DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Dodd Field records — and it's a story that deserves to be told straight. December 7, 1941. The Empire of Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and just like that, the United States is in World War II.
The government moves fast — and not always in ways history looks back on kindly. More than 120,000 people are swept into War Relocation Authority camps across the country. Issei — first generation Japanese immigrants.
Nisei — second generation, American citizens by birth. Gone, just like that, into confinement. But that's only part of the story this marker tells.
Running alongside it, through separate programs entirely, thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian citizens living in the United States — and in many cases their American citizen relatives — are classified as enemy aliens and detained by the Department of Justice through something called the Enemy Alien Control Unit. Others are pulled in from Latin America by the Department of State's Special War Problems Division. These detainees are held until they are paroled or exchanged for U.S. and Allied citizens seized overseas by Axis nations.
Texas ends up hosting five confinement sites in all. Three are run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service — at Crystal City, Kenedy, and Seagoville. Two are U.S.
Army Temporary Detention Stations — one at Fort Bliss in El Paso, and one right here. The Army steps in wherever the number of apprehensions is too small for the INS to operate its own facility. That's the logic of it.
February 1942 — the first detainees at Fort Sam Houston are held at the Old Infantry Long Barracks. By April of that same year, the operation moves to the post's former airfield: Dodd Field. Twenty acres.
A double barbed-wire fence running the perimeter. Eight elevated guard towers looking down over two compounds of Victory Huts. And the population inside those fences?
It fluctuates considerably — through paroles and repatriations, people come and go — but never more than 150 at any one time. By late 1942, the Department of Justice's Special Alien Enemy Hearing Board begins transferring detainees out to INS camps, as the War Department prepares to use the space for something else entirely — prisoners of war. And so the Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention Station closes.
Late 1942. Twenty acres of barbed wire and guard towers and Victory Huts, holding people whose greatest crime, in many cases, was being born on the wrong side of a war they didn't start. The marker stands here so that part of the story doesn't get lost.
What the marker says
Shocked by the December 7, 1941, Empire of Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that propelled the U.S. into World War II, one U.S. Government response was the incarceration of more than 120,000 Issei (first generation, Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation, U.S. citizens) in War Relocation Authority camps across the country. Through separate confinement programs, 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 Enemy Alien Control Unit, and, in Latin America, by the Department of States Special War Problems Division. Enemy aliens were held until paroled or exchanged for U.S. and Allied citizens seized overseas by Axis nations. Texas hosted three DOJ confinement sites, administered by The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Crystal City, Kenedy, and Seagoville, as well as two U.S. Army Temporary Detention Stations at Fort Bliss (El Paso) and here. The U.S. Army held enemy aliens across the U.S. wherever the number of apprehensions was too few for the INS to operate a detention facility. Beginning in February 1942, the first detainees were held at the Old Infantry Long Barracks. By April 1942 the site was relocated here, the posts former airfield Dodd Field. The site encompassed 20 acres surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with eight elevated guard towers overlooking two compounds of Victory Huts. Through paroles and repatriations, the population fluctuated considerably; never more than 150 at a time. In late 1942, the DOJs Special Alien Enemy Hearing Board began transferring detainees to INS camps, as the U.S. War Department prepared to house prisoners of war. Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention Station closed in late 1942. Texas in World War II - 2013