Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The British Commonwealth, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Volume III

740.00115 Pacific War/1206

The Spanish Embassy to the Department of State

Memorandum
No. 473

The Spanish Embassy has the honor to enclose copy of a cablegram from the Imperial Japanese Government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Madrid, relative to the supposed ill-treatment inflicted upon Japanese nationals on their detention and posterior internment in concentration camps of the United States.

The Spanish Embassy would be deeply obliged to the State Department for an investigation of the complaints of reference where it may proceed, and will equally appreciate to be apprised in due time as to its results, so a reply on the matter in question can be transmitted to the Government of Japan.

Washington , October 27, 1942.

[Enclosure]

Copy of Telegram Received From the Japanese Imperial Government Through the Foreign Office at Madrid

The Japanese Imperial Government begs that the following telegram be transmitted to the United States Government:

“The Japanese Government having received reports from Japanese subjects repatriated from the United States by the exchange-vessels⁸⁰ is astonished at the most inhuman cruelty and insult inflicted upon them by the United States Authorities in the course of their arrest, examination, internment and transport. The United States Government has thereby violated their solemn declaration to apply as far as possible to interned non-combatants, the provisions of the Convention relative to treatment of prisoners of war signed at Geneva in July, 1929. The Japanese Government, therefore, does hereby lodge a most emphatic protest and demands the United States Government’s serious consideration of the matter.

I.—Arrest and Internment

1. —(a) Many Japanese subjects aged over sixty have been interned and not a few of them being over eighty. The average age of Japanese subjects interned is fifty-four or fifty-five at many internment camps. These aged internees are treated equally with those who are in the prime of life. In respect to housing, food and discipline, no special consideration for their age is accorded to them.

(b) Three Japanese subjects who died at Fort Missoula, Montana, Viz:—

• Messrs. Seiichiro Itoh
• Kamaki Kinoshita, and
• Shigekazu Hazama

had been invalids from before their arrest, but no allowance was given them on account of their ill health.

Mr. Hazama, especially, was operated upon at Los Angeles to remove cancer of the rectum and had been progressing very unfavorably when he was arrested. He was carried away from his sick bed and in his railway journey to Missoula, he was three days and three nights forced to sit in a compartment, windows of which were shut and blinds were lowered, consequently, his illness was rapidly aggravated and he succumbed on the first of March.

(c) Mr. Fusaichi Katoh, resident of Los Angeles, who was wounded in the right eye by a motorcar accident, was not allowed to see a Doctor before he was arrested and carried to the internment camp at Tujunga. He was later allowed to go out to consult an oculist, but the Los Angeles Authorities instead of allowing him to receive medical treatment imprisoned him and took him to Santa Fe, thus it became too late for any treatment to be efficacious and Mr. Katoh lost sight of his injured eye.

2. —From these facts it cannot but be concluded that in the internment of Japanese civilians, the United States Government is paying not the slightest regard to their age or conditions of health. In internment of the United States citizens, the Japanese Government is giving generous consideration to their age and health and only a very few who are aged over sixty have been interned and that only for special reasons the Japanese Government calls serious.

Attention of the United States Government to the fact that they have committed an act of inhumanity by interning large numbers of Japanese civilians of advanced age or suffering from serious illness on no justifiable grounds and by placing them in such conditions as to cause them unbearable pain and expose their life to danger, the Japanese Government demands that the United States Government immediately release those aged and invalid internees.

II.—Treatment Accorded in Course of Arrest and Transport

1. —The Japanese civilians interned in the United States have in the course of their arrest and transport, been treated by the United States Authorities in the following manner:

(1) Created [Great?] number of these who were arrested in the region along the Pacific Coast were sent to places of detention in handcuffs, and some of them despite their old age, over sixty, were even chained to motorcars. They were put in narrow and filthy detention rooms of the Immigration Office or local Police Stations, they were subjected unnecessarily to insulting maltreatment in the course of their arrest, transport, and examination. They were frequently beaten and kicked. Following are only a few out of many instances of such brutal treatment:

(a) Those who were arrested in San Francisco, detained at the Immigration Office on the 7th of December, 1941, were allowed to have a walk outdoors for only an hour once in ten days.

