Did any of the Japanese American's interred in WW2 have intent or plans to conduct attacks of any kind in support of Imperial Japan?

by _PM_Me_Boobs_plz_

See title.

kieslowskifan

/u/DBHT14 's answer shows that the answer is pretty much no.

To add to this answer, the idea that the Japanese US community (Nissei and Issei) formed a potential fifth column largely existed in the minds of those pushing for internment. Individuals tasked with counterintelligence were actually locked out of the decision-making process for the wholesale internment on the west Coast and the interpretation of the EO justifying internment. The FBI was leery of massive internment because it would denude the FBI of potential informers and assets within the community. Hoover, certainly not a figure who was progressive on racial matters, felt that internment was legally dubious and unnecessary because the Bureau had broken the few Japanese networks in the US. The FBI itself had already begun a classification of potentially disloyal Japanese (the A,B,C classification) and felt a targeted detention system would secure defense needs while not feeding public hysteria.

Moreover, the idea of a potential fifth column among various proponents of internment- both during the war and postwar- ignores that Axis intelligence services were often underfunded and not major players in their defense establishments. Their efforts at placing spies in Allied countries was often anemic even without ULTRA or MAGIC intercepts. There was no Axis equivalent of the Red Orchestra or other spy networks. This was doubly true for the Japanese. The few Japanese intelligence agents tasked with espionage in the US in the 1920s and 30s soon recognized that the US Japanese was not very useful for military purposes. The widespread discrimination on the West Coast as well as segregation within the US military meant there simply were not many Nissei and Issei working in sensitive areas. US Japanese contacts might have been useful for gauging strawberry futures in California, but not the technical details of the Pacific Fleet. They were a highly visible minority and one discriminated against by both political parties on the West coast. Japanese intelligence instead favored using white servicemen for intelligence like Harry Thompson to provide intelligence information which these men exchanged for money.

In short, there was no fifth column. Whatever networks that existed were already broken and Japanese intelligence had few assets within the US and did not expend much effort to cultivate the US-based Japanese community and US counterintelligence knew this. Additionally, sabotage and other small-scale acts were not suited to the style of warfare the Axis favored, which was a quick campaign decided by a few decisive battles. Sabotage tends to be more effective strategy over the long-term as they accumulate and force a diversion of resources.