Texas in World War II | Texas Historical Commission

Texas in World War II | Texas Historical Commission
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The Empire of Japan's attack on U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941, motivated the United States to join the Allies' struggle against Japan, Germany and Italy during World War II. Texans responded to the call for troops in great numbers. After four long years of war, Texas had supplied a greater percentage of men and women to the armed forces than any other state with more than 750,000 in uniform.
While thousands fought on foreign battlefields, others played vital roles within Texas' borders. Fair climate, frequent clear skies, bountiful resources and a central location made Texas an ideal setting for wartime facilities. Military posts sprang up statewide to accommodate the constant stream of new recruits, and industrial plants developed rapidly in support of the war effort. As a result, Texas beef, petroleum products, medical supplies, weapons and equipment were used by troops overseas.
A Portrait of Texas in 1940
Before the war, Texas was sparsely populated; there were more people living in New York City at the time than in the entire state of Texas. Most Texans lived on farms or ranches or in small towns, and only about 40 percent had a high school education.  Only one in five owned an automobile, one in ten had access to a telephone and one in six owned a radio. Most women worked at home or on farms. The Great Depression affected the entire population, but particularly the agricultural and petroleum industries that dominated the state’s economy. In short, Texas on the brink of war was mainly agrarian in both employment and attitude, largely insulated from world events and still languishing in 19th-century traditions in such important matters as gender and ethnicity. All that began to change on December 7, 1941.
Impacts of the Military Presence in Texas
During the war, more than 1,500,000 military personnel came to Texas for training. War-related industry lured farmers, small-town residents and others into developing urban centers. Many workers were women, and many were other than Caucasian. Texas quickly became more urban than rural, with a net population growth of 33 percent, and the Great Depression faded into memory.
The military’s presence in Texas grew exponentially during World War II. There were 142 major military installations across the state, and more than 750,000 Texans served in uniform during the war. Some rose to the highest levels of command, including Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Col. Oveta Culp Hobby. Thirty-three Texans earned the Medal of Honor, including Audie Murphy, the army’s most decorated soldier, and Cmdr. Samuel Dealey, the war’s most highly decorated naval officer. Among the Medal of Honor holders were five of Latino descent. Tragically, more than 22,000 Texans gave their lives while in service during the war.
Changes after the War
Despite the horrific human toll, the war brought lasting progress to the Lone Star state. Civilians on the home front played a huge part in attaining victory; scrap metal drives, war bond campaigns and rationing all contributed to the war effort. Manufacturing increased fourfold, the permanent population increased, and the urbanization and modernization of Texas were well underway. Many military installations closed at the end of the war, and some wartime boomtowns were all but abandoned. Because of World War II, the face of Texas changed forever.
The Texas in World War II Initiative
The Texas Historical Commission’s (THC) Texas in World War II initiative was a multi-year statewide effort to honor the role of Texas during the Second World War. The THC launched the initiative on September 2, 2005, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin. The grant-funded initiative was composed of various components that include:
Vignettes of Wartime Texas
(a special series of 21 historical markers); a heritage tourism travel brochure; a comprehensive statewide survey of more than 1,700 World War II military and home front sites; a series of 55 regional oral history training workshops entitled,
Here and There
: Recollections of Texas in World War II; and enhancement and expansion of the THC’s Texas in World War II webpages. While the Initiative in some cases covered topics such as overseas service, the focus of the project was on sites and stories in Texas.
Texas in World War II Brochure
Commemorative edition of
The Medallion
Texas in World War II: Fundamentals of Military Oral History Guidelines
Researching Military History
Crystal City Family Internment Camp Brochure
Fort Bliss, Fort Sam Houston, Kenedy, Seagoville, and Crystal City: Enemy Alien Internment during World War II Brochure
Texas in World War II Bibliography
(doc)
Materials for Educators
The
Texas Prisoner of War Camps Lesson Plan
for middle school students incorporates World War II into 7th grade Texas History. Extra resources are provided to give background information and enrichment for students.
The
Prisoners of War in Texas Lesson Plan
for high school students discusses the prisoner of war camps in Texas during World War II, as well as the lesser-known story of internment camps, and their economic impact on the state.
On May 30, 1942, just five months after America's entry into World War II, over 150,000 Houstonians gathered in the heart of the city to witness the induction of a thousand men into the U.S. Navy. Dubbed the "Houston Volunteers," these were no ordinary wartime recruits. They had all volunteered to replace the crew of USS
Houston
, a heavy cruiser which had disappeared in the Pacific months before after one last, ominous message: “Enemy forces engaged.” Presumed lost, the ship's fate would not be known until the end of the war.
The disappearance of
Houston
unleashed a patriotic fervor that was palpable in its namesake city that spring. Houstonians immediately undertook a bond drive to pay for a new warship. On the day of the induction three marching bands entertained the crowds, and planes flew in formation overhead from nearby Ellington Field. In honor of the occasion Mayor Neal Pickett read a special message from the nation's leader, which was broadcast around the world. President Franklin Roosevelt's words captured the defiant mood of a city and nation: “Our enemies have given us the chance to prove that there will be another USS
Houston
, and yet another
USS Houston
if that becomes necessary, and still another USS
Houston
as long as American ideals are in jeopardy.”
