David Lowman and the internment of Japanese Americans

Discussions on WW2 in the Pacific and the Sino-Japanese War.
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jwong
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David Lowman and the internment of Japanese Americans

#1

Post by jwong » 02 May 2004, 11:58

I read the book by Mr. David Lowman entitled MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and the Evacuation of Japanese Residents From The West Coast During WWII.

In his book, Mr. Lowman discusses the general history of MAGIC, the secret U.S. intelligence project run by U.S. cryptanalysts. In 1940 they were able to break the Japanese government's code and ciphers and read the encrypted diplomatic messages. Mr. Lowman tries to show that the MAGIC code played a major role in the U.S. government decision to incarcerate the entire West Coast Japanese-American community in 1942 because of U.S. military and security concerns of Japanese-American espionage & sabotage.

I wonder if the information in Mr. Lowman's book is correct. I also wanted if it is true as Mr. Lowman claim that Japan had plans to invade the West Coast of the U.S.?

This is suppose to be the other reason why these Japanese Americans were evacuated and interned.

I am confused about these assertions on the invasion because I have read books like Personal Justice Denied that assert that there were NO plans by Japan to actually do this.

I also read books like Honor by Fire which states that Japanese Americans actually served with U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia and on the Pacific Front. Would you have any idea exactly how many and when they actually served in Southeast Asia and the Pacific front?

I am also confused by this also because Mr. Lowman's book also claimed that Japanese Americans in the U.S. military were suppose to be spying for Japan?

I would be very much interested to hear what is your view of the above questions.

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tom!
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#2

Post by tom! » 03 May 2004, 10:07

Hi

I think that invading the western US-coast would have been a nightmare for every japanese supply officer. Long and vulnerable supply lines invites every enemy to cut them.

As far as I know the japanese high command planned a limited war.
The shortage of raw material and crude oil was a big problem for the japanese industy. So they decided to capture some ressource-rich regions. They thought that after this the allied gouvernments would agree to peace negotiations.

Japan was not prepared for a full scale war at all. And so I think that there were no realistic plans for a invasion of the US mainland.

Yours

tom :wink:


jwong
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Joined: 21 Sep 2002, 13:43
Location: Wheaton, MD

#3

Post by jwong » 06 May 2004, 15:04

Thank you for the reply. :)

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