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Camp Santa Anita
(Santa Anita Assembly Center)
Located at the world-famous Santa Anita Racetrack, the Santa Anita Assembly Center was the longest occupied assembly center, used for 215 days, from March 27 to October 27. It was also the largest assembly center, housing a total of 19,348 persons from Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Clara counties, with a maximum at one time of 18,719. Those interned lived in hastily constructed barracks and in existing stables, with 8,500 in converted horse stalls.
 
(Left) Newly-constructed barracks at the Santa Anita Assembly Center. (Right) Converting horse stalls into housing at the Santa Anita Assembly Center.
The assembly center was divided into seven districts: District 1 had 21 stable buildings converted into barracks, District 2 had 20 stable building, District 3 had 19 stable buildings, District 4 had four stable buildings and 113 freshly-built military barracks, District 5 had 161 barracks, District 6 had 160 barracks, and District 7 had 155 barracks (Lehman 1970). Bachelors were housed in the grandstand building. There were six recreation buildings, six showers, six mess halls (referred to by color; Blue, Red, Green, White, Orange, Yellow), a hospital, and a laundry (Figure 16.50; Santa Anita Pacemaker various issues 1942). There was a large warehouse and an automobile storage yard in the racetrack infield and the grandstand seating area was used for a camouflage net factory which employed the Japanese Americans.
 
1942 aerial photograph of the Santa Anita Assembly Center; A - automobile storage, G - grandstand (housing), H - hospital, L - laundry, M - mess hall, MP - military police and administration area, R - recreation building, S - showers, W - warehouse, 1-6 - barracks districts.
 
There is no historical marker at the site. The areas where the assembly center barracks had been (Districts 4-7) are now paved parking lots, and the District 3 and 4 stables and the military police compound are now a large shopping mall (Santa Anita Fashion Park). However, the massive grandstand and other racetrack buildings present in the 1940s remain, as do the horse stalls of Districts 1 and 2. The stables, of wood, are the same as in aerial and historical photographs Security personnel at the stables mentioned that Japanese Americans occasionally return to see their former homes. There are presently as many people (stable workers and their families) as horses living in the stall area.
 
On November 30, 1942, the center was turned over to the Army Ordnance Corps for training purposes and was officially renamed Camp Santa Anita. The camp continued in this role until November 1944. Later still, it served as a Prisoner of War camp holding several thousand German soldiers from Rommel's Afrika Korps.
 
Photo Credit: Nataional Archive and Records Administration and US National Park Service
 
Source: Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War IIJapanese American Relocation Sites by J. Burton, M. Farrell, F. Lord, and R. Lord
 
Known Units at Camp Santa Anita
 
835th Ordnance Company
1008th Engineer Refining Battalion
1781st Ordnance Company (Motor Maintenance)
1782d Ordnance Company (Motor Maintenance)
 


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