John L.

Dewitt
64 Years old
I attended Princeton as my father and brothers did and became a general in 1898
following their footsteps. After enlisting in the Spanish-American war I then traveled to the
Philippines and served four tours of duty until 1899. While touring during and after Japans
victory in the Sino-Japanese War my views on the Japanese. Rising up the ranks from supply
officer to working in the office of the quartermaster general in Washington in 1914 to 1917 I then
became assistant chief of staff for the armys war plans division in the early 1920s. In 1930 I
became the quartermaster general and was granted command of the fourth army. Then in 1939
I was granted command of the Western Defense Command when I turned 59. While in the War
Plans Division I led a team in the creation of a joint defense plan for Hawaii in case of the event
of war with Japan. This plan called for martial law and selective detention of Japanese enemy
aliens in the event of war. A variation of this plan was carried out in Hawaii.
About two and a half months between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the issuing of
Executive Order 9066 I made a range of proposals regarding the issue of the West Coast that
was causing a frenzy and a level of panic. At the beginning of these two months I started out
very confused. I honestly didnt know how to feel about the Japanese-Americans and the attack
that had happened a few days before. Soon after that my first proposal was the removal of all
alien subjects fourteen years of age and older due to the fear of further attacks and reports of
Japanese submarines along the coast and the news of army and navy commanders in Hawaii
being relieved of their duties. A week later I resisted general and a friend Allen Gullion for
arresting all the Japanese-Americans on the coast. I said to him we are going to have an awful
job on our hands and are very liable to alienate the local Japanese. An American citizen, after
all is an American citizen. Meetings continued and on January 4th a meeting that included the
Justice Department officials, Gullion and his assistant Karl Bendersen, the idea of category A
zoned around sensitive areas was hatched. This was where everyone would be excluded with
some passes given to be allowed back. At the meeting I stated that I have little confidence that
the alien enemies are law abiding or loyal particularly the Japanese. On January 21st I
produced a list of 86 such zones where all enemy aliens would be removed. A total of 7,000
people of which 40% were Japanese. Over the next week, the continuing pressure for mass
removal of all the West Coast Japanese-Americans by Gullion and Bendetsen, the release of
the Roberts Commission Report on January 25. The alarming rise in public calling for mass
removal reinforced by meetings with California governor Culbert Olson and attorney general
Earl Warren had pushed me to toughen my stance. By the end of January, I agreed that
Japanese-American citizens as well as immigrants would be moved out. This was due to seeing
evidence and the way all the actions that were being taken had been playing out.
Japanese-Americans were living close to the Coast where reports or enemy submarines were
sighted and were living close to industrial areas.
In early February, my last attempt to give the Japanese-Americans the benefit of the
doubt was through another plan. After a conference with Governor Olson and Tom C. Clark, the
coordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Program in the Western Defense Command, I
advocated a plan to have Japanese American men work as volunteer laborers on "resettlement
projects" within California. Informed of this, Gullion went directly to Assistant Secretary of War

John McCloy and convinced him of the necessity of mass removal. McCloy in turn obtained the
approval of Secretary of War Henry Stimson and of the president on February 11, sealing the
fate of Japanese-Americans. Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19. Realizing I
practically had no other option but go forward with what others wanted to do I appointed
Bendetsen to head the newly formed Civil Affairs Division and the Wartime Civil Control
Administration on March 12, putting him charge of the logistics of removing 110,000 people from
their homes and communities.
Some information on DeWitt:
As plans for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team crystallized in early 1943, DeWitt told Gullion
"[t]here isn't such a thing as a loyal Japanese and it is just impossible to determine their loyalty
by investigationit just can't be done."[5] In front of a House Committee on April 15, 1943, he
stated: "There is a feeling developing, I think, in certain sections of the country, that the
Japanese should be allowed to return. I am opposing it with every proper means at my
disposal."[6] This general contention was reflected in his F
inal Report, Japanese Evacuation
From the West Coast, 1942, first issued in April of 1943. McCloy's objection to DeWitt's claim
that it was "impossible" to determine the loyalty of Japanese Americans led to the report's being
rewritten to edit that passage.
Citations
1. "John DeWitt." John DeWitt | Densho Encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.
2. "John L. DeWitt." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.