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'CONDITIONS WERE DEPLORABLE' Tule Lake tours powerful for some Ranger-led tours of WWII sites in far northeastern California include internment camp Comment By Lee Juillerat for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Lee Juillerat for the Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 10, 2016 at 6:14 PM Updated Jul 11, 2016 at 10:12 AM By Lee Juillerat for the Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 10, 2016 at 6:14 PM Updated Jul 11, 2016 at 10:12 AM » Social News TULE LAKE UNIT — For two people who recently joined a ranger-led tour of the Tule Lake Segregation Center and Camp Tulelake, viewing the remnants of the past had special interest. Chyo Moriuchi, 61, from Bucks County, Pa., had been going through family documents when she discovered old newsletters and other items her parents had saved. Before they met and married, her parents were separately incarcerated at World War II detention centers in Rohwer, Arkansas, and Granada, Colo. "They didn't talk about it," said Moriuchi, who joined the tours, which are part of the Tule Lake Unit of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. She and her husband made an impromptu trip to the Tulelake Basin while visiting their daughter in Ashland. "I've been interested in the history because my parents and grandparents were part of the internment," she said. During World War II, following the hysteria created when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, about 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, nearly two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were forced to leave their homes. They were sent to 10 internment camps, including the 960-acre Tule Lake camp near present-day Newell. Among the other camps were Rohwer, Granada and Poston, Ariz., where the grandparents of Anne Defu, 48, Oakland, California, were sent. "Obviously, it's really powerful to come here," Defu said of touring Tule Lake. "It's super powerful to see where people were held. This is a very, very important site of all the camps," she noted, referring to Tule Lake's notoriety because it became the nation's largest camp and held "no no's," people who declined to sign a controversial loyalty oath. During a two-hour Tule Lake tour, ranger Kenneth Doutt encouraged discussions on what people believe is the most appropriate term for Tule Lake — internment, incarceration, prison or concentration camp. From the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fairgrounds meeting place, he led a driving tour that included stops at the camp's former entrance and a section of Block 73, where concrete slabs of a latrine remain. Tule Lake had 74 residential blocks, each with 14 barracks, 20 to 120 feet long, men's and women's latrines and showers, a laundry room, recreational building and mess hall. The original camp had only low barbed wire and six guard houses, but after it became a segregation center, 7-foot tall chain link fences with barbed wire were installed, movement outside the camp was restricted, and the number of guard towers with armed guards was increased to 28. "Conditions were deplorable," Doutt said. A stockade and jail were also built. Doutt led a tour of the jail, one of the few buildings that is part of the Tule Lake Segregation Center. Among the barely visible pencil scribblings on the jail's walls are, "Show me the way to go home," and "I support Japan." Doutt also led an hour-long afternoon tour at Camp Tulelake, which is part of the Tule Lake Unit. The camp was built in 1935 to house Civilian Conservation Corps workers. The program, established by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, provided work for men age 17 to 28. The camp was closed in 1942 and reopened a year later to house more than 100 men from the Tule Lake Detention Center who refused to answer yes to the loyalty questionnaire. Later, following a death at Tule Lake and a resulting strike, 243 people from other segregation centers lived at Camp Tulelake to harvest Tulelake Basin crops. In 1944, Italian prisoners of war helped convert the camp to house German POWs. At its peak in October 1944, the camp housed 800 German POWs who helped plant, tend and harvest onions and potatoes. According to Doutt, although many of the POWs were captured on battlefields in Europe and North Africa, they were allowed more freedoms than Japanese-Americans at Tule Lake. From 1946 until 1974, Camp Tulelake was operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since 2006, restoration work has been done on some of the four remaining buildings. Recently introduced bills in Congress would separate the Tule Unit from the larger World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, which was created by executive order by President George W. Bush. The park's other units are in California. Park officials note there are no plans to expand boundaries of the Tule Unit. For more information, see the unit's website at www.nps.gov/t/contacts.htm . Reach freelance writer Lee Juillerat at [email protected]. By Lee Juillerat for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Lee Juillerat for the Mail Tribune Posted Jul. 10, 2016 at 6:14 PM Updated Jul 11, 2016 at 10:12 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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