MANZANAR Historic Resource Study/Special History Study

MILITARY POLICE UNIT OPERATIONS AT MANZANAR WAR RELOCATION CENTER: 1942-45

Camp Manzanar

As aforementioned in Chapter Eight of this study, a group of buildings, referred to as the "Military Police Group" and generally known as the "military camp" or "Camp Manzanar, was constructed "south and immediately adjacent to the Relocation Center, separated by a five-strand barbed-wire fence." The military encampment was separated from the relocation center "by an unoccupied open space of level ground about 200 yards from the southerly boundary" of the latter. The facilities were "adequate for one Escort Guard Company of Military Police." [8]

First Military Police Unit at Manzanar: 747th Military Police Escort Guard Company. In a report prepared in early April 1942, Melton E. Silverman, feature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, discussed the first military police unit to be assigned to external guard duty at Manzanar. Silverman noted that "Lieutenant Harvey Severson and his company of the 747th Battalion of Military Police" had arrived at Manzanar from Fort Ord, a military base located near Monterey, on March 19, two days before the first evacuees arrived at the center. Silverman quoted Severson as claiming that the "men don't like this job." The lieutenant reportedly observed that he could not "blame them very much" "They've been trained and educated to kill Japs, and here they're supposed to protect them."

Silverman went on to describe his perception of the military police during the first several weeks of the camp's operation. He stated:

Many of the military police had never seen Japanese before. They had come from Texas, Montana, South Dakota, Iowa, North Carolina, and New England. The Japanese were strange to them, and so were California, the deserts, the Indians from the reservation farther north, the huge snowy Sierra.

At first, during the early days of the camp, they had a chance to meet some of the Japanese — particularly the Japanese girls, but when the evacuees arrived in large numbers, the soldiers were ordered not to talk to their charges.

They were limited almost entirely to guard duties, guarding the entrance to the camp, patrolling its border [In compliance with their general orders, the military police guarded only the exterior boundary of the relocation center, maintaining only one sentry inside the center at the main gate [9] ], standing by when each trainload of Japanese arrived and assisting in the first registration and induction. Even when relieved of their duties each day, they were not permitted to visit at Manzanar. To them, more than the Japanese, Manzanar was a concentration camp.

Silverman also noted that residents in nearby Owens Valley towns were irritated by the behavior of some of the military police. One of the military police had 'accidentally" killed a fellow soldier at Manzanar, necessitating an investigation by the county coroner at the taxpayers' expense. [10]

Investigation of Military Police, May 1942

In late May 1942, J. A. Strickland, Assistant Chief, Interior Security Section, conducted an investigation of the military police at Manzanar for the Western Defense Command. After his investigation, he reported on his findings which were passed along to his superiors and to WRA officials in Washington.

During the investigation Strickland contacted law enforcement officials in Independence, Lone Pine, and Bishop, as well as District Attorney George Francis. Assistant District Attorney John McMurray, and Superior Judge William D. Dehy in Independence. The "consensus of opinion" of these men, according to Strickland, was that "the Military Police [enlisted personnel] at Manzanar are misfits." The men he talked to had "no love for the evacuees, but they did not "think it proper nor becoming to the Army to have a man going around the county bragging about having shot" an evacuee who had strayed outside the fence at Manzanar. Private Edward Phillips, the military policeman who shot the evacuee, was "guilty of this in his talks" with individuals. Private Beckmeyer, "who seems to be subject to St. Vitus dance or some disease that causes a continuous jerking of the muscles," made local law enforcement officials nervous," and they were "all afraid of this man being trusted with a gun." The law enforcement officials did "not ask for the best that the Army has to guard the evacuees," but they believed "that we should have at least average Army men entrusted with this duty." Discipline between the officers and the enlisted personnel of the military police company was "not at par with Army regulations." The enlisted men, 'while on duty at the center, as well as while visiting the towns, are oftentimes untidy, dirty and slovenly in appearance.

