History of Hawaii
Pearl Harbor was surprisingly attacked on December 7, 1941 by the Imperial Japanese Navy, killing 2,403 people and sinking the main American battleship fleet. Fortuitously, the four Pacific aircraft carriers were not in port and escaped damage. Hawaii was put under martial law until 1945. Unlike the West Coast of the United States in which 100,000 ethnic Japanese citizens were interned, the Japanese American population in Hawaii completely avoided such similar fate, though hundreds of pro-Japan leaders were arrested. Pearl Harbor was the U.S.' main forward base for the Pacific War. The Japanese tried to invade in summer 1942 but were defeated at the Battle of Midway. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen passed through on their way to the fighting.
Aftermath of World War II
During the war, the United States government interned approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Canada interned approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians, 14,000 of whom were born in Canada. After the war, some internees chose to return to Japan, while most remained in North America.