THE DRAFT

Mike Masaoka tried to avert the mass expulsion by offering to have the Nisei form a "suicide battalion" to undertake the most dangerous missions, with their parents held in government camps as hostages to ensure the loyalty of the soldiers. The Army quickly rejected the idea.

As the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor approached, Masaoka called an emergency meeting of the JACL in Salt Lake City, and Masaoka steered the group to petition the government to reopen the draft to the Nisei. The government responded by accepting volunteers for a segregated combat team led by white officers, and Masaoka was the first to volunteer for it.

A year later, in January 1944, the War Department did reinstitute the draft for the Nisei in the camps, sparking dissent and, at Heart Mountain, the organization of the Fair Play Committee to protest for clarification of their rights. Camp administrators watched anxiously as the first draft orders reached Heart Mountain, but on the day the first group was called all 17 boarded the bus that took them to their pre-induction physicals. Then the trouble started.