In time, USS
Houston CA-30
would become known by another name: the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast.
Battle of Sunda Strait
America's entry into the war in December 1941 brought badly needed ships to the beleaguered Allied fleets. Through losses in the British Royal Navy, USS
Houston
had become the most powerful ship of the Australian, British, Dutch, and American (ABDA) Alliance fleet in the Southwest Pacific. Shortly before midnight on February 27, 1942, the fleet encountered the Imperial Japanese Navy off the northwest coast of Java in the Dutch East Indies and endured heavy casualties. Before being taken out of action the ABDA flagship, Dutch light cruiser HNLMS
De Ruyter
, ordered the two remaining ships to retire from the action: USS
Houston
, and the Australian light cruiser HMAS
Perth.
Both went down fighting - first
Perth
, and then
Houston
half an hour later—with a staggering loss of life:
Perth
lost half her crew, while only a third of
Houston
's 1,068 sailors and Marines survived. In the hours and days that followed, survivors from both ships were picked up by the Japanese and brought to prisoner of war camps on the Malay Peninsula, Japanese islands, and in Burma and Thailand. Those held in the jungles of the latter labored (and in many cases died) on the Thai-Burma Railway.
Enduring Legacies
For the handful of
Houston
and
Perth
survivors and their families, a strong connection remains to this day. The hardships they endured, during the battle and afterwards in captivity, created a shared experience that has crossed national boundaries. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, David Manning, then an 18-year-old Australian cadet midshipman aboard
HMAS Perth
, describes the harrowing foundation of this shared bond:
"The Battle of Java Sea...in seven hours it became - from a fleet of 14 ships - it became a fleet of two ships. And
Perth
and
Houston
, they were the only two left as fighting ships...I'd climbed over the guard rails and I have no recollection of an explosion or anything like that, it was just - suddenly I was corkscrewing in the water. I was a non-swimmer, but I found myself in very close proximity to a floating net which was a life-saving device from the ship and it was pretty well full of people. But I found a spot to hang on to...We stayed in this boat collecting more and more both
Perth
and
Houston
survivors and we finished up with a very loaded boat and attempted to get ashore. [
Houston
survivor Bill Stewart] was very badly burned in the sinking of [his] ship. There was nothing we could do other than to talk to him. Many years later when I went over to [the city of] Houston, I walked into the
Houston
memorial room at the University of Houston and a voice said "Manning!" and it was Bill Stewart. And I got a kick out of that. Forty-odd years later, he remembered the moments we spent together..."
This close connection has been recognized by both nations. In 2013 the
USS Houston Survivors Association
and members of the U.S. military were invited to walk in Australia's Anzac Day Parade, an unprecedented honor. At a national level, both Arlington National Cemetery and Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance have trees planted in memory of the lost ships and the men who served on them. And the cities of Perth and Houston have both recognized their dead with memorials. In Houston, a memorial can be viewed in Sam Houston Park.
Japanese, German, and Italian American Enemy Alien Internment
Efforts to research and share the stories of those confined at Enemy Alien Internment camps in Texas continued beyond the larger World War II Initiative. Shocked by the December 7, 1941, Empire of Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that propelled the United States into World War II, one U.S. government response to the war (1941-1945) began in early 1942 with the incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans on the West Coast and the territory of Hawaii. Approximately 120,000 Issei (first generation, Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation, U.S. citizens) from the U.S. West Coast were incarcerated in War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps across the country--based on Executive Order 9066 (Feb. 19, 1942). Through separate confinement programs to the WRA, thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian citizens in the U.S. (and in many cases, their U.S. citizen relatives), classified as Enemy Aliens, were detained by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through its Alien Enemy Control Unit and, in Latin America, by the Department of State’s Special War Problems Division. Additionally, the U.S. Army held enemy aliens across the U.S. wherever the number of apprehensions was too few for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to operate a detention facility.
These “West Coast” internees shared a common loss of freedom with the thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Aliens and their U.S. relatives detained in DOJ camps through the Alien Enemy Control Unit Program. The DOJ, through the Federal Bureau of Investigations, began to target suspect Enemy Aliens in the U.S. as early as the night of December 7, 1941. Both legal resident aliens and naturalized citizens who were suspect were targeted [
alongside enemy aliens
], as were their families.
Within days of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the DOJ took into custody several thousand Axis nationals (during World War II, the Axis Nations consisted chiefly of Germany, Japan, and Italy). Although not legally administered in each case, and often spurred by prejudices, the action was intended to assure the American public that its government was taking firm steps to look after the internal safety of the nation.
Early in 1942, the DOJ established a bi-level organization, which handled the individual cases of aliens enemies: The Alien Enemy Control Unit in Washington, D.C. and through Alien Enemy Hearing Boards with branches located in each of the federal judicial districts of the United States (in Texas boards were held in Houston, Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio). Each Alien Enemy Hearing Board consisted of three civilian members from the local community, one of whom was an attorney. Representatives of the U.S. Attorney for that district, the INS, and the FBI attended each hearing as well. Alien Enemies taken into custody were brought before an Alien Enemy Hearing Board and were either released, paroled, or interned for the duration of the war. Within a few months, the United States looked toward the possibility of exchanging these Alien Enemies with Japan, Germany, and Italy.
