Dodd Field (Fort Sam Houston) Enemy Alien Detention Station, World War II - Texas Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This historic marker is located on Winans Road, a public street between the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery and part of the Fort Sam Houston military installation, where the former Dodd Field was located.

Marker Number: 17381 Marker Text: Shocked by the December 7, 1941, Empire of Japan attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that propelled the U.S. into World War II, one U.S. Government response was the incarceration of more than 120,000 Issei (first generation, Japanese immigrants) and Nisei (second generation, U.S. citizens) in War Relocation Authority camps across the country. Through separate confinement programs, thousands of Japanese, German, and Italian citizens in the U.S. (and in many cases, their U.S. citizen relatives), classified as enemy aliens, were detained by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through its Enemy Alien Control Unit, and, in Latin America, by the Department of State’s Special War Problems Division. Enemy aliens were held until paroled or exchanged for U.S. and Allied citizens seized overseas by Axis nations. Texas hosted three DOJ confinement sites, administered by The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at Crystal City, Kenedy, and Seagoville, as well as two U.S. Army Temporary Detention Stations at Fort Bliss (El Paso) and here. The U.S. Army held enemy aliens across the U.S. wherever the number of apprehensions was too few for the INS to operate a detention facility. Beginning in February 1942, the first detainees were held at the “Old Infantry Long Barracks.” By April 1942 the site was relocated here, the post’s former airfield –– Dodd Field. The site encompassed 20 acres surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence with eight elevated guard towers overlooking two compounds of Victory Huts. Through paroles and repatriations, the population fluctuated considerably; never more than 150 at a time. In late 1942, the DOJ’s Special Alien Enemy Hearing Board began transferring detainees to INS camps, as the U.S. War Department prepared to house prisoners of war. Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention Station closed in late 1942. Texas in World War II – 2013 Marker is property of the State of Texas

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Date Logged Log   01/14/2018 Benchmark Blasterz visited it