Gordon Veatch

Days of Infamy Gordon Veatch

Days of Infamy is a novelthat dramatizes an unjust era in the lives of Japanese-Americans, theirinternment during World War II. The novel traces the plight of the Fujiwaras and the Miyamotos, twofamilies confined at Manzanar, where 10,000 peoplewere crammed into jerry-built barracks and where they were forced to endure theextreme weather of California's Owens Valley. Using initiative, thesemisplaced citizens changed their environment: they grew enough crops to makethem self- sustaining; they made furniture, created art, organized sports,instituted clubs, taught their own children. They were only meant to survive,but instead they prevailed. Little known at that time were the Japanese-American army units, which consisted ofvolunteers from Hawaii and theinternment camps. The novel follows the military adventures of a distantrelative of the Fujiwaras, KuruYashima, a volunteer, who,with his comrades, sees battle on the Italian front. George Fujiwara, whose parentsare confined to Manzanar, was not interned. His brilliance in physics has madehim a valuable scientist at the University of California, Berkeley,and he later becomes an innovator on the Manhattan Project. Through thetreachery of an associate, George becomes unwittingly entangled in espionage.