[citation needed] During the interwar period, it was a training site for units of the Seventh Corps Area.
[1] In April 1941, it was converted into an internment camp for enemy aliens (German and Italian seamen who were captured in U.S. waters, despite the U.S. technically remaining neutral at that time).
[2] 800 Italian seamen arrived when the camp opened in April but were soon after transferred to Fort Missoula, Montana.
[2] After the outbreak of World War II, it was turned over to the Department of Justice and expanded to make room for U.S. civilians of Japanese and German descent (mostly non-citizen residents who were arrested on suspicion of fifth column activity, despite a lack of supporting evidence or access to due process).
[3][4] These new arrivals were either Nisei who, fed up with the government's incarceration policy and, in some cases, coerced by camp authorities or groups of pro-Japan inmates, had renounced their U.S. citizenship, or non-citizen Issei who had, again under significant duress, requested repatriation to Japan.