(b) Thirteen Japanese subjects who were arrested at Los Angeles on the same day were jammed into narrow stifling prison cell of a capacity for two persons and consequently they experienced great difficulty even in easing nature.

The next day they were sent to the Federal Penitentiary at Terminal Island without breakfast or lunch till six o’clock in the afternoon. On their arrival at the prison they were kept standing in the open air for nearly three hours, their persons were rigorously searched in an insulting manner for several hours in a cold room without a fire and they were forced to undergo humiliating disinfecting process, then they were clothed in convicts uniforms and were forbidden to wear their own overcoats even when they were outside in the rain. When some of them carried food to their ailing friends through the prison yard they were not allowed to cover the foodtrays to protect them from the rain.

(c) The Japanese subjects who were interned at the Lincoln Heights Jail, Los Angeles, were put in dark cells together with convicts and for two weeks were not allowed either to see sunlight or to go out into the open air. Food was given only twice a day and it consisted only of boiled beans, consequently, those who were of old age or delicate constitution became ill on account of lack of nourishment and contaminated air of cells.

(d) Special mention must be made of Mr. Rikita Honda, physician, who was arrested at Los Angeles, at the outbreak of war and committed suicide in a solitary cell of the Immigration Office on the 14th of December. It appears that he was under special suspicion owing to the fact that he was president of the Los Angeles Naval Association (Kaigun Kyokai), but this association is a mere social club. He had nothing to conceal from examining officials. He advised his compatriots detained at the Immigration Office to answer honestly and uprightly questions put to them by examining officials. These facts admit of most grave suspicions as to the circumstances leading to his suicide.

(2) —(a) A member of the staff of the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles, who was in a very feeble condition, convalescing from an illness, was, when sent from Fort Missoula to White Sulphur Springs, handcuffed and chained to the bed as if he were a hard criminal. As he witnessed that the Immigration Officer received the handcuffs from his superior when departing from Fort Missoula, there was no doubt that this maltreatment was ordered by the internment camp authorities.

(b) When interned civilians were transferred from one internment camp to another, they were treated as if they were convicts, soldiers loaded their guns with ball cartridges in their presence and they were forced to walk to the station while soldiers levelled guns at them and crowds of people looked on.

2. —In interning United States civilians the Japanese Government has been careful not to take any other measures than are necessary for restraining their personal liberty. They have never been handcuffed nor have they been ever examined or threatened like criminals. The Japanese Government is unable to see on what grounds the United States Government felt justified in treating Japanese civilians in such a cruel, inhuman manner, as aforesaid Japanese Government lodges most emphatic protests against the insulting and inhuman treatment accorded to Japanese civilians by the United States authorities, and demands the United States Government furnish a detailed report concerning circumstances which led to the death of Mr. Rikita Honda.

III.—Torture at Internment Camps

(1) In examining interned Japanese civilians the United States authorities took such illegal actions as follows:

(a) At Fort Missoula some Japanese civilians who entered the United States prior to 1942 without passports were beaten, kicked, forced to keep standing for hours running, and given no food in order to extort from them false confessions that they entered the country after 1942. Owing to this brutal treatment they fell unconscious and they were forced to sign documents which were described as their depositions, but contents of which they know nothing about. There are also reported numerous cases of insulting treatment in the same camp.

(b) At Fort Lincoln, examining officials knocked down and kicked Japanese civilian and broke his two upper teeth.

(2) The Japanese Government desires to notify the United States Government that it is most gravely concerned about the above mentioned inhuman acts of violence on the part of the United States authorities and demands the United States Government reply in explanation of these outrages. The Japanese Government further demands the United States Government to take adequate and effective measures in order to prevent recurrence of such events.

IV.—Compulsory Labour at Internment Camps

1. —(a) Authorities of internment camp at Missoula, Montana, alleged that application of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention to internees entails obligations on the part of those interned to offer gratuitous labour for “upkeep and maintenance” of the internment camp and that the internment camp does not only mean enclosed compound but includes all constructions and equipment belonging to the camp. Thus they ordered the Japanese internees to clean the stable in which horses owned by camp officials were kept and to help build the Japanese garden and swimming pool which were under construction outside camp grounds. They threatened Japanese internees that unless they voluntarily went to work there would ensue unpleasant consequences. Nothing was said about compensation for their work.

