xxiii, 618 pp. Illustrated with photographs, charts, color folding maps. 23x15 cm (9x5¾"), black cloth gilt-lettered.
Presentation copy inscribed by John L. DeWitt, military commander IX Corps Area and its 1942 successor, the Western Defense Command, both headquartered at the Presidio of San Francisco, who was the driving force behind the evacuation and internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans from the west coast during the Second World War, and overall author of the present report. The inscription on the front flyleaf reads "To Col. Truman R. Young, with best wishes and pleasant memories of our service together. J.L. DeWitt, Gen. U.S.A. Ret. Washington D.C., Nov. 11, 1959." Eighteen years earlier, when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and thrust the United States into the war, Truman Young was aide-de-camp to DeWitt, and from March 16 to August 8, 1942, he was temporarily reassigned to the new Civil Affairs Division established under the Wartime Civil Control Administration to implement President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 of February 1942, expelling “all persons of Japanese ancestry, including aliens and non-aliens,” from West Coast military zones. Accompanied by three original photographs (DeWitt and Young together, DeWitt by himself, and a Signal Corp photograph of DeWitt and other officers on parade, saluting). Also, there are 14 letters signed by DeWitt to Young (3 are handwritten, the others typed), dating from November 1943 to April 1947, with a number from 1946 referring to Young's run for Congress. A small ink note in the front pastedown indicates where Mr. Young is mentioned in the book. There is also biographical material on Col. Young and his military service supplied by his daughter. Provenance: Descended in the family until this time.