12 Facts About Karl Bendetsen

Karl Robin Bendetsen was an American politician and military officer who served in the Washington Army National Guard during World War II and later as the United States Under Secretary of the Army.

Karl Bendetsen was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Aberdeen, Washington.

Karl Bendetsen 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.

Karl Bendetsen stated 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 later years Karl 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.

Karl Bendetsen then pressured Lieutenant General John L DeWitt to accept his plan, rather than the less-restrictive one which DeWitt had originally intended.

Karl Bendetsen ordered that any person, no matter their age, who had "one drop of Japanese blood" were to be confined.

Karl Bendetsen joined others who had been involved in the exclusion and incarceration to oppose the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians hearings, which in 1983 determined that there had been no just cause for the actions taken against Japanese American communities during World War II.

Karl Bendetsen was adamantly opposed to calls for reparations to be paid to former camp inmates and their relatives.

Karl Bendetsen claimed to have stopped to meet with Lieutenant General Walter C Short and Rear Admiral Husband E Kimmel, leaving only days before the Pearl Harbor attacks.

Karl Bendetsen's grandparents had emigrated from Lithuania and Poland in the 1860s.

Karl Bendetsen's father was born in New York, and was co-owner of a clothing store.