Mary Dombrowksi is the brave woman who challenged Bainbridge Island’s biased Japanese internment curriculum. She has now produced a half-dozen DVDs that relate to Japanese internment.

I just watched the first episode, an interview with Jack Klamm, a Naval radioman who was stationed at Fort Ward’s Station S during WWII. It was excellent. (See the extended entry below for further thoughts on Klamm’s comments.)

Here is a list of the DVDs:

Episode #1: Interview with Klamm

Episode #2 is a planned 2nd interview with Klamm; it is not yet available.

Episode #3: WRA footage of relocation camps 1944.

Episode #4: Constitutionality of 9066, MAGIC, Tokyo Syndicate, murders of Issei loyal to U.S. at relocation centers.

Episode #5: Hirabayashi hearings, CWRIC, David Lowman’s testimony

Episode #6: Martial law in Hawaii, Niihau incident, public education about internment and relocation.

I understand Dombrowski is charging $10 per DVD to recoup the costs of production. For more information, contact her via e-mail at sparta_one@msn.com.

I was particularly interested in Klamm’s discussion of a top-secret message sent by Japan’s Seattle consulate to Tokyo on August 16, 1941–one of thousands so-called “MAGIC” messages surreptitiously intercepted and decrypted by U.S. cryptanalysts. The message read, “According to a spy report, the English warship Warspite entered Bremerton two or three days ago.” Klamm remembers the arrival of the Warspite. He says the ship entered Bremerton at night to avoid detection, and that Japan’s spies must have been very alert to observe its arrival.

My critics, such as Greg Robinson, argue that the MAGIC cables “detail various efforts by Japan to build [espionage] networks, and list hopes or intentions rather than actions or results.” However, dozens of MAGIC messages (of which the August 16, 1941, cable referenced by Klamm is just one) provided specific intelligence about specific U.S. ports, military bases, and airfields, including specific ship and airplane movements, hangar construction, and cargo loads–information that in at least two instances was explicitly attributed to Japan’s spies. The fact that Japan’s spies were able to observe Warspite’s stealthy arrival in the darkness of night is a useful reminder of how hard it was to keep such information from enemy eyes.

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