American Ethnic Misfits: The U.S. Army’s Special Organizations and Enemy Alien Servicemen, 1942–1945

The “U.S. Army’s Special Organizations” were unusual, little-known units within the U.S. military during World War II designed to segregate and monitor potentially disloyal soldiers. The existence and composition of these units pointed at the nationalist and ethno-racial tensions afoot in the United States at the time, reflecting both wartime undemocratic hysteria and social changes, along with long-standing concerns about U.S. national identity. The continued suspicion and large-scale internment of Japanese-American servicemen stood in contrast to the smaller numbers of other servicemen of enemy alien origin similarly interned (German- and Italian-Americans). The internal social dynamics within these units mirrored the fraught relationship among the Axis partners and the socio-cultural issues between the Japanese, German, and Italian national communities.