WORLD WAR II--TULE LAKE INTERNMENT CAMP AND POW CAMP

Tule Lake Internment Camp

Two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7,1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, a proclamation that ultimately consigned 110,000 Japanese Americans to ten internment camps scattered throughout the United States.

Tule Lake was the largest of the internment camps with a peak population of 18,789 persons of Japanese descent. Tule Lake was the only camp turned into a high-security segregation center, ruled by martial law and occupied by the United States Army.

Stripped of their constitutional rights, Japanese American men, women and children were allowed one trunk per person and sent to camps around the country - leaving behind their homes, businesses and personal belongings built over a lifetime.


Tule Lake Prisoner of War Camp

Just a few miles north of the ancient lava flows of Lava Beds National Monument - nestled next to a high bluff -- lies a group of buildings weathered by more than sixty-years of extreme temperatures and the dry dust-filled winds of the Modoc Plateau.

These rustic buildings, scattered like unwanted tumbleweeds in the wind, once housed Japanese American internees, and both Italian and German prisoners-of-war.

The Tule Lake Branch Prisoner of War Camp (Camp Tulelake) was originally used as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the 1930's. (This camp should not be confused with the nearby Tule Lake War Relocation Center.) The camp, built between 1935 and 1938, contained some thirty structures - including administration, barracks, mess hall and hospital -- all grouped around a central courtyard.

Japanese Americans who were interned at the Tule Lake Relocation Center (five miles to the east) who refused to answer the WRA's loyalty questionnaire were arrested and temporarily held at the CCC camp. A second group of Japanese Americans arrived in October of 1943 when evacuee farm workers at the Tule Lake Relocation (Segregation) Center went on strike. To break the strike, 234 Japanese Americans from other relocation centers were brought in to harvest crops in the area. For their protection, the Japanese Americans were housed at the CCC camp.

As the war intensified in Europe, modifications were made to the CCC camp. A double fence was erected to form a compound around the barracks and mess hall. Four guard towers with searchlights were built at the corners; a patrol road, gate and sentry post were added as well.

Italian POWs lived at the camp first and then were replaced by German POWs in late 1944, after the Allied invasion of Normandy, France. The Italian and German POWs were brought in to help local farmers clear canals of moss and algae and to help in harvesting their crops. The Italian and German POWs were often paid more than the Japanese American internees to do the same type of work. Camp Tulelake reached its peak population of more than 800 POWs by the end of October 1944.

Today, only five of the original CCC buildings remain. The buildings, which include the mess hall and kitchen, a barracks, garage, paint shop, and pump house, are presently abandoned and in poor condition.

Camp Tulelake now resides on land within the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge. A barbed wire fence prevents public access to the buildings and no signs are posted to indicate the structures' historical significance. The current plan for the CCC/World War II POW camp is the demolition and destruction of the remaining buildings.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Tule
• Lake
• Internment
• Camp
• World
• War
• II
• Japanese
• Americans
• POWs

[loakjoe]

On December 5, 2008, President Bush signed an executive order designating the Tule Lake Japanese Internment Camp, including the former CCC camp (WWII POW camp), as part of the new World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.

[cjlisa153]

I was there last October and amazed to find that 10000 Japanese were interred there. I believe it was one of the last to close. The land is sparse and one of the few bldgs there is the prison. We were told that they hold a reunion just about every year for those Japanese families. I can't imagine what that would be like to be imprisoned based on my ethnic affiliation.

[Jarathe]

My grandfather was Charles Palmerlee. He was a teacher here and was able to get footage of what life was like inside out to the public.

[p47koji]

My dad and other family members were imprisoned there. He later volunteered for the US Army after the war and was assigned to their Military Intelligence Service.

[Robtseward]

Wish Bush would have done the same thing for Crystal City and the other INS Run Internment Camps, Ft. Lincoln, Fort Stanton, Seagoville, Camp Forrester, Camp Kennedy, Kamiah, Algiers, Missoula, Sand Island,and the others I can't think of at the moment

[Robtseward]

Wish Bush would have done the same thing for Crystal City and the other INS Run Internment Camps, Ft. Lincoln, Fort Stanton, Seagoville, Camp Forrester, Camp Kennedy, Kamiah, Algiers, Missoula, Sand Island,and the others I can't think of at the moment

[Iichyaa]

My great grandpa and grandma were sent to live there in Tule Lake.

[facmptr]

5 sars I liked it

[facmptr]

So it will be preserved?I think it should and have a marker telling what it is.Back i the 80's there was a article in theKlamath paper obout Zula from Star Trek,H e was in tha that place.

[Robtseward]

Pity that Bush didn't do the same thing for Crystal City. That internment camp housed Japanese Americans, German Americans Italian Americans and people from Latin America from all three ethnicities. Look at the documentary on you tube