Pre-evacuation confusion of a year ago now belongs in the pages of the history of the Japanese people in wartime America, marking at once the climactic end of a chapter in their lives. The full story of the utter confusion of the then intended evacuees, particularly in the Los Angeles area, may never be known.

Practically the lone ray of hope for them stemmed from the Maryknoll Japanese Catholic Church under the undaunted leadership of Father Hugh Lavery and the priests serving with him. The situation at that time required a non-Japanese, passionately interested in their welfare, to appreciate the impending evacuation. The isseis and niseis, generally, were loath to confront that fact until the reality and the immediacy of evacuation was initiated by the military.

Father Lavery and his associate, Father James Caffry, had conferred with the Army officials and had learned of the imminency of evacuation, and that there remained no alternative, particularly regarding the possibility of all or even a portion of the Japanese remaining within the prescribed military zone. Amid a welter of rumors of all descriptions, the priests urged the Japanese, pleaded with them, not to evacuate on their own, but to await specific government orders. He foresaw confusion and disaster for those who individually tried to flee eastward without adequate preparations.

When Manzanar was selected as the first assembly center under direction of the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, implemented by executive order of President Roosevelt. Father Lavery first sought for volunteers. As many as 25,000 had responded in the first tide of enthusiasm for this venture. Then came the subtle talks discrediting this evacuation plan. Its infiltration through the Japanese communities was almost instantaneous. The number and variety of rumors spread among the people at that time surely was even more fantastic and voluminous than the ones manufactured here or in other centers since then.

The 25,000 dropped to a paltry one-third and kept fluctuating with the successive tides of vicious rumors about what might happen to the evacuees. Manzanar was described as a "concentration camp" worse than "Hell Hole of Calcutta." For 24 hours at a stretch, the priests worked to secure volunteers. On March 12 a group of 100 volunteers out of the 24,000 were asked to come to Manzanar. Only 86 responded, 21 of them woman. They arrived here on March 21. One-thousand were asked to volunteer to come on March 23. Only 816 responded.

Registration was conducted at Maryknoll school. The priests and their few issei and nisei helpers worked for days and nights prior to the evacuation of the first two volunteer groups. It was then that the military decided to declare zones for evacuation, freezing all voluntary movements. Evacuation by groups to Manzanar followed in an orderly manner.

It was the infinite patience and the transcending compassion of Father Hugh Lavery and his associates for the Japanese people which triumphed. We of Manzanar owe him a debt and tribute which cannot easily be returned.