Karl Bendetsen
Encyclopedia
Karl Robin Bendetsen (October 11, 1907 – June 28, 1989) was born in Aberdeen, Washington
. His parents, Albert M. and Anna Bendetson, were first-generation American citizens, and his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Karl changed the spelling of his last name during early 1942, and would later make written claims to descent from Danish lumbermen who had come to America as early as 1670.
Bendetsen is remembered primarily for his role as architect of the internment of Japanese Americans
during World War II
(a role he tried to downplay in later years).
As he matured, Karl entered Army ROTC, eventually taking an infantry commission in the Army Reserve.
In early September 1941, Bendetson was sent to Hawaii
to discuss the need to intern enemy aliens in case of war. He noted in his notes that there were 134,000 American citizens of Japanese descent in the islands, and worried that "good Americans" might "give Japs the benefit of the doubt" for economic reasons.
In November, Bendetson was sent to take over an aircraft plant in New Jersey
, as part of a plan by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to boost production of factories making materiel
needed by Great Britain
.
Major Bendetson was given this assignment after having written the orders for seizure and strike-breaking at a North American Aviation
plant, but the army had taken charge of the Air Associates plant in October, prior to his arrival. In later years, however, Bendetsen would describe a wild scene of standing on his overturned car to face down the "mass" of strikers who had blocked his way into the plant.
The strike settled, Bendetson was back at his own desk in early December.
arrested a number of leaders in the Japanese American communities in Washington, Oregon and California. While the government was worried that these leaders had been involved in anti-American activity on behalf of the Empire of Japan
, eventually, all were cleared of any wrongdoing.
However, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066
in early 1942, which authorized military commanders to designate "exclusion zones", "from which any or all persons may be excluded" for reasons of military security.
Following that authorization, Bendetsen (he had changed his name by this time) developed a plan by which all persons of Japanese ancestry, whether foreign-born alien or American-citizen "non-alien," were forced to leave the three West Coast states and southern Arizona. He then pressured Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt
to accept his plan, rather than the less-restrictive one which DeWitt had originally intended.
Initially, only the western parts of the coastal states were designated "Exclusion Zone 1," and many Japanese Americans moved to the eastern portions of their home states, while several thousand moved to other states. Bendetsen would later call this "voluntary relocation," though the moves were done at the orders of the government. Then, the government announced that the coastal states were "Exclusion Zone 2," and prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving either Exclusion Zone. Only those who had moved to other states escaped being rounded up and confined in makeshift "assembly centers" (mostly horse stalls at racetracks and fairgrounds),then later internment in relocation centers.
While Bendetsen and other supporters of internment cited military necessity (and continue to do so), reports by the FBI and by the Office of Naval Intelligence
had stated that not only were vast majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry loyal, but likewise their parents (who had been denied American citizenship) were loyal to the United States and held no allegiance to Japan.
Bendetsen also ordered that any person, no matter their age, who had "one drop of Japanese blood" were to be interned. This included the removal of infants from orphanages and the transportation of hospital patients, a number of whom died when their care was cut off. He would later claim that the orders were not so broad-sweeping, though even Military Intelligence Service officers of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave California.
Throughout the rest of the war, Bendetsen and DeWitt opposed army orders that soldiers of Japanese ancestry be allowed to enter the coastal states while on leave or on military assignment. The reason for opposition was primarily political, and the fear of ridicule when the soldiers had proven patriotic Americans while the government had spent millions of dollars to put those soldiers' families behind barbed wire.
Over the years, he made many contradictory claims, each apparently intended to impress his audience. Others were made to hide his Jewish ancestry.
library. Speaking to historian Jerry Hess, Bendetsen claimed to have spent "late 1941" carrying "the title of Special Representative of the Secretary of War" to have conferences with Major General Douglas MacArthur
in the Philippines
. He also claimed to have stopped to meet with Lieutenant General Walter C. Short (the military commander in charge of Hawaiian defenses) and Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
(commander of the Pacific Fleet), leaving only days before the Pearl Harbor
attacks.
In this oral history, Bendetsen tells in great detail that the United Air Lines plane returning him from Hawaii had landed in Washington at 9 a.m. on December 7, with Bendetsen carrying a "a personal and important message" from General Short
to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. He states that been told that Marshall was out riding his horse, "so why don't you go home, kiss your wife . . .be here by 10 a.m." Then, Bendetsen continues, upon reaching the house an urgent phone call summoned him back to the office and he was told of the Pearl Harbor attacks "twenty minutes later."
