Study examines little-known WWII internment camp in Alaska

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — Alice Tanaka Hikido clearly remembers the bewilderment and sense of violation she felt 74 years ago when FBI agents rifled through her family's Juneau home, then arrested her father before he was sent to Japanese internment camps, including a little-known camp in pre-statehood Alaska.

The 83-year-old Campbell, California, woman recently attended a ceremony where participants unveiled a study of the short-lived internment camp at what is now Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.

Hikido herself was interned at Idaho's Minidoka camp with her mother, younger sister and two brothers a few months after her father's arrest during one of the nation's darkest chapters — the forced incarceration of tens of thousands people of Japanese ancestry, including Americans, during World War II.

An estimated 145 others, including some Alaska Natives who took Japanese names in marriage, also would be sent to internment camps outside the territory under Executive Order 9066, which launched the exile of about 120,000 Japanese-Americans.

Researchers discovered debris such as .30 carbine rounds and barbed wire fragments at the site, but they were unable to find anything definitely connected with the camp, Blanchard said.