Texas hosted three temporary detention centers for these detainees in Houston, San Antonio, and Laredo; three DOJ Enemy Alien confinement camps administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Crystal City, Kenedy, and Seagoville, and two U.S. Army “temporary detention stations” at Dodd Field on Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio and Fort Bliss in El Paso.
For additional information on the context and history of the camps including images and oral history interviews, see below.
By the mid-1930s, the U.S. was concerned about possible Nazi infiltration into Latin America—and the danger this might pose for western hemispheric security. In early 1941, the Office of Strategic Services ordered its Latin American section to begin surveillance of “enemy aliens” in the southern hemisphere.
In addition to the DOJ’s efforts to identify and intern enemy aliens within the U.S., the U.S. Department of State through its Special War Problems Division coordinated efforts to bring axis nationals from Latin America to the U.S. during World War II. During the war, the U.S. Department of State, in cooperation with 13 Central and South American countries and two Caribbean nations, worked to increase the security of the Western Hemisphere, especially the vulnerable and vital Panama Canal Zone.
With the U.S. focused on a two-front global war against the Axis Nations, security of Latin America was accomplished primarily through financial and material support––via programs such as the Lend-Lease Act––to participating Central and South American nations. At a conference of Western Hemisphere countries in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in January 1942, the U.S. called for the establishment of the Emergency Advisory Committee for Political Defense. This new security program was tasked with monitoring Enemy Aliens throughout Latin America. Enemy Aliens were required to register with the country they resided in, their ability to become citizens was significantly slowed, their travel freedom was limited, and they were not allowed to own firearms and certain forms of radio broadcasting equipment.
This process resulted with thousands of Axis nationals of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry taken into custody by local officials, many of whom were legal citizens of the Latin American countries participating. While a number of those arrested were legitimate Axis sympathizers, most were not. Latin America-Japanese, German, and Italians and their family members that were deported from their countries to the U.S. were first held locally, before being deported. Detainees were held for the duration of the war, unless they participated voluntarily or were “volunteered” to be repatriated through the Exchange Process. Forcibly deported, these detainees were shipped to the U.S.––considered security risks, they were detained in internment camps across the U.S., including the three in Texas.
These Latin American internees provided the U.S. with an increased pool of persons for exchange with Japan and Germany, each of which held comparable numbers of U.S. and Allied personnel taken prisoner during the war. While en route to the U.S., these Latin Americans were stripped of their passports and declared “illegal aliens” upon arrival, a fact many former internees and historians have referred to as “hostage shopping” and “kidnapping” by the U.S. and Latin American governments, because they were to be used in the repatriation process with the Axis.
History has shown that the U.S.’ efforts were conducted not just to legitimately secure the region due to fears that Germany might seize power in Latin American countries or Japan might attack and occupy the vital Panama Canal Zone––essential to rapid passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the World War II––but also due to prejudice. There were Latin American and U.S. businessmen who begrudged the success of Japanese, German, and Italian nationals and the war provided an opportunity to remove this source of competition.
Many Latin American detainees were sent to the U.S. by Army transport ships through ports such as New Orleans, Louisiana. From here internees were transported by train to camps in Texas or elsewhere. Internees were required to wear a white tags attached to their clothes and luggage that served as their identification at all times during transit, to Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp.
Housing all three Axis nationalities, Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp was intended to be populated by people of Japanese ancestry and their immediate families. However, on December 12, 1942, the camp’s first internees to arrive were a mix of German Americans and German Enemy Aliens. On February 12, 1943, the first group of Latin Americans arrived––also Germans––deported from Costa Rica. On March 17, 1943, the first group of Japanese American internees arrived. The Immigration and Naturalization (INS) planned to transfer all German internees to another camp, but the German spokesman asked camp officials if they could remain because their living conditions here were far better than at previous confinement sites they were held at.
From its inception in mid-1942 through June 1945, Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp interned 4,751 (this included 153 people born in the camp). The camp’s population peaked at 3,374 on December 29, 1944, more than two thirds of which were of Japanese nationality or ancestry. Approximately 11,507 German Americans were interned in the U.S. during the war, accounting for 36 percent of the total internments under the DOJ Alien Enemy Control Unit Program. In addition, an estimated 4,500 ethnic Germans and Italians from Latin America were brought to the U.S. during the war, as part of the Department of State’s Special War Problems Program, with many held at Crystal City. Millions of native-born Italians––later naturalized––and their American-born children lived in the U.S. when the country went to war with the Axis in 1941. In addition, there were also many Italian Enemy Aliens residing in the U.S., estimated at nearly 600,000. However, the percentage of Italians, classified as Enemy Aliens and interned during the war was far smaller than those interned from the Japanese and German American communities. Following the surrender of Fascist Italy in 1943, most Italian American and Enemy Alien internees were paroled or outright released by the end of that year. A few Italian Latin Americans, held in very small numbers at Crystal City, remained well after the end of the war.