However, army records (and his earlier claims) show no such trips to the Pacific, and it would not have been possible for him to have been the house guest of Generals MacArthur and Short while at the same time staring down hundreds of strikers while standing on the door of his overturned car in New Jersey.
Moreover, the Pearl Harbor attack began a few minutes before 8:00, Hawaiian Time Zone, which was 1:00 p.m. in the District of Columbia—thus, Bendetsen has a detailed, word-for-word memory of being advised of the Japanese attack at a time when the first wave of planes were still tied to the decks of their aircraft carriers.
The timing errors become more obvious when one considers that someone who landed at the Washington airport at 9:00 could not collect the luggage needed on a trans-Pacific trip and drive from there to the Chief of Staff's office with enough time to spare that he would be told to go home to Bethesda, Maryland
and "be here by 10:00 a. m."
Bendetsen claims to have been sent home by Bedell Smith
, whom he says was pulling a watch as Assistant Secretary to the Chief of Staff. However, Smith had been appointed Secretary in September 1941, and would not have been pulling any kind of office watch, especially not on a Sunday morning.
Further claims include Bendetsen's knowing the contents of "urgent and private" messages from both Short and Admiral Kimmel
, intended for General Marshall. There are several reasons that this is nearly impossible. First, if they were urgent, they would have been encrypted and sent by cablegram, rather than risking their loss on a 19-hour flight from Hawaii to California, and delaying them by an additional day across the United States. Second, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet would have no reason to send messages to the Army Chief of Staff, 5000 miles away. Lastly, should there have been such messages, and they had been entrusted to a major who was just passing through (instead of a designated "officer courier"), there is no way that major would have read them—the envelopes would have been sealed and marked TOP SECRET.
This interview took place in October, 1972, at a time when the Academy Award-winning film Tora! Tora! Tora!
was finishing its second run in the theaters. The film had boosted familiarity with the sequence of events, and there was much discussion of the roles (and apparent scapegoating) of Short and Kimmel, as well as various of the details found in Bendetsen's rich narrative of events in Washington that morning.
Unfortunately, Bendetsen confused the timing of events—he claims to have arrived at Marshall's office at the time when (according to the movie), Colonel Rufus S. Bratton
was desperately trying to reach Marshall with warning of the impending attack.
However:
Aberdeen, Washington
Aberdeen is a city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States, founded by Samuel Benn in 1884. Aberdeen was incorporated on May 12, 1890. The city is the economic center of Grays Harbor County, bordering the cities of Hoquiam and Cosmopolis...
. His parents, Albert M. and Anna Bendetson, were first-generation American citizens, and his grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Karl changed the spelling of his last name during early 1942, and would later make written claims to descent from Danish lumbermen who had come to America as early as 1670.
Bendetsen is remembered primarily for his role as architect of the internment of Japanese Americans
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(a role he tried to downplay in later years).
Prior to World War II
Bendetson (as he was then known) enlisted in the Washington National Guard, at the age of fourteen. While this was well below legal age, the National Guard turned a blind eye to the many young men who desired to enlist while who were still in—or (as in Karls' case) had yet to enter—high school.As he matured, Karl entered Army ROTC, eventually taking an infantry commission in the Army Reserve.
1941
Bendetson, now a major, was on the administrative staff of Judge Advocate General Major General Allen W. Guillion.In early September 1941, Bendetson was sent to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
to discuss the need to intern enemy aliens in case of war. He noted in his notes that there were 134,000 American citizens of Japanese descent in the islands, and worried that "good Americans" might "give Japs the benefit of the doubt" for economic reasons.
In November, Bendetson was sent to take over an aircraft plant in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, as part of a plan by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to boost production of factories making materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....
needed by Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
.
Major Bendetson was given this assignment after having written the orders for seizure and strike-breaking at a North American Aviation
North American Aviation
North American Aviation was a major US aerospace manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft, including the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and the XB-70, as well as Apollo Command and Service...
plant, but the army had taken charge of the Air Associates plant in October, prior to his arrival. In later years, however, Bendetsen would describe a wild scene of standing on his overturned car to face down the "mass" of strikers who had blocked his way into the plant.
