On February 19, 1942, shortly after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and United States entry into WWII, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, calling for the exclusion of all civilians of Japanese descent from "designated military areas." In March 1942 Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island were the first in the country to be taken from their homes by the federal government because they were considered a threat to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on the Kitsap Peninsula. More than 9,000 Japanese and Japanese American people living in the Pacific Northwest were forced into incarceration, most at the isolated Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho, until 1945.

In this image, a soldier posts copies of Civilian Exclusion Order No. 1 for Bainbridge Island residents of Japanese descent. Japanese Americans were ordered to leave the island, with only six days' notice; 227 departed by ferry on March 30, 1942. The island had a total of 276 Japanese American residents at the time; those who were away from the island at the time due to study, military service, or other business were not permitted to return.

Sign titles: notice - Headquarters Western Defense Command and Fourth Army. Western Defense Command and Fourth Army Wartime Civil Control Administration - Instructions to All Japanese Living on Bainbridge Island.

Handwritten on negative: Bainbridge Jap eviction.

Caption from March 25, 1942 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Date photograph was filed at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (date of photograph and file date may differ by a month or more): March 25, 1942.