Ellis Island
During and immediately following World War II, Ellis Island was used to hold German merchant mariners and "enemy aliens"—Axis nationals detained for fear of spying, sabotage, and other fifth column activity. In December 1941, Ellis Island held 279 Japanese, 248 Germans, and 81 Italians removed from the East Coast. Unlike other wartime immigration detention stations, Ellis Island was designated as a permanent holding facility and was used to hold foreign nationals throughout the war. A total of 7,000 Germans, Italians and Japanese would be ultimately detained at Ellis Island. It was also a processing center for returning sick or wounded U.S. soldiers, and a Coast Guard training base. Ellis Island still managed to process tens of thousands of immigrants per year during this time, but many fewer than the hundreds of thousands per year who arrived before the war. After the war, immigration rapidly returned to earlier levels.
United States Marine Corps Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion
The most profound war prophet that lived was perhaps Lt. Colonel Earl H. Ellis. Ellis was a United States Marine Corps Intelligence Officer, and author of "Operations Plan 712: Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia", which became the basis for the American campaign of amphibious assault that defeated the Japanese in World War II. Ellis' prophetic study helped establish his reputation among the forefront of naval theorists and strategists of the era in amphibious warfare, foreseeing the eminent attack from Japan leading to the island-hopping campaigns in Central Pacific twenty years before the United States entered World War II. He is sometimes credited in being the 'first' recon Marine in the United States due to a secretive spy mission in the Pacific, reporting the build-up of Japanese naval forces.