The strike settled, Bendetson was back at his own desk in early December.
Architect of Japanese American internment
In the hours following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, the Federal Bureau of InvestigationFederal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
arrested a number of leaders in the Japanese American communities in Washington, Oregon and California. While the government was worried that these leaders had been involved in anti-American activity on behalf of the Empire of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, eventually, all were cleared of any wrongdoing.
However, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066
United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...
in early 1942, which authorized military commanders to designate "exclusion zones", "from which any or all persons may be excluded" for reasons of military security.
Following that authorization, Bendetsen (he had changed his name by this time) developed a plan by which all persons of Japanese ancestry, whether foreign-born alien or American-citizen "non-alien," were forced to leave the three West Coast states and southern Arizona. He then pressured Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt
John L. DeWitt
John Lesesne DeWitt was a general in the United States Army, best known for his vocal support of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II....
to accept his plan, rather than the less-restrictive one which DeWitt had originally intended.
Initially, only the western parts of the coastal states were designated "Exclusion Zone 1," and many Japanese Americans moved to the eastern portions of their home states, while several thousand moved to other states. Bendetsen would later call this "voluntary relocation," though the moves were done at the orders of the government. Then, the government announced that the coastal states were "Exclusion Zone 2," and prohibited Japanese Americans from leaving either Exclusion Zone. Only those who had moved to other states escaped being rounded up and confined in makeshift "assembly centers" (mostly horse stalls at racetracks and fairgrounds),then later internment in relocation centers.
While Bendetsen and other supporters of internment cited military necessity (and continue to do so), reports by the FBI and by the Office of Naval Intelligence
Office of Naval Intelligence
The Office of Naval Intelligence was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland...
had stated that not only were vast majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry loyal, but likewise their parents (who had been denied American citizenship) were loyal to the United States and held no allegiance to Japan.
Bendetsen also ordered that any person, no matter their age, who had "one drop of Japanese blood" were to be interned. This included the removal of infants from orphanages and the transportation of hospital patients, a number of whom died when their care was cut off. He would later claim that the orders were not so broad-sweeping, though even Military Intelligence Service officers of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave California.
Throughout the rest of the war, Bendetsen and DeWitt opposed army orders that soldiers of Japanese ancestry be allowed to enter the coastal states while on leave or on military assignment. The reason for opposition was primarily political, and the fear of ridicule when the soldiers had proven patriotic Americans while the government had spent millions of dollars to put those soldiers' families behind barbed wire.
Reparation opponent
Bendetsen joined others who had been involved in the exclusion and internment in opposition to the Congressional hearings which determined that there had been no just cause for the actions taken against the Japanese American communities. He was adamantly opposed to the calls for reparations to be paid to internment camp survivors.Embellishments and falsehoods
After the war, Bendetsen's claims of his importance to the army and role in the war grew, while admissions of his role in the internment shrank.Over the years, he made many contradictory claims, each apparently intended to impress his audience. Others were made to hide his Jewish ancestry.
Pearl Harbor
One of the greatest of these claims was given when interviewed in 1972 for the Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
library. Speaking to historian Jerry Hess, Bendetsen claimed to have spent "late 1941" carrying "the title of Special Representative of the Secretary of War" to have conferences with Major General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. He also claimed to have stopped to meet with Lieutenant General Walter C. Short (the military commander in charge of Hawaiian defenses) and Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
Husband E. Kimmel
Husband Edward Kimmel was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy. He served as Commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of the attack, he was removed from office and was reduced to his permanent two-star rank of rear admiral...
(commander of the Pacific Fleet), leaving only days before the Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
attacks.
In this oral history, Bendetsen tells in great detail that the United Air Lines plane returning him from Hawaii had landed in Washington at 9 a.m. on December 7, with Bendetsen carrying a "a personal and important message" from General Short
Walter Short
Walter Campbell Short was a Major General in the United States Army and the U.S. military Commander responsible for the defense of U.S. military installations in Hawaii at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.-Early life:He was born in 1880 in Fillmore, Illinois...
to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall. He states that been told that Marshall was out riding his horse, "so why don't you go home, kiss your wife . . .be here by 10 a.m." Then, Bendetsen continues, upon reaching the house an urgent phone call summoned him back to the office and he was told of the Pearl Harbor attacks "twenty minutes later."
