pacific.
Third, they could not have supported the troops, which they didn’t have, after landing them, which they could not have done anyway.
The general’s comments were a reflection of how he saw the state of the lack of preparation on the part of the US and had nothing to do about the ability of the Japanese to deliver. Which they simply could not do.
Right. The issue is not pointing out that, on the scale of war atrocities, internment was fairly mild. The issue is focusing on Japanese atrocities as the relevant course of action–it’s saying “Never mind what we did to THEM, look what THEY did to us”, and assumes that the two “theys” are the same–that the American citizens in the internment camps would have been raping and pillaging and war crime-ing all over the place, if given a chance, because look, that’s what Japanese do. And that’s appalling.
THANK YOU,Manda JO, Frank,silenus, Monty, Tokyo Player and everyone else who acted as the voice of reason in this thread. There is NO question that people have done horrific things to other people throughout history, but the narrow scope of this thread is what was done to our fellow Americans out of fear. I hope that we all can learn to refrain from repeating our past mistakes.
My surname is a very German name, although we’re Swiss-German. And my father grew up in Hollywood, California during the war. I asked him once if his family ever caught any flack due to our surname, and he said none at all. Everyone was paranoid about the Japanese. No one gave a thought to Germanic descendants, at least not on the West Coast.
Not in answer to the OP but 1,200 German Jews were admitted in the Philippines from 1938 to 1941. When the Japanese overran the Philippines, they interned Americans and British, but not the Jews --because they had German passports. LOL! I have to check that passport thing for complete accuracy but the German Jews definitely fared better under the Japanese than with the Nazis.
Yes, but most people are not naval experts who have access to information on how far a warship or a troop transport could travel without refueling. All people knew is everyday ships came in from all over the Pacific and they reasoned a few of them could be carrying Japanese troops.
People know can look back with our great hindsight and know these things but none of us know what we would have felt back in 1941.
Well I can tell you from my parents experience in the midwest, while German people didnt get much trouble, they were also very careful to tone down their “German-ness”. For example, you know how some ethnic groups will make a point about being loud and speaking their native languages in public? Many Germans were also like that but they immediately stopped when war broke out. In fact many people of European descent stopped because its often hard to tell say Danish or Swedish from German.
Well, here we are in the middle of an anti-Islam hysteria, and seven years after 9/11 they elected a president whose middle name is “Hussein”. Whodathunk that?
One paranoia (probably building on the Aleutian thing) was that the Japanese would invade Alaska for the foothold, and then use submarines to harass any ships attempting to supply or relieve the Allied defense forces. hence the Alaska Highway was built, up the interior of BC and Yukon to Alaska, immune from naval attack.
I seem to recall that a significant number of Jews escaped Europe to the western enclaves in Shanghai, where they were fairly safe through the war too. Of course, the European 'problems" with Jews were of no concern to the Japanese… I assume it was looked on by the Japanese the way Westerners think of, say, the sectarian problems between Sunnis and Shiites - “not sure why they’re all upset, and I totally don’t understand their level of hatred”.
As recent hysteria about Muslims, or the whole “Black Lives Matter” demonstrate - this basic racism and xenophobia is never too far below the surface, no matter how enlightened we may think we are. For example, it had nothing to do with how the war was going. I recall reading that some Japanese (and Japanese Canadians) were still forbidden from returning to BC from Canadian internment camps for several years after the war, no matter that there was no sabotage or espionage risk left to be paranoid about.
Which is changing the subject from your post, which was “IF the war with Japan had not gone in Americas (sic) favor and there were indeed a real Japanese invasion it would have been worse.”(cap in originals)
That is looking back in history from our perspective and we know that this is uninformed nonsense.
As to the public reaction at the time, that is what we have the military for, to provide good advice to the president. By the time they started the internment, it was clear to the military that an invasion was not possible.