By late 1942, the U.S. Army realized it needed to focus the efforts of its Provost Marshal General's Office on the expected task of guarding hundreds of thousands of Axis Nations [Japan, German, and Italy] prisoners of war. In response, the DOJ gave the INS further authority to house potentially dangerous Enemy Aliens (including U.S. citizens) at internment camps throughout the U.S. Early in the war, many detained Enemy Aliens were fathers, and the INS faced an increasing number of requests from wives and children volunteering to be interned so they might be reunited with the head of their households. This need to house families together was the genesis of the Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp. In April 2013, the THC conducted a low-invasive archeological survey in an effort to gain a better understanding of the camp’s history. This survey is funded through a 2012 grant from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, and will aid the THC with its National Register of Historic Places nomination for the confinement site.
What Did The Confinement Site Look Like?
In Crystal City, the INS looked for a site that was removed from important war production facilities and had good existing water and electrical services. Noting the pressing need for the camp to open, the INS looked at Crystal City, where the U.S. Government already owned a large portion of land. During the Great Depression, the Farm Security Administration acquired land on the outskirts of this small southwest Texas town and built approximately 150 buildings to house migratory agricultural workers. In early 1942, the U.S. military reviewed the facility as a potential location to establish a training site, but that never materialized.
When the internment camp opened in December 1942, the site was approximately 240 acres in size, with 41 small three-room cottages and 118 one-room shelters (measuring 12x16 feet). Twelve of the original cottages were left outside the “fenced area” (100 acres in size) for use by official personnel and their families. With an expected increase in population and need for more housing, the DOJ confiscated an additional 50 acres to the south of the “fenced area,” dug a water well, and constructed a self-contained sewer system.
The INS purchased the camp’s utilities from the City of Crystal City, Central Power and Light, Texas Gas, and the Del Rio and Wintergarden Telephone Company. Within the fenced area, the INS constructed with the assistance of the initial German internees and the support of Japanese American internees––housing units consisting of 61 duplex, 62 triplex and 96 quadruple design barracks, and 15 additional three-room cottages for internees. As more and more internees arrived, the INS added 103 “Victory Huts” around the camp.
The Third Geneva Convention––Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929)––also applied toward the treatment of Alien Enemies interned in INS camps, monitored by the International Red Cross. These provisions applied to the amount of food, living space, and clothing that each internee received, often better than the housing and living conditions of the rationing public in Zavala County, Texas. To comply with international law and promote as positive an environment as possible, the INS designed the internment camp much like a small community with numerous buildings for food stores, auditoriums, warehouses, administration offices and a 70-bed hospital, places of worship, a post office, bakery, barber shop, beauty shop, school system, a Japanese Sumo wrestling ring, and a German
beer garten
. Internees printed four camp newspapers: the
Crystal City Times
(English), the
Jiji Kai
(Japanese),
Los Andes
(Spanish) and
Das Lager
(German).
Crystal City Family Internment Camp was staffed by local civilian employees in secretarial and clerical positions, civilian nurses and doctors, a professional cadre of INS administrators and Border Patrolmen. Later in the war, the INS employed local men from Crystal City as guards. J. L. O’Rourke was the officer in charge. Under O’Rourke internment camp functions were allocated to several key divisions: the Administrative Service, Surveillance, Internal Security and Internal Relations [originally called the Liaison Division], Maintenance, Construction and Repair, Education, and Medical.
The “fenced area” had a 10-foot high barbed wire barrier around the internee section, six guard towers with one located on each corner and half-way down the west-to-east axis, an armed guard who patrolled the fence line, and an internal security force patrolling both the Japanese and German sections of the camp.
In accordance with the Third Geneva Convention, no internee had to perform manual labor against their will. For those who wanted to work, they could earn 10 cents per hour up to a maximum of $4 per week. Jobs ranged from store clerks, hospital staff, librarians, laundry workers, shoe repairmen, furniture and mattress factory positions, janitors, barbers, and beauticians. Select internees worked in the INS administration offices. Internees with agricultural experience worked in the camp’s internal orange orchard, vegetable gardens, and the surrounding agricultural fields dedicated to the camp. In an effort to prevent internees from stockpiling cash in the event of an escape attempt, camp scrip was issued to internees. The camp scrip was pressed paper and plastic tokens that resembled coins or poker chips, but were not legal tender. There were no reported escape attempts, successful or otherwise, from Crystal City Family Internment Camp.
Schools in an Internment Camp
One of the programs for internees established at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp was an accredited education program. Robert Clyde “Cy” Tate was hired to supervise the school system. Prior to joining the staff in 1943, Tate had served as the Crystal City High School principal. One of Tate’s initial objectives was to recruit qualified teachers to move to Crystal City and work in the camp’s schools. This was no easy task due to the uncertainty of the work’s duration and the remoteness of Crystal City. Challenged by the fact that each student was a transfer, Tate strived to meet state regulations concerning proper textbooks, teaching materials, and classroom space requirements per pupil.
Tate established three types of schools: the American (called Federal) School, the Japanese School, and the German School. Each school provided an elementary, junior high, and high school education. The Federal School offered an American-style education; the Texas State Board of Education inspected the schools and granted full accreditation for all courses taught. Some graduates eventually went on to U.S. colleges. Both the Japanese and German schools provided students with a background in their ancestral culture and language. Both Japanese and German American and Latin American internees served as teachers for non-federal schools and designed their own curriculum. While meeting the cultural needs of internees, the Japanese and German School systems assisted future voluntary and non-voluntary repatriates for life––after they were exchanged for U.S. and Allied personnel––in their ancestral home lands.
