At about the same hour that day—as the boys hoisted their overstuffed barrack bags, climbed into the backs of trucks, and headed out to Camp Shelby, just south of town—Lieutenant General John DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, was testifying before members of the House Committee on Naval Affairs’ subcommittee in San Francisco. Arguing against allowing the return of any Japanese Americans to the West Coast, DeWitt declared, “A Jap’s a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. . . . I don’t want any of them.”
