Dodd Field (Fort Sam Houston) Enemy Alien Detention Station -- San Antonio TX - World War II Sites on Waymarking.com

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

The Dodd Field Enemy Alien Detention camp for American immigrants and American citizens of German, Japanese, or Italian ancestry during WWII operated for several months during 1942, before its detainees were wither paroled or sent to other detention camps.
The marker reads as follows:

"Dodd Field (Fort Sam Houston) Enemy Alien Detention Station
World War II

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"

Related Website: [Web Link] Admission Fee: 0 Opening Days/Times: 24/7 Supplementary Related Website: Not listed

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