Federal High School, and its feeder school, Federal Elementary, provided students with both academic and athletic opportunities. Multiple softball and basketball and two football teams formed between 1943 and 1946, the year the school system closed. In 1944-1945, Federal High School students produced their own yearbook,
the Roundup;
published a school newspaper, the
Campus Quill
; held a prom; and participated in commencement exercises.
Recreation in an Internment Camp
A source of recreation and community, the camp’s Swimming Pool/Irrigation Reservoir was the camp’s largest defining feature (minus the security fence) and today is the most extant resource left of this nationally significant site. The 250-foot-wide-pool was designed by Italian-Honduran civil engineer Elmo Gaetano Zannoni. With German internees providing the labor, a former swamp was drained, cleared of snakes, expanded and paved over.
The German and Japanese bathhouses were built separately to allow Japanese internees and their German and Italian internee counterparts separate and equal access to the community swimming pool in congruence with the U.S.’ obligation as a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention, which was applied toward Alien Enemies and reads,
“The Detaining Power shall assemble prisoners of war in camps or camp compounds according to their nationality, language and customs …”
The pool was enjoyed by children throughout the internment camp, and was a welcome relief from the hot summer sun. The pool’s deep end was filled-in with dirt after the war and today is distinguishable as a grass half-circle. The deep end of the pool facilitated three diving platforms. Between the deep end and shallow end are the metal piling remains of a safety cable that extended across the diameter of the pool, separating deep water from shallow. Tragically, in 1944, two Japanese Peruvian girls drowned while swimming in the pool when they slipped past the safety cable. Former Japanese American internee, Bessie Masuda from California (whose family was reunited with her father at Crystal City), commented in an oral history interview with the Texas Historical Commission on the tragic drowning of two young Japanese Peruvian girls who ventured into the deep end of the pool,
“… I was wading with my friends in the pool and we actually saw the girl drowning in the deep end of the pool. We all grabbed hands and tried to reach them, but the floor was too slippery for us. It was so sad that we couldn't help…”
To the north of the Crystal City Family Internment Camp pool was the temporary Victory Hut section of the camp (see photo above) where mostly Japanese Peruvians were first quartered upon arriving at the camp. Victory Huts were four sided wooden walled military tent structures, purchased inexpensively, and erected rapidly for temporary emergency housing. Internee housing for the most part offered families individual cooking facilities, cold running water, and oil stoves. This section of the camp served as temporary housing for newly arriving internees as current residing internees were processed out for parole or repatriation. Many Latin American internees, regardless of nationality, primarily spoke Spanish and had difficulty communicating in the camp through English, Japanese, and German.
The interment camp’s population expanded throughout the war, and ultimately consisted of Japanese (Issei), Japanese Americans (Nisei), German American citizens, German nationals, Italian nationals, as well as Latin American Japanese, German and Italian, and a small group of Indonesian sailors.
During the war, the chartered Swedish ship, the SS
Gripsholm
sailed from the U.S. with internees from INS camps across the U.S. Two massive movements from Crystal City took place in February 1944 and December 1944/January 1945. Many of the internees held at Crystal City were now forced with trying to make a life in Germany or Japan on the brink of collapse as World War II wound down. By June 30, 1945, with Germany and Italy knocked out of the war, and Japan less than two months away from unconditionally surrendering to the Allies, Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp still had an internee population of 3,316. As the war drew to a close, U.S. authorities were faced with the problem of managing the internees still confined across the country. Part of the problem lay in how the internees should be designated. Those who voluntarily agreed to be sent back to their country of national origin were considered for possible return to the U.S. in the future. Included in this group were the American-born children of Axis nationals. The internees who did not volunteer or who were considered dangerous were classified as deportees and could not return to the U.S. permanently. By December 1945, approximately 1,260 Japanese Peruvians were exchanged out of Crystal City––600 to Hawaii and 660 to Japan––because Peru would not take them back after the war. Many Japanese Peruvians had to wait nearly two years after the war ended, caught in a legal limbo before their release. To that end, the INS encouraged remaining Japanese internees to find a sponsor after parole. A canning and farming company at Seabrook Farms, New Jersey sponsored and hired the majority of the remaining internees.
The Crystal City Family Internment Camp closed on February 27, 1948, nearly 30 months after the end of the war on September 2, 1945. In November 1948, the Crystal City Independent School District purchased 90 acres of the camp, primarily within the fenced area, from the War Assets Administration. To the north and east of the fenced area is where the camp’s athletic fields were located during the war. In 1952, the city purchased this portion of the camp to establish an airfield.
Today, eight distinct panels––dedicated by the Texas Historical Commission and the City of Crystal City in November 2011––make up an interpretive trail at the former confinement site.
Heritage tourists looking to learn more about the site
should stop by the Crystal City Memorial Public Library located next to City Hall at 101 E. Dimmit Street and request a copy of the free brochure that accompanies the interpretive signage project.
