February 21, 1942: House of Representatives begins hearings about removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast.
I was completely unaware that hearings had occurred.
Interestingly enough, a spy in Hawaii who was detected and convicted for his efforts, was convicted on this day, which she also reports. The spy, in the pay of the Japanese, wasn't a Japanese American or immigrant, but rather Dr. Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn, a physician, whose entire family was in the pay of Imperial Japan.
The arrangements had actually been made by the German Abwehr through Goebbels, who had used Kuehn's 17-year-old daughter as a paramour. Indeed, her role as his mistress may have played a part in the selection of her father and mother, and ultimately her and her 11-year-old brother, for this task, as at the point they were chosen, he may have tired of her and this provided a convenient way to send her packing. Her father, a veteran of the German Navy during World War One, had become a post-war physician whose practice failed, leading him to become an ardent and somewhat influential Nazi.
They set up a system of sending coded messages by flashlight from their attic, something that wasn't detected until the Pearl Harbor attack. Various adult members of the family were then arrested, tried and convicted. Kuehn was sentenced to death, but he cooperated with American intelligence at that point and provided valuable information to the US on spy networks in the country. His sentence was commuted to 50 years, but following the war he was deported to Germany. His detained and convicted family joined him there.
On the same day, U-boats were very active in the Caribbean, sinking several ships. The German Navy also sent the Scheer and Prinz Eugen from Germany to Bergen Navy. The RAF is unable to interdict them.
The Saturday news magazines were out, it being that day. The Saturday Evening Post went to press with a color photograph of an anti-aircraft gun crewman sighting through the gun's sight. Liberty featured a woman looking through a Valentine style heart, in what must have been its belated Valentine's Day issue. It featured an article on Lourdes. Colliers featured a cartoon of a woman in the Army (or maybe the Marines) and a Sailor, sitting on something, back to back, with a heart behind them, in their Valentine's Day issue, apparently. The sailor is oversize and athletic, and the female soldier/marine, extraordinarily buxom with her slip very much showing. This demonstrates a real trend that was going on in society at the time that we recently discussed, and probably ought to a bit more when we have the chance.
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