(b) At the internment camp at Santa Fe, New Mexico, where labour was wanting owing to the strike of a local trade union, authorities tried to compel the Japanese to build barracks for internees in spite of their opposition.

(c) There are also instances of internees having been put to such labour not directly related to their maintenance, as cleaning of offices of camp officials, or cooking and table service of these officials.

2. —Above mentioned stable in which horses of camp officials are kept, are not integral part of the internment camp for civilians. The above mentioned garden and swimming pool being situated in a place to which internees have no access can in no respect form part of the camp.

The Geneva Convention contains provisions stipulating labour for purpose of administration, management, and maintenance of internment camps, but there are no provisions concerning supply of labour for building new camps. Moreover, it is needless to say that labour supplied by internees should be such as is directly related to their subsistence and comfort, therefore, the abovesaid reasons given by the internment camp authorities have no foundation in putting Japanese civilian internees to injustifiable labour. The United States Government has contradicted their statement made in note addressed to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs⁸¹ by the Swiss Minister in Tokyo, under date of March 23rd, 1942,⁸² to the effect that the United States Government has never imposed compulsory labour on interned civilians and that they have no intention to do so in the future. The Japanese Government therefore, enters a protest against the above mentioned measures taken by the United States Government, and demands that the United States Government immediately cease enforcement of the above mentioned labour imposed on Japanese civilian internees and pay adequate compensations to those who have hitherto been put to such labour. The Japanese Government further demands guaranty of the United States Government that it will not take such measures again.

V.—Treatment at Departure of Exchange Ship

1. —In the agreement concluded between Japan and the United States regarding the exchange of diplomatic and consular officials, etc, it is stipulated that examination of luggage of non-official evacuees shall be “lenient” and that their persons shall not be searched (Vide Paragraph 20 of the United States Government reply received by the Japanese Government on the 11th of February⁸³). There are instances in which the United States Government has clearly violated their pledge on these two points.

(a) At the Pennsylvania Hotel, New York City, on the 10th of June and at the internment camp at Ellis Island, from the 7th till the 9th of June, Customs Officials and members of the F. B. I.⁸⁴ relentlessly and recklessly examined the possessions of the Japanese evacuees and they made no scruple to break or damage them in the course of examination. They went to such extremes as breaking open watches, cutting open lapels of coats, and ripping up belts. They spent four or five hours in the examination of two or three packages. They seized large quantities of things of various descriptions, including watches, cameras, fountain pens, cigarette lighters, clothing, etc. They seized not only every written or printed scrap of paper including note books, address books and etc, but also blank sheets of paper, not excepting even wrappers of soap. They also seized all chemicals, including aspirin tablets. No receipts were given for these seized articles.

(b) On the thirteenth of June at the abovesaid Hotel and internment camp, luggage was thoroughly examined when persons of all evacuees were also searched in an insulting manner. They were made stark naked and even plaster applied to wound was stripped off. Some of the evacuees had their hair searched. Women were also made naked by women examiners and many of them were subjected to most humiliating search.

2. —The Japanese Government most emphatically protests against such deliberate and flagrant violations of stipulations of exchange agreement, especially against unlawful seizure of evacuees belongings without giving them receipts therefor and most insulting and inhuman search of persons of evacuees.

The Japanese Government demands the United States Government to offer an explanation for these outrages and to return unlawfully seized articles to their owners.”

Jordana

Minister of Foreign Affairs

80. For correspondence on first exchange of American and Japanese nationals, see Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. i, pp. 377 ff.
81. Shigenori Togo.
82. See telegram No. 712, March 19, 1942, to the Minister in Switzerland, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. i, p. 804.
83. See telegram No. 379, February 7, 1942, to the Chargé in Switzerland, Foreign Relations, 1942, vol. i, p. 391.
84. Federal Bureau of Investigation.