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Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal , and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During World War II
An untold story of idealism, betrayal, and behind-the-scenes American–Japanese contacts in World War II.
In the fall of 1943, during some of the Pacific theater’s bloodiest battles, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup— the exchange of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. Nearly fifteen hundred Allied civilians trapped in Asia, mostly Americans, sailed through dangerous waters to an Indian port city where they were traded for an equivalent number of Japanese immigrants and their families sent from the Americas. The fate of the more than ten thousand Americans left behind rested on the success of this endeavor.
In Safe Passage, the award-winning journalist Evelyn Iritani reveals the herculean efforts of the American diplomat James Keeley to engineer these wartime exchanges despite great resistance from within and outside his government; the shipboard conflicts among passengers, including missionaries, revelers, and sharp-tongued journalists; and the moral compromises involved in securing their safe passage. Faced with too few bodies to trade and desperate to free Americans from perilous conditions, the United States uprooted and repatriated Japanese citizens of Latin America, sometimes against their will, while Japanese imprisoned in camps, many of them American citizens, were forced to choose between expulsion to a war zone or an uncertain future behind barbed wire. The result is a revelatory account of the hurdles to pursuing humanitarian action in wartime.
Evelyn Iritani is the author of An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town. She is a former reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Los Angeles Times, where her reporting garnered numerous awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series she coauthored on Wal-Mart.
In the fall of 1943, during some of the Pacific theater’s bloodiest battles, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup— the exchange of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. Nearly fifteen hundred Allied civilians trapped in Asia, mostly Americans, sailed through dangerous waters to an Indian port city where they were traded for an equivalent number of Japanese immigrants and their families sent from the Americas. The fate of the more than ten thousand Americans left behind rested on the success of this endeavor.
In Safe Passage, the award-winning journalist Evelyn Iritani reveals the herculean efforts of the American diplomat James Keeley to engineer these wartime exchanges despite great resistance from within and outside his government; the shipboard conflicts among passengers, including missionaries, revelers, and sharp-tongued journalists; and the moral compromises involved in securing their safe passage. Faced with too few bodies to trade and desperate to free Americans from perilous conditions, the United States uprooted and repatriated Japanese citizens of Latin America, sometimes against their will, while Japanese imprisoned in camps, many of them American citizens, were forced to choose between expulsion to a war zone or an uncertain future behind barbed wire. The result is a revelatory account of the hurdles to pursuing humanitarian action in wartime.
Evelyn Iritani is the author of An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town. She is a former reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Los Angeles Times, where her reporting garnered numerous awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series she coauthored on Wal-Mart.
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Published March 10, 2026
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October 20, 2025
This book is testament to the importance of considering both the macro and micro aspects of history. As I read more, I learn more about the impact of wars on so many more than the military. This book contains the stories of numerous individuals involved in the trading of Japanese and Americans in World War Two. There are stories of military prisoners of war, missionaries, business people and children. I had no appreciation that Japanese immigrants to Peru were included in the trade by the US. This story also tells us about the continued racism throughout the world.
I wasn't sure about the premise of this book initially but found it fascinating when reading it. Each chapter tells the story of an individual at different stages over the period. The American born Japanese teenage forced to repatriate to Japan despite not speaking the language or having any real identification with it, the charismatic American journalist living in Hong Kong, the eccentric American teaching English at a school in Japan, a diplomat involved in managing the prisoner exchange and the challenges involved. It also made me consider the global world before digitalisation and the speed of communication.
The book is engaging and provocative in encouraging the reader to think how often the "other" is often and easily discriminated against. It recognises that there were appalling actions taken by all sides in the conflict and maintains a balanced narrative.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
I wasn't sure about the premise of this book initially but found it fascinating when reading it. Each chapter tells the story of an individual at different stages over the period. The American born Japanese teenage forced to repatriate to Japan despite not speaking the language or having any real identification with it, the charismatic American journalist living in Hong Kong, the eccentric American teaching English at a school in Japan, a diplomat involved in managing the prisoner exchange and the challenges involved. It also made me consider the global world before digitalisation and the speed of communication.
The book is engaging and provocative in encouraging the reader to think how often the "other" is often and easily discriminated against. It recognises that there were appalling actions taken by all sides in the conflict and maintains a balanced narrative.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
March 15, 2026
I live in Seattle and grew up on Bainbridge Island, where the first Japanese Americans were removed for internment in World War II. Their story is well known in the area. I thought I knew it well. But I didn't know this part.
The author describes the efforts to exchange civilians between Japan and the US during war. Large ships were filled and sent simultaneously from each country to a neutral port for exchange. It was a monumental effort and led to some serious abuses on both sides.
