Rohwer

story and photos by Hardy Peacock

There is almost nothing there, now. If you don’t know where you are going or specifically what you are looking for you will miss it completely. Cultivation runs in all directions. Some years it will be rice or soybeans, but mostly it is endless fields of cotton.

There is a sign between Kelso and Rohwer with an arrow that points across the long-abandoned railroad.

To get to Rohwer you have to be on Arkansas Highway 1 between Kelso and MacArthur. Okay, take US 165 North out of Dumas to Arkansas 1 South, go through Watson, and follow the railroad track until you see the sign that says, “Rohwer Relocation Center.”

Sixty years ago this was the largest city in Desha County and at its peak was home to about 8,500 people. This was the Rohwer Relocation Center, also known as the “Jap Camp.” I realize that term is not in polite usage at this time, but in 1942 it was regularly used in newscasts and in newspapers.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor there was a great deal of confusion. There was a general feeling in the entire country that someone ought to “do something.” President Roosevelt signed Executive Order #9066 and Executive Order #9102. The first prohibited persons of Japanese ancestry from living on the West Coast and the latter created the War Relocation Authority.

Most historians agree that the primary offense of this group was being identifiable.

There are mixed feelings even sixty years later in Southeast Arkansas. Most people who lived through the time feel that it was an interesting mistake. One of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but didn’t quite work out.

Some people who were children at that time remember the camp as a place where men who were too old to join the army could get a good job. It seems that good jobs were a rare commodity in the Delta in 1942 and this was viewed as an industry.

More than a few residents say that any fences constructed were as much to keep locals out as much as to keep any internees in. The housing was comparable and the food was better in the camp than in the surrounding countryside. I can’t find anyone that remembers any serious effort at guarding the place and internees could visit surrounding towns pretty much as transportation was available.

The ethnic mix fit in fairly well and most of the relations seemed relaxed and cordial if you ignore the incident in the first months of the construction of the camp when a group of Japanese Americans who were clearing brush were taken to the Desha County Sheriff and turned in as “Japanese Paratroopers.”

I promise that I am not making this up and I am sure it was a harrowing experience for all concerned, but images of Gomer Pyle chasing Barney and shouting, “Citizens arrest! Citizens arrest!” keep running through my mind. I can’t help but feel like there is a movie in there, somewhere.

That seems to be the only incident that occurred or at least is the only one anyone admits. Most of the other folklore I have run across involves friendships, business relationships, and fishing stories. I do know that most of these stories involve man-to-man contacts and that the women and the children had very little contact with the outside world. I am told that this is largely because the Japanese-American Culture at that time was male-dominated. I promise you that it was no more male-dominated than the prevailing culture of Desha County at that time.

There were two internment camps in Arkansas, one at Rohwer and one just South of Dermott at Jerome. They were operated from 1942 until late 1944. All of the people of Japanese ancestry were moved from Jerome to Rohwer in early 1944 and that camp was refitted to handle German prisoners of war. When you consider these two camps, plus the P. O. W. camps at Stuttgart and Monticello you begin to get an idea of the economic impact on Southeast Arkansas.

This economic impact is still evident. When the camps were closed there was a great need for housing in this area. Many of the structures were moved intact to McGehee and Dumas, set up as dwellings, and some are still in use today. Others were deconstructed and the materials were used to construct new housing. The 120 acres at the camp headquarters was deeded to the Desha Central School District which was consolidated with Watson Schools in the late sixties to form the Delta School District which was consolidated this year with the McGehee Schools. The camp hospital became the main building of Desha Central Schools and the camp gymnasium was used for many years.

Very little is left at the site. The brick chimney of the hospital emergency generating station still stands and a quonset building being used as a private farm shop seem to be about all.

On the South edge of the original camp property is the little cemetery and the monuments. Twenty-four graves are in a small grove of trees at the end of a gravel road. Two monuments built by the residents from the materials at hand honor the residents of the Rohwer Relocation Center who were killed in Italy and France while members of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regiment. This unit, made up of Nisei-American Volunteers was the most decorated American Unit of World War II. Two more monuments commemorating thier service and honoring all of the internees were added in 1992.

In 1986 my family and I were visiting in San Francisco. On Sunday morning we went to the Pines Memorial United Methodist Church. It was a Nisei -American Congregation. The hymns and the sermon were in English. The communion service was in Japanese and English. After the service we were invited to lunch. When they found that we were from Winchester, Arkansas it created a stir. Several members of the congregation had been in the Rohwer camp during the war. They asked about the area and some of the family names that they remembered. We practically had old home week. My dad corresponded with some of the people we met that day for several years.

The most striking monument is designed to resemble a tank as the 442nd was a heavy armor unit. The concrete posts surrounding the cemetery resemble the tank barriers constructed across Europe by the Germans.

The sound of a tracked vehicle operating in open terrain is completely unique. It is a mixture of diesel engine roar, gear rumble, and the clanking of tread belts. As I stood facing the concrete tank and trying to focus my camera a bulldozer out of my sight behind the trees fired up and began rumbling and clanking about its duties. For just a moment it was as if the 442nd was back in business. I could see the young men that had to beg for the right to be there.

Even the survivors are old men now and the young tankers live only in memory. I feel it is important that we recognize the history that surrounds us. I believe it beyond incredible that these young men had to beg for the right to defend their country. I am overwhelmed by the idea that they did this while their families were still in internment camps. We are all honored by the fact that these young men were Americans.

No American citizen of Japanese descent was convicted of any form of espionage or sabotage during World War II.

With the luxury of sixty years of hindsight it would be very easy to condemn Mr. Roosevelt, the executive orders, the internment camps, and deplore the actions taken by all concerned. It might be well to remember that times were perilous and most people were frightened. We cannot say what we would have done in the same situation.

You learn to make good decisions through experience. You get the experience by making bad decisions. We now have the experience. We do not need to make this kind of mistake again.

I suppose the real problem with the school of experience is that you never graduate.