Nisei
The population of the Hawaiian Islands was, by the end of the 1930s, largely American and Japanese, and of the 160,000 Japanese two-thirds of them were American born and thus American citizens. Because of racial provisions in the legislation of the time, Oriental people were not permitted to become naturalized American citizens. The desire of the nisei, as they were known, to preserve their cultural identity led many influential Americans to suppose that they were disloyal to the USA. Indeed, Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton, Jr., when chief of intelligence in Hawaii from 1935 to 1937, wrote a paper, A General Staff Study. Plan: Initial Seizure of Orange [i.e. Japanese] Nationals, in which he seriously set out a scheme to incarcerate 128 members of Hawaii's Japanese community as hostages on the outbreak of war with Japan. Of these individuals 95 were Japanese citizens. Although this plan was not adopted, the attitude remained and when the war warning message of 27 November was received by Lieutenant-General Walter C. Short (Short, Walter C.) his first thought was to guard against sabotage. As a result aircraft at fields such as Ewa Marine Corps Air Station were grouped together to make them easy to guard against subversive action and equally easy to strafe from the air. On the mainland Japanese-Americans were interned on the outbreak of the war.
See also: Ewa Marine Corps Air Station; Hawaiian Islands; Knox, Frank; Short, Walter C.