However, army records (and his earlier claims) show no such trips to the Pacific, and it would not have been possible for him to have been the house guest of Generals MacArthur and Short while at the same time staring down hundreds of strikers while standing on the door of his overturned car in New Jersey.
Moreover, the Pearl Harbor attack began a few minutes before 8:00, Hawaiian Time Zone, which was 1:00 p.m. in the District of Columbia—thus, Bendetsen has a detailed, word-for-word memory of being advised of the Japanese attack at a time when the first wave of planes were still tied to the decks of their aircraft carriers.
The timing errors become more obvious when one considers that someone who landed at the Washington airport at 9:00 could not collect the luggage needed on a trans-Pacific trip and drive from there to the Chief of Staff's office with enough time to spare that he would be told to go home to Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...
and "be here by 10:00 a. m."
Bendetsen claims to have been sent home by Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior United States Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy...
, whom he says was pulling a watch as Assistant Secretary to the Chief of Staff. However, Smith had been appointed Secretary in September 1941, and would not have been pulling any kind of office watch, especially not on a Sunday morning.
Further claims include Bendetsen's knowing the contents of "urgent and private" messages from both Short and Admiral Kimmel
Husband E. Kimmel
Husband Edward Kimmel was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy. He served as Commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Because of the attack, he was removed from office and was reduced to his permanent two-star rank of rear admiral...
, intended for General Marshall. There are several reasons that this is nearly impossible. First, if they were urgent, they would have been encrypted and sent by cablegram, rather than risking their loss on a 19-hour flight from Hawaii to California, and delaying them by an additional day across the United States. Second, the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet would have no reason to send messages to the Army Chief of Staff, 5000 miles away. Lastly, should there have been such messages, and they had been entrusted to a major who was just passing through (instead of a designated "officer courier"), there is no way that major would have read them—the envelopes would have been sealed and marked TOP SECRET.
This interview took place in October, 1972, at a time when the Academy Award-winning film Tora! Tora! Tora!
Tora! Tora! Tora!
is a 1970 American-Japanese war film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to the extent these facts were known at the time of production. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars an all-star cast, including So Yamamura, E.G...
was finishing its second run in the theaters. The film had boosted familiarity with the sequence of events, and there was much discussion of the roles (and apparent scapegoating) of Short and Kimmel, as well as various of the details found in Bendetsen's rich narrative of events in Washington that morning.
Unfortunately, Bendetsen confused the timing of events—he claims to have arrived at Marshall's office at the time when (according to the movie), Colonel Rufus S. Bratton
Rufus S. Bratton
Colonel Rufus S. Bratton was Chief of the Far Eastern Section of the Intelligence Branch of the Military Intelligence Division in the War Department in December 1941, when the United States entered World War II....
was desperately trying to reach Marshall with warning of the impending attack.
Family histories
Bendetsen's grandparents had emigrated from Lithuania and Poland in the 1860s. His father was born in New York, and was co-owner of a clothing store.However:
- In early 1942, Karl changed the spelling of his name from "Bendetson" to "Bendetsen."
- In 1970, Bendetsen claimed (for the National Cyclopedia of American Biography) that he was "grandson of Benedict and Dora Robbins Bendetsen, and great-grandson of Benedict Benediktssen, who came to this country from Denmark about 1815 . . ." In truth, Bendetsen's paternal grandparents were Samuel A. and Catherine Rabbin Bendetson, who were born in Germany (1830) and Poland (1838), respectively.
- In 1983, he took time from testifying in opposition to redress for Japanese American internment camp survivors to describe how his first Danish ancestor "came over here in 1670, decided he didn't want to be a sailor, he wanted to be a farmer . . .my family has been in timber ever since." He also described selling lumber to Japanese ships. In truth, Bendetsen's family first entered the "timber" business after he retired from the Army, when he became a general consultant for the Champion Paper & Fibre Company in 1952. Rising to company president (the reason for the Biography entry in 1970), Karl was described as "ruthless" by his lifelong friends, who also were critical of his betrayal of his Jewish heritage.
- Ironically, Iva Toguri, convicted for being the nonexistent "Tokyo Rose," could lay claim to a closer association with Denmark, having worked for the Danish Ambassador to Tokyo during World War II.