Japanese-American Claims Act
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack sank four U.S. battleships, destroyed 188 U.S. aircraft, and killed 2,403 U.S. citizens within two hours, and led to the United States joining World War II. Once the United States entered the war and anti-Japanese sentiment began to circulate, Americans increasingly reacted with racism and hostility, viewing people of Japanese descent were treated as enemies regardless of whether they were U.S. citizens. The U.S. government expressed concerns about the loyalty of the Japanese people living in America and about Japanese spies sending information to Japan. "The U.S. Department of the Treasury froze the assets of all citizens and resident aliens who were born in Japan, and the Department of Justice arrested some 1,500 religious and community leaders as potentially dangerous enemy aliens. Because many of the largest populations of Japanese Americans were in close proximity to vital war assets along the Pacific coast. The result was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066."
Strafing off Barber's Point
The "Kiho Maru", "Myojin Maru", "Shin-ei Maru",and the "Sumiyoshi Maru" had set out days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor. According to one of the survivors Seiki Arakaki (1920–1987) his sampan the "Kiho Maru" captained by Sutematsu Kida had been at sea since December 4. On the morning of December 7th he and the crew saw columns of smoke rising from Pearl Harbor and believed “Something was happening”. When night fell, Oahu was abnormally dark from the wartime blackout. That night he learned of the Attack from another sampan with a radio that pulled up alongside. On December 8 the "Kiho Maru" set course to return to her home port of Kewalo Basin along with the three other sampans also returning to Kewalo Basin. Arakaki recalled when the four fishing boats were two miles from Barber's Point, “There were four or five Army P-40s flying over us,… Each picked out a target and attacked”. Sutematsu Kida, his son Kiichi Kida, and Kiho Uyehara were killed leaving only Arakaki alive but shot in the knee. On the "Myojin Maru" captained by Kaichi Okada; he, Ogawa Mataichi, and Riyozo Okogi were killed off only Sannosuke Onishi (1899–1982) survived. On the other two sampans five were wounded and two were unscathed. A Coast Guard destroyer arrived and sent launches to connect the ship to the two crippled sampans and tow the boats the rest of the way to Kewalo Basin.The seven wounded were sent to Queens Hospital and put under armed guard. Arakaki said in his AP interview he and the other fishermen had been interrogated, accused of aiding Japanese submarines and being in possession of “enemy bullets”. In retrospect the strafing was believed to be in reprisal to the Attack in Pearl Harbor being that the fishing industry was ethnically dominated by Japanese-Americans. The report stated the sampans were “returning fire”. Despite these allegations the incident was an instance of mistaken identity when the planes incorrectly identified the sampans as Japanese naval vessels.