Honouliuli served as both a base camp and a transfer point for prisoners of war from both the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres. Lodge, courtesy Hawaii’s Plantation Village. The mass incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry was the largest forced removal of people in the history of the United States.Ī view of daily life at Hono‘uli‘uli Internment Camp. They were rounded up and sent to temporary detention centers and then to isolated large-scale camps located throughout the western states and Arkansas, where most would spend the duration of the war years. Meanwhile on the United States mainland, all individuals of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forced from their homes by military exclusion orders following Executive Order 9066, issued on February 19, 1942. Despite the suspicion of disloyalty, none of the Japanese American incarcerees from Hawai‘i was ever found guilty of sabotage, espionage, or overt acts against the United States. Hawai‘i's Japanese American citizenry and immigrant population was over one third of the territory's total population, and their labor was needed to sustain the economy and the war effort in the islands.īy war's end, over 2,000 people of Japanese ancestry from Hawai‘i were incarcerated. mainland, it was ultimately deemed impractical. While the government did consider mass incarceration in Hawai‘i as was implemented on U.S. These types of discriminatory policies created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion. For example, people of Japanese ancestry were restricted from residing in certain areas of O‘ahu and were forcibly removed from their properties. Army issued hundreds of military orders, some of which were applicable only to persons of Japanese ancestry and enemy aliens. history when the civilian population has ever been subjected to rule by martial law. At 35 months, army rule in Hawai‘i during World War II comprised the longest period in U.S. Amidst fears of a Japanese invasion, martial law was declared just hours after the attacks on Pearl Harbor until October 24, 1944. The primary legal mechanism used to authorize incarceration in Hawai‘i was martial law.
The opening of Honouliuli Internment Camp in March of 1943 provided an alternate to mainland transfer, as the camp was designed for the express purpose of confining incarcerees and prisoners of war for longer periods of time. Most civilians apprehended in the initial years of the War would be sent to the mainland to live out the duration of the war in Department of Justice and War Relocation Authority camps. Nearly all the incarcerees were of Japanese descent they included influential leaders of the Japanese American community who were educated, were teachers or priests, or had access to means of communication with Japan or to transportation from Hawai‘i. Immigration Station and the Sand Island Detention Camp on O'ahu in this early period. Roughly 800 people were incarcerated and eventually transported to the U.S. They were incarerated at local jails, courthouses, and facilities on six of the main Hawaiian Islands. World War II Incarceration and Martial Law in Hawai‘iĮarly on December 7, 1941, as the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor, government officials began selectively rounding up Hawai‘i residents suspected of disloyalty. Honouliuli also held women and children who were Japanese civilians displaced from the Pacific. The remaining group comprised predominantly German Americans, though there were also Americans and aliens of Italian, Irish, Russian, and Scandinavian descent.Īs a prisoner of war camp, Honouliuli held enemy soldiers and non-combatant labor conscripts from Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Italy. They included community, business, and religious leaders. The majority of Honouliuli's civilian incarcerees were American citizens-predominantly Japanese Americans who were citizens by birth-suspected of disloyalty. Incarcerees referred to Honouliuli as Jigoku-Dani ("Hell Valley") because its secluded location in a deep gulch trapped heat and moisture and reinforced the incarcerees' sense of isolation and unjust incarceration.
The 160 acre incarceration camp contained 175 buildings, 14 guard towers, and over 400 tents. Army and opened in March 1943, Honouliuli was both a civilian incarceration camp and a prisoner of war camp with a population of approximately 400 incarcerees and 4,000 prisoners of war over the course of its use. Honouliuli National Historic Site is located on land that, during World War II, served as the largest and longest-used confinement site in the Hawaiian Islands for US citizens and residents of Japanese and European ancestry arbitrarily suspected of disloyalty following the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Courtesy of Hawai'i's Plantation Village Honouliuli Internment Camp An image depicting daily life for civilian incarcerees in Compound V.
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