CV’s WWII Internment Camp Featured in New Exhibit

I’ve often wondered over the causes for America’s decision to round up all the West Coast Japanese-Americans, the vast majority of whom were American citizens born in the U.S., and to imprison them for the duration of the war. From the comfort of the present, it’s hard for me to understand. Today it’s generally considered a national embarrassment. But looking at what was happening just after Pearl Harbor gives us perspective.

At the onset of WWII, the military forces of Japan were kicking our butts across the Pacific. It had a huge standing army and navy, manned with hardened veterans with a decade of real battle experience. American’s Pacific forces were retreating. Here on the west coast, Japanese submarines were shelling the shoreline and torpedoing coastal ships. One ship was torpedoed right at the entrance to LA Harbor. The U.S. military took very seriously the idea that Los Angeles would be invaded. My wife and I recently discovered a huge abandoned military runway in the middle of the Owens Valley desert. Research found that it was constructed in early ’42 as a “fallback position” for the Air Force after the anticipated coastal invasion. The Air Force took it that seriously. Here in Los Angeles, the fears of the population were whipped to fever pitch by false newspaper reports of Japanese-American spies, a fifth column ready to fight for their fatherland. In the light of the fear that Americans felt in those dark hours, it becomes easier to comprehend how we could take the extreme measure of imprisoning our own people, just on the grounds of our suspicions. In retrospect it was wrong, but America was angry and scared.

The first manifestation of that fear happened right here in the Crescenta Valley. All through the 1930s, young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps had fought fires and built roads, operating locally out of “Tuna Camp.” Tuna Camp was a compound of barracks situated on what is today Verdugo Hills Golf Course, roughly where the driving range is. But the CCC had left the camp in 1940. On Dec. 8, 1941, the very day after Pearl Harbor, government trucks pulled up at Tuna Camp and for the next week workers constructed high barbed wire-topped fences and guard towers, while armed Army guards took up positions. On Dec. 16, the FBI brought in the first truckloads of suspected Japanese spies, the first of hundreds who would be held and questioned at the camp. The FBI, not having any real evidence of spying, simply arrested any members of the Japanese-American community who were in any kind of leadership role. That included school teachers, Christian ministers and anyone who was on any sort of committee, including youth sports organizations. An example was Nikuma Tanouye, whose crime was having served on the organizing board of a Kendo school. While Nikuma was imprisoned, his son Ted fought in Italy. Ted Tanouye single-handedly took a heavily defended German hill and died in later action. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

A museum exhibit on Tuna Camp’s inglorious history has been set up at Bolton Hall in Tujunga, and I heartily recommend a visit. The exhibit features amazing photos of the prison with our familiar Verdugo Hills in the background. Many crystal-clear interior shots of the camp and its unfortunate prisoners have never been exhibited before. The exhibit includes a scale diorama of the camp, and an animated 3-D re-creation that allows the viewer to “fly through” Tuna Camp.

The exhibit runs through Aug. 9. The museum is open in the daytime on Tuesdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and on Thursday evenings from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Bolton Hall is located on the corner of Commerce and Valmont, and is worth a visit on its own. It’s a spectacular huge stone building built in 1913. Please visit before the exhibit closes in just a couple of weeks!

A key role in one of the tragedies of WWII was played out right here in the Crescenta Valley. It’s important to remember the mistakes we’ve made in the past so that we don’t repeat them today.

  mike lawler