Oral History Interviews
THC historians have conducted oral history interviews with former Japanese, German, and Italian (U.S. citizen and Enemy Aliens) interned at the Crystal City confinement site, as well as a number of U.S. citizens who worked at the camp or lived in Crystal City during World War II. Interview subjects and transcripts for these interviews are available below. Additional inquiries about this collection should be directed to the Military History Program Coordinator at
militaryhistory@thc.texas.gov
Mike Addison:
U.S. citizen who grew up in post-World War II Crystal City. His interview comments on the confinement site's post-war use and physical landscape.
[No transcript available at this time]
Seiji Aizawa:
U.S. citizen and former War Relocation Authority internee who visited his family while they were held at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp during the war.
Aizawa Transcript
Heidi (Gurcke) Donald:
Former German-Costa Rican whose family was arrested and deported by the Costa Rican government during the war. Her family was held at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp beginning in 1943.
Donald Transcript
Betty Fly:
U.S. citizen whose family moved to Crystal City during the war when her parents took employment at the confinement site.
[No transcript available at this time]
Annette Harkey:
U.S. citizen who lived at the former confinement site after World War II when the camp was sold to the city and converted into small family housing.
[No transcript available at this time]
JoAnna Howell:
U.S. citizen born in Texas during World War II. The Howell family was taken into custody in Fort Worth in December 1941, separated from each other, and eventually reunited in Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp.
Howell Transcript
Gene Ideno:
U.S. citizen born in California. During World War II he and his family were held by the War Relocation Authority (outside of Texas) and his family was reunited at Crystal City.
[No transcript available at this time]
Art Jacobs:
U.S. citizen from New York held with his family at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp during the war. He was exchanged/repatriated to Germany and eventually returned to the United States after the war.
Jacobs Transcript
Haru Kuromiya:
Japanese American internee from California held along with her family at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp during the war.
Kuromiya Transcript
Bessie Masuda:
Japanese American internee from California. Her family was reunited with her father at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp during the war.
Masuda Transcript
Audrey Moonyeen (Neugebauer) Thornton:
Born in London, England, she and her British mother and German father left Venezuela during the war for Costa Rica, where they were arrested and deported to the U.S. Her family was interned at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp during the war.
Thornton Transcript
Elizabeth Yarborough:
U.S. citizen born in Texas. She lived and worked in Crystal City during the war and commented on the confinement site from the perspective of “the other side of the fence.”
Yarborough Transcript
In addition to the Crystal City interviews, THC also has one oral history interview related to Kenedy Enemy Alien Detention Station. This transcript and further information about internment in Kenedy, Texas, can be accessed
here
Japanese, German, and Italian American and Enemy Alien Internment
The U.S. Army detained Alien Enemies for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at posts across the U.S. where the number of apprehensions was so small that it was not feasible for the INS to operate detention facilities in that vicinity. The internment camp at Fort Sam Houston (San Antonio) opened in late February 1942. The confinement site’s first internees were Japanese, German, and Italian enemy aliens living in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. On April 30, 1942, the Spanish Consul, serving as the protectorate nation for the Empire of Japan, and joined by representatives of the Special Division of the State Department, inspected the confinement site and reported a total camp population of 107 enemy aliens. Due to the INS efforts to parole and the Department of State’s efforts in repatriating alien enemies, the confinement sites’ population does not appear to have peaked above 150 total detainees while in service.
At first, internees were held at one of the post’s “Old Infantry Long Barracks;” [pictured above] however, this site was temporary as internees were soon relocated in April to the northern edge of the post at Dodd Field (an airfield). The stockade took in an estimated 20 acres, surrounded by a double barbed-wire enclosure consisting of two 10-foot high fences, around two compounds connected by a passageway. There were eight elevated guard towers placed at intervals, and the entire stockade was under constant armed guard. Due to the small number of enemy aliens held at Fort Sam Houston, all three nationalities were grouped together. Internees wore their own civilian clothing, and the detention camp’s regulations permitted internees to write two letters and one postal card each week with no restriction placed upon the persons to whom the communications were addressed. Internees were housed in walled tents mounted on a wooden foundation measuring approximately 16-feet square. These tents were nicknamed Victory Huts during World War II, for the ease in assembly, adequate protection from the elements, and low costs to the government, which purchased these housing units in the tens of thousands to house U.S. servicemen. The Victory Huts could be heated by stoves during the colder months and had mosquito netting for the summer.
By late 1942, the U.S. Army realized it needed to focus the efforts of its Provost Marshal General's Office on the expected task of guarding hundreds of thousands of Axis [Japan, German, and Italy] prisoners of war. In response, the DOJ gave the INS increased authority to house potentially dangerous Alien Enemies (including American citizens) at internment camps throughout the U.S. The Special Alien Enemy Hearing Board, established by the DOJ on August 22, 1943, began the transfer of internees from U.S. Army camps to INS camps. The special board conducted visits to U.S. Army detention centers to conduct hearings, eventually moving 4,120 internees to INS-controlled camps across the U.S. (including all three Texas sites). This was conducted primarily because the U.S. War Department believed the unfolding two-front war in Europe and the Pacific would generate a need to house hundreds of thousands of enemy prisoners of war taken on the field of battle. As a result, Dodd Field Internment Camp stopped holding enemy aliens before the end of 1942.
Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention Station’s internee population never truly expanded during the war due to its temporary nature and closure by the end of 1942. Nevertheless, a number of internees held at this confinement site volunteered or were “volunteered” for repatriation.
Oral History Interviews
THC historians have not yet located and conducted oral history interviews associated with Japanese, German, and Italian U.S. citizen and Enemy Alien internment at the Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention Station. If you are aware of anyone who was interned or worked at this confinement site please contact the Military History Program Coordinator,
militaryhistory@thc.texas.gov
, so we may reach out to them for an interview.
The exact date of the opening of the internment site at Fort Bliss is unknown, but it likely opened in either February or March 1942. A U.S. Army report of the Spanish Consul’s visit gives a unique glimpse into this little-known confinement site. The Spanish Consul, joined by representatives of the Special Division of the State Department, first inspected Fort Bliss on May 2, 1942, and found a very small internee population. Nearly halfway into the first year of the war, only 29 Japanese, 18 German, and nine Italian enemy aliens made up the detention camp’s population of 56 individuals. Each awaited hearings by Alien Enemy Hearing Boards and the completion of arrangements for parole, extended internment, or repatriation to their ancestral nation from this Far West Texas internment camp.
The square-shaped internment stockade measured 365 feet per side and enclosed two compounds within a double barbed-wire fence. At the four corners of the stockade, elevated towers were manned by armed guards. The internment stockade never held a large number of internees, but unused neighboring infrastructure could hold up to 1,350 detainees if needed.
Similar to Fort Sam Houston, internees were permitted to wear their civilian clothing, and were permitted to send two letters, consisting of approximately 24 lines each and one postal card to friends and relatives each week. They were not permitted to have radio receiving sets, but could subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals approved by the camp’s administrative arm.
By late 1942, the U.S. Army realized it needed to focus the efforts of the Provost Marshal General Office on the expected task of guarding hundreds of thousands of Axis [Japan, German, and Italy] prisoners of war. In response, the DOJ gave the INS increased authority to house potentially dangerous Alien Enemies (including American citizens) at internment camps throughout the U.S. Several Japanese Americans held at Fort Bliss were from New Mexico, and it appears that German and Italians held at the camp were also taken into custody from western states. The historical record indicates that while Fort Bliss internment camp housed primarily male detainees, a number of Japanese male internees, whose families were left destitute from the internment of the head of their households were joined by spouses and children prior to November 1942 and the closing of Fort Bliss Detention Station.
Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Alien Internment
Fort Bliss Enemy Alien Detention Station’s internee population never truly expanded during the war due to its temporary nature and closure by the end of 1942. Nevertheless, a number of internees held at this confinement site volunteered or were “volunteered” for repatriation.
Oral History Interviews
THC historians have not yet located and conducted oral history interviews associated with Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Alien or U.S. citizen internment at the Fort Bliss Enemy Alien Detention Station. If you are aware of anyone who was interned or worked at this confinement site please contact the Military History Program Coordinator at
militaryhistory@thc.texas.gov
so we may reach out to them for an interview.
Under different names, organizations, and even two World Wars, Camp Kenedy has had a long and storied service life. During World War I, the site served as an Army training post. During the Great Depression, the site served as Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp #3806. In March 1942, the site was transferred from the CCC to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the Kenedy Alien Detention Camp received its first internees on April 21, 1942.
The site was designated to hold detainees that the Department of State brought in from Latin America. The first internee group from Latin America consisted of 156 six Japanese, 456 Germans, and 14 Italians arrived at the newly converted INS camp in April 1942. This group was augmented by an additional 355 internees (chiefly of German nationality) who were received in May, and by 253 Japanese internees in June. The population consisted primarily of adult males and a very small number of teenage boys. In an effort to provide internees with activities, the camp had large athletic fields 600 feet long by 450 feet wide and gardening areas outside the barbed-wire fence. Victory Huts were added to the existing CCC buildings to afford the confinement site with accommodations for 1,200 internees, and a staff of 84 INS and civilian workers. However, the camp’s population averaged closer to 600 internees per month. Through the remainder of 1942, and the beginning of 1943, a portion of the detainees were repatriated, while others were reunited with their families at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp and Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station.
By August 1944 Kenedy Enemy Alien Detention Station still held 525 internees; with the exception of 30, all originated from Latin American countries. According to Protectorate Nations’ inspection visits, the majority of internees desired repatriation to their home countries or return to the Latin American country from which they were taken into custody.
By late 1942, the U.S. Army realized it needed to focus the efforts of it's Provost Marshal General's Office on the expected task of guarding hundreds of thousands of Axis [Japan, German, and Italy] prisoners of war. In response, the DOJ gave the INS increased authority to house potentially dangerous Enemy Aliens (including U.S. citizens) at internment camps throughout the U.S. At this point in the war, the U.S. Military needed additional prisoner of war camp space, and the remaining internees were transferred to other INS camps, paroled, or repatriated. The INS ceased operation of the facility in September 1944. After the internment camp closed, the site became a German and later Japanese prisoner of war camp, each administered out of Fort Sam Houston’s base prisoner of war camp.
Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Alien Internment
Kenedy Enemy Alien Detention Station’s internee population volunteered or was “volunteered” for repatriation from 1942 until its closure in August 1944.
Oral History Interviews
THC historians have conducted several oral history interviews associated with Japanese, German, and Italian enemy alien internment at camps located in Texas. Most of these interviews are with individuals who have links to Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp in Crystal City, Texas. More information about this camp, and transcripts from those interviews, can be found
here
. We have one oral history interview related to Kenedy Enemy Alien Detention Station (see below for interview details and transcript).
Please contact the THC Military History Program Coordinator directly at
militaryhistory@thc.texas.gov
for all inquiries related to the agency's oral history collection.
Marianne McCall:
German American (U.S. citizen) whose family escaped Nazi Germany during the 1930s and took up residence in Texas. During World War II, recently graduated from Southern Methodist University, Marianne McCall worked at the Kenedy Enemy Alien Detention Station as an interpreter and censor.
McCall Transcript
Next to historic Ellis Island in New York City, the most architecturally significant Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) confinement site was arguably at Seagoville. The Geneva Convention of 1929 prohibited the detention of prisoners of war, as well as enemy aliens (civilians) in prisons. This eliminated the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons from being assigned the responsibility for the internment of civilians during World War II. Built by the Bureau of Prisons as a minimum-security women’s reformatory in 1941, Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station was transferred from the Bureau of Prisons to the INS on April 1, 1942.
The INS utilized the Seagoville facility for the detention of Japanese, German, and Italian families (briefly), childless couples, and single women detained as alien enemies arrested within the U.S. and those brought from Latin America to be interned, while awaiting parole or repatriation to their ancestral country of origin. While a small number of families lived at this detention station in 1942 and 1943 this was consider a temporary fix, which the INS resolved with its largest site in Crystal City. The internment camp included its own hospital with quarantine section, an auditorium, industry and service buildings, and 352 rooms for detainees. Each dorm-esque living quarters was a self-contained housing unit with a small kitchen and dining area, and adequate recreational facilities. However, these accommodations did not provide enough living quarters for detainees as the population grew in 1942 and 1943 to its peak population of 650 internees and a staff of approximately 120 INS and civilian employees.
The Third Geneva Convention—Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1929)—stipulated that the U.S. must provide internees from different nations separate and equal access to living quarters. To provide additional living quarters in 1942 for the approximately 250 Japanese Latin Americans brought to the U.S. from South America, a Colony of 50 Victory Huts, with its own dining, lavatory, and laundry facilities, was established within the existing footprint of Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station.
By late 1942, the U.S. Army realized it needed to focus the efforts of it's Provost Marshal General's Office on the expected task of guarding hundreds of thousands of Axis Nations [Japan, German, and Italy] prisoners of war. By September of 1943, with few exceptions, all of the Japanese Latin American internees at Seagoville were repatriated, with some families transferred to the INS’ largest facility dedicated to interning family units at Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp. From late September through the closure of the camp in May 1945, when the site was returned to the Bureau of Prisons, the remaining detainees were single women and childless couples. However, some children spent limited time at Seagoville while their parents were detained there.
One of the site’s lasting features is a large mural painted by internees in the interment camp’s hospital. According to interviews with former Seagoville Federal Correction Institution staff, internees painted a landscape mural on a concrete retaining wall (light well), outside the building’s basement floor dining area. Speculation is that this mural was painted as a visual escape for internees having lunch. From 2007 to 2012, the Texas Historical Commission has researched confinement sites of Japanese, German, and Italian alien enemies in Texas during World War II, and this is thought to be the only mural still in existence in the state. The site’s lasting legacy is evident not only in the historical record, the internee mural, oral history interviews, and historic photos, but also through the site’s architectural significance. While not purposefully built for the detention of Enemy Aliens, the site nevertheless, began its career as a confinement site located within a well-constructed district of buildings. In 2006, the Texas Historical Commission concurred that the former confinement site is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Alien Internment
Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station’s internee population volunteered or was “volunteered” for repatriation from 1942 until its closure in May 1945.
Oral History Interviews
THC historians have not yet located and conducted oral history interviews associated with Japanese, German, and Italian Enemy Alien or U.S. citizen internment at the Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station. If you are aware of anyone who was interned or worked at this confinement site please contact the THC Militray History Program Coordinator at
militaryhistory@thc.texas.gov
so we may reach out to them for an interview.
Between 1939 and 1945, the U.S. and its Allies suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties to the advancing Japanese and German armies across the globe. In addition to combat soldiers taken prisoner, U.S. and Allied civilians were cut-off overseas as country after country fell to the Axis. In an effort to safely return them, the U.S. began to negotiate with Japan and Germany in March 1942 to establish an official "Exchange Process (or Program)." During the "Exchange Process," Spain served as the Protectorate Nation for Japan, and Switzerland served as Protectorate Nation for Germany. This "Exchange Process" began with governmental diplomats, including consulate and embassy staffs and their families in the Americas, but increased to include both civilians and severely wounded prisoners of war. The "Exchange Process" continued through 1942 and into 1943. The chartered Swedish ship, the SS
Gripsholm
was one of several ships that sailed from the United States with internees from INS camps across the United States.