Editor:
Re: We can only imagine their thoughts, May 31.
Letter-writer Bob Burgel attacks my letter of May 22 (No apology for wartime relocation) but can’t be bothered to quote me accurately.
Pearl Harbour was not the justification for the relocation of the West Coast Japanese. The state of the war on all fronts, months later, was.
Also, it is most unlikely, as Burgel alleges, that a reason that in 1942 most Canadian civilians “lived in fear of Japanese aggression” was the Japanese annexation of Korea. That annexation was in 1910!
All other of Burgel’s rambling anecdotes of later events – such as statements made in 1944; Canadian Japanese attempting to enlist; reverence for the 53 Canadian Japanese who died in the First World War – are irrelevant to 1942 decisions made based on knowledge gleaned through 1942 eyes.
The uncanny insight and incredible analytical intellect of Monday-morning quarterbacks is, unfortunately, only available, well… on Monday morning.
David Poole, Surrey