Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 118

Fear of West Coast Invasion – 1942

Shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese submarines began attacks on merchant ships off the U.S. West Coast. The American public’s fear of an imminent Japanese invasion was palpable. Rumors of Japanese invasion fleets, troop landings, air attacks and secret Japanese air bases in California and Mexico were rampant.

Although the logistical feasibility of an attack on the coast was negligible, Japan did subsequently invade the Aleutians, and the threat of a naval defeat was a distinct possibility.

 

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Italian-American Internment WWII

Here are the liberators – WWII Italian poster; Wikimedia Commons

 

Over 1500 Italian Americans designated “enemy aliens” by the FBI were arrested in WWII.  About 250 of these were interned for up to two years in military camps in Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. In October 1942, after strong protests by Italian-American trade unions, labor councils and a sympathetic press,  600,000 unnaturalized Italians living in the United States were freed from the stigma of being alien enemies. They were now allowed to travel freely, own cameras and firearms, and were not required to carry ID cards. After Italy’s surrender in September 1943, most of the remaining Italian American internees were released.

The Italian Historical Society of America website describes the internment of Italian Americans in WWII.

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German-American Internment in WWII

German-American internmen sitesWWII; Wikimedia commons

At the outbreak of WWII, unlike the smaller population of Japanese Americans, the very large German American population made mass detention unfeasible. However, under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, German enemy aliens, immigrants, visitors and a small number of naturalized or native-born German-American citizens were interned. German citizens in coastal areas were evicted on an individual basis. A total of 11,507 Germans and German-Americans were interned during the war,  far less than the 110,000 Japanese-Americans interned.

Also, over 4,500 ethnic Germans in fifteen Latin American countries suspected of subversive activities by the FBI were extradited and detained in the U.S. The German American Internee Coalition website describes U.S. government WWII policies that led to internment, repatriation and exchange of civilians of German ethnicity.

 

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Will Japan Abandon Pacifism?

Shinzo Abe; Wikimedia Commons

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week,  Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe compared recent tensions between China and Japan to the rivalry between the British and German empires at the start of the 20th century.

A conservative nationalist, Abe has denied that Imperial Japan forced 250,000 foreign “comfort women” into sexual slavery, urged changes in school curricula to downplay Japanese wartime atrocities and recently visited the controversial war memorial Yasukuni shrine. Tension between China and Japan has escalated since November, when China unilaterally extended its air-defense zone over the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea .

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Japanese American Relocation – February 1942

On the way to the Manzanar War Relocation Center 1942; Wikimedia Commons

In February 1942 FDR signed Executive Order 9066  authorizing the military to “prescribe military areas . . . from which any or all persons may be excluded…  for protection against espionage and against sabotage to national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities.”

As a result of this order ~110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them born in the USA, were sent to camps in desolate Western locations.

Although described as a precaution against espionage and sabotage, the implementation of this executive reflected strong anti-Japanese sentiments. In a 1943 report,  Gen. John DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, stated that “racial characteristics” of Japanese Americans predisposed them to assist the invasion, and that it was “impossible” to distinguish loyal from disloyal Japanese American citizens, if there were any.

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Entartete Kunst – “Degenerate Art” in Nazi Germany

 

Dr. Goebbels visits the Munich exhibit 1937; Wikimedia Commons

 Entartete Kunst was the term used by the Nazis to describe art that was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish/Bolshevist in nature. “Degenerate” artists were subjected to sanctions, dismissed from teaching positions, forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and sometimes forbidden to produce art at all.

In 1937, an Entarte Kunst exhibition was staged in Munich by the Nazi regime. In an attempt to turn public opinion against modernism, modernist art was chaotically displayed and mocked.

While deriding modernist art, the Nazis promoted traditional painting and sculpture that exalted “Aryan” racial purity, militarism, and obedience to authority.

Modern artworks pillaged from museums and private galleries included works by Paul Klee, Marc Chagall and Ernst Kirchner.

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Japanese Soldier Who Hid in Jungle for Decades After WWII

Hiroo Onoda; NY Times

Hiroo Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army officer who didn’t believe WWII was over, stayed in the Philippine jungle for 29 years. He returned to Japan in 1974 and received a hero’s welcome. He died this month in Tokyo at age 91.

 

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Operation Tigerstar

This very interesting animated map site shows changing front lines of World War II in both the European and Pacific Theaters.

 

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Singapore Falls – February 1942

On February 15, 1942, after only a week of fighting, Singapore, the British “Gibraltar of the East,” fell to the Japanese.

The capitulation of ~ 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops was the largest surrender in British military history.

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▶Carole Lombard – 1942

Carole Lombard was a popular American actor, known for her screwball comedy roles. In January 1942, returning from a war bond rally, she was killed in an airplane crash.

This vulgar, but interesting clip of out-takes from the 1936 film My Man Godfrey shows the swearing and common vernacular of the time.

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