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.
Edwin E. Ellis
Edwin Earl Ellis (born August 28, 1924) was an American inventor and photographer. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1949 as a photographer. During this time he participated in the landings at the Battle of Okinawa. Most notably, he was a photographer on Operation Highjump, becoming one of the first people to visually document Antarctica. The Ellis Fjord and the Ellis Glacier are named after him. After the South Pole, he went to Norfolk, and was part of the crew that commissioned the USS Coral Sea (CV-43). He was also the founder of the Ellis Trailer Park in Paducah. The land it sat on is now owned by Cardinal Lanes.