General John DeWitt was an Army officer who demonstrated inspiring leadership during the relocation of Japanese and others in the wake of the devastating sneak attack by Japan on the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. National security concerns, as well as the protection of Japanese people from possible violence in retribution for the attack, mandated moving this small segment of the population to locations away from the west coast - an area that was still under threat of further attack by Japan. Revisionist historians and others who criticize the relocation in the name of political correctness neglect to mention that over 2,400 Americans died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and that over 100,000 American servicemen died in the subsequent war in the Pacific before Japan, the aggressor, was finally defeated.
Below is a portion of Lt. Gen. DeWitt's letter of transmittal to the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, June 5, 1943, of his Final Report; Japanese Evacuation from the West Coast 1942.
1. I transmit herewith my final report on the evacuation of Japanese from the Pacific Coast.
2. The evacuation was impelled by military necessity. The security of the Pacific Coast continues to require the exclusion of Japanese from the area now prohibited to them and will so continue as long as that military necessity exists. The surprise attack at Pearl Harbor by the enemy crippled a major portion of the Pacific Fleet and exposed the West Coast to an attack which could not have been substantially impeded by defensive fleet operations. More than 115,000 persons of Japanese ancestry resided along the coast and were significantly concentrated near many highly sensitive installations essential to the war effort. Intelligence services records reflected the existence of hundreds of Japanese organizations in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona which, prior to December 7, 1941, were actively engaged in advancing Japanese war aims. These records also disclosed that thousands of American-born Japanese had gone to Japan to receive their education and indoctrination there and had become rabidly pro-Japanese and then had returned to the United States. Emperor-worshipping ceremonies were commonly held and millions of dollars had flowed into the Japanese imperial war chest from the contributions freely made by Japanese here. The continued presence of a large, unassimilated, tightly knit and racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion along a frontier vulnerable to attack constituted a menace which had to be dealt with. Their loyalties were unknown and time was of the essence. The evident aspirations of the enemy emboldened by his recent successes made it worse than folly to have left any stone unturned in the building up of our defenses. It is better to have had this protection and not to have needed it than to have needed it an not to have had it – as we have learned to our sorrow.
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As the Naval Historical Center website states, "The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese aggression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.
By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.
The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.
These Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accommodation might have been considered.
However, the memory of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her as a future threat to World peace."
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John L DeWitt was born at Fort Sidney, Nebraska on January 9, 1880. He entered the US Army and was appointed an infantry Second Lieutenant on October 10, 1898. There followed twenty years of assignments within the Infantry as well as details to as Ordnance, Engineer, Signal, Commissary and Quartermaster officer in various postings in the US and overseas.
In 1918 he went overseas with the 42d Infantry Division. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he was detailed to the General Staff, Headquarters, American Expeditionary Force (AEF). In July 1918, he was promoted to Colonel and continued to serve as G-4 (Supply) for the 1st Army. For his exceptional service in World War I he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.
From 1919 to 1930, DeWitt served in a number of War Department positions to include Assistant Commandant of the General Staff College (1928-30); Chief of the Storage and Issue Branch, Supply Division; G-4 War Plans Division and Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, War Plans Division. As a Brigadier General commanded the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division and the 1st Brigade of the Philippine Division.
On February 5, 1930, General DeWitt became the Quartermaster General. In addition to the assumption of the routine duties of his new assignment, he was also responsible for completing and executing the plans for the Gold Star Pilgrimage to Europe of mothers and widows of the World War I dead. This unprecedented undertaking made possible by an act of Congress and delegated to the Office of The Quartermaster General, necessitated an efficient organization of emergency personnel as well as sympathetic and judicious leadership. This task stretched over a period of four years. DeWitt was also responsible for outfitting 275,000 men for the Civilian Conservation Corps within a period of approximately seven weeks the quickest peace time mobilization on record.
After serving as Quartermaster General, DeWitt returned to the Infantry. In 1937, he was named commander of the Philippine Division and in July of that year he became Commandant of the Army War College. In December 1939, was promoted to Lieutenant General and commanded the 4th Army and the 9th Corps Area (Western Coast).
After the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, he commanded the Western Defense Command between December 5, 1939, and June 15, 1943. During this time he supervised the necessary and humane evacuation of Japanese and Japanese-American residents from the Western Coast and directed combat operations against the Japanese troops in the Aleutians. In September 1943, he became the Commandant of the Army and Navy Staff College in Washington. He retired from the Army in 1947.
General DeWitt was appointed to the rank of full General on 1954 by Congress for his service in World War II. He died of a heart attack at the age of 82 in Washington, D.C. on June 20, 1962. He is buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery.