Strickland commented on the relationship between the military police authorities and the interior police at Manzanar. He found this relationship to be "satisfactory," "close cooperation being maintained by both groups." The relationship between "the Center Manager and the military authorities," however, seemed "to be strained from the Center Management side." According to Strickland, Roy Nash, the first WRA Project Director, left "the burden of discipline completely to the Army," while he was "desirous of allowing total freedom to the evacuees.

Concerning the relationship between the military police and the evacuees, Strickland noted that since "the shooting of the evacuee by the Military Police, the evacuees have enclosed their feelings in a shell." The evacuees were "resigned to the fact that the military authorities are in charge and that they will be punished or shot if they venture across the sentry lines." However, there was the feeling that although "the evacuee who was shot was wrong in being beyond the sentry line, even though given permission by the sentry, after he had been shot and no punishment directed toward the patrolman, at least the patrolman should not be allowed the freedom of the county in which to brag about the shooting." This information "came from an evacuee in the center who had not been outside and his information must have been open to the evacuees in the center." [11]

Construction of Guard Towers (also referred to as Observation or Watch Towers)

On May 7, 1942, War Relocation Authority officials visited Manzanar as negotiations were underway for transfer of the center from the Wartime Civil Control Administration to the WRA to become effective on June 1. Following the visit, John H. Provinse, chief of the WRA Community Services Section reported to WRA Director Militon Eisenhower that it was proposed

to install during the coming week 8 observation and guard towers on the project in order to facilitate the military patrol work. Inasmuch as our direction of effort should be away from surveillance of these people as enemies or as anything else than participant American citizens, it seems extremely undesirable to establish such guard towers. Mr. Fryer [who accompanied Proinse] said that he would do everything he could to prevent their erection. In case they are erected while the project is still in Army control, they could be removed after the War Relocation Authority takes over, or they could be allowed to remain without being used. The military contingent at the present time consists of one company of 99 men and patrols are established around the external confines of the project. . . . [12]

By early June the towers were under construction despite WRA objections. The Manzanar Free Press carried a somewhat disingenuous article on June 6 reporting on the progress of the construction:

Have you noticed those towers going up around this center and wondered whether those incipient skyscrapers were the prelude to a carnival or a fair?

Upon being interviewed, Lt. C. L. Durbin, of the 747 Military Police explained that they were watch towers and that six to eight are now under construction.

Following the arrangements at other centers, these towers will be modelled after them in providing improved visibility to the watchmen and providing further security to the residents.

Lt. Durbin also declared that a wire fence will be put up in front of the center. However, along the border of the other three sides, red pennants are to mark the limits of this community. [13]

On July 31, Project Director Nash delivered a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco during which he outlined the responsibilities of the military police at the camp as well as the measures that had been taken to ensure its external security. Among other things, he noted:

The Relocation Center is that district, approximately a mile square, in which all the buildings of Manzanar are located. It is fenced with an ordinary three-strand barbed-wire fence across the front and far enough back from the road on either side to control all automobile traffic. Four towers with flood lights overlook the Center; the Relocation area is the whole 6,000 acre tract of which the Center is but a part.

. . . . There is a company of Military Police stationed just south of the Center, whose function it is to maintain a patrol about the entire area during the day; and to man the towers and patrol the Center at night. A telephone is being installed in each tower so that if a fire breaks out, it can immediately be reported. The whole camp is under the eyes of those sentries. While evacuees are required to be within the camp itself, there is no curfew. [14]

322nd Military Police Escort Guard Company, June 1942

During June 1942, the 322nd Military Police Escort Guard Company, was transferred to Manzanar, replacing the 747th which had provided external security at the camp since March 19. Most members of the military unit were recruits from New York and New Jersey. Like the members of the 747th, most of the recruits in this company had no prior experience with Japanese, and for many it was their first glimpse of Japanese. [15]

On July 8 Sergeant George Reed of the 322nd suffered severe burns on his right arm and leg as a result of a gas tank explosion at the military compound at Manzanar. He was taken to the Manzanar hospital and placed under the personal care of Dr. James Goto. It was anticipated that he would be a patient in the hospital for several weeks. [16]