Many Asians coming to America could not get citizenship due to restrictive immigration laws. But their children were US citizens by birth. This meant most often that fathers, and sometimes mothers, were subject to 'repatriation' to Japan even after being here for decades. Their children weren't required to be deported, but in order not to split up the families when the fathers were deported, the American-born families often agreed to go.
Meanwhile, conditions for Americans detained in Japanese controlled countries deteriorated and people were getting ill and dying. Also sometimes tortured. US diplomats were desperate to get them back but needed to exchange an equal number of ethnic Japanese.
This led to an incredible abuse of Japanese from other countries, especially Peru. The Peruvian government agreed to send almost all their Japanese citizens to the US for deportation. Those people were not issued visas, so that when they arrived they were classified as 'illegal aliens' and subject to deportation to their home country - Japan. Basically, they were kidnapped.
The book's structure follows a number of key people. James Keeley was the diplomat who scrambled to make the exchange deals. Others showcased in the book include a flamboyant American woman author, a young Japanese American teenager forced to go to Japan, and some American missionaries. Some prominent Japanese from Peru are also described.
This book shows how governments will bend or even break the law to accomplish a goal it sees as overriding human rights. I can't tell you how timely this book about 80 year old deportation methods are; you can presume that for yourself.
The author describes the efforts to exchange civilians between Japan and the US during war. Large ships were filled and sent simultaneously from each country to a neutral port for exchange. It was a monumental effort and led to some serious abuses on both sides.
Many Asians coming to America could not get citizenship due to restrictive immigration laws. But their children were US citizens by birth. This meant most often that fathers, and sometimes mothers, were subject to 'repatriation' to Japan even after being here for decades. Their children weren't required to be deported, but in order not to split up the families when the fathers were deported, the American-born families often agreed to go.
Meanwhile, conditions for Americans detained in Japanese controlled countries deteriorated and people were getting ill and dying. Also sometimes tortured. US diplomats were desperate to get them back but needed to exchange an equal number of ethnic Japanese.
This led to an incredible abuse of Japanese from other countries, especially Peru. The Peruvian government agreed to send almost all their Japanese citizens to the US for deportation. Those people were not issued visas, so that when they arrived they were classified as 'illegal aliens' and subject to deportation to their home country - Japan. Basically, they were kidnapped.
The book's structure follows a number of key people. James Keeley was the diplomat who scrambled to make the exchange deals. Others showcased in the book include a flamboyant American woman author, a young Japanese American teenager forced to go to Japan, and some American missionaries. Some prominent Japanese from Peru are also described.
This book shows how governments will bend or even break the law to accomplish a goal it sees as overriding human rights. I can't tell you how timely this book about 80 year old deportation methods are; you can presume that for yourself.
April 14, 2026
Yes, this looks like a great find, a really under reported story from the war and after listening to the sample on Audible which was just the introduction, I bit. The Gripsholm has come up in my reading several times in the past couple of years and made an indentation in my mind; she is the ubiquitous ship steaming about the globe carrying diplomats back home and such. So I thought I knew what I was getting when I bought the book, but alas, I had been deceived, for another story was actually told within the covers of this tome.
Iritani is a gossip hound obsessed with the rich and famous of that era. Nearly every person she chronicles in the book is connected to someone who is the most prestigious, has great influence, is the wealthiest so and so, works for the greatest company that does X, famous for this, famous for that, there's even the most famous shopkeeper in the world (not kidding). And from that bit you can guess there's some fearsome name dropping in this one, to make it a Who's Who list, as well. Hemingway, Gellhorn, Agnes Smedley, Charlie Chaplin, Chiang Kai Shek, and even Glen Miller. Yes, Glen Miller just cause she dipped into the European theater for a spot of tea and thought she had to mention someone well known from the war. I'm almost disappointed Marlene Dietrich didn't get a bit part.
I was about to give up on it just a few hours in though it's only about 14 hours total but I stuck around for chapter 5, The Backup Plan: Japanese Peruvians. So the story is that the Japanese government was somewhat willing to exchange American civilian internees for a like number of Japanese internees. The first such exchange on the Gripsholm involved the diplomatic personnel of both nations. The second was more involved: America wanted any civilian they had, Japan wanted prominent Japanese businessmen and men who could aid in the war effort, either with expertise or simply a body for the army. What they eventually got was a polyglot shipment of folks detained in American relocation camps that were willing to be deported: as US citizens, they could not be forced into deportation/repatriation (most had no Japanese citizenship or passport). But... Peruvian Japanese, forced out of their businesses and homes once the war started due to racial tension in Peru and fear of Asian foreigners, had no such protection, so Uncle Sam and Peru did a deal. We gave them loans and military equipment, they gave us bodies. Shipped to the States on trains, detained in camps and then weeded out for the repatriation journeys.
I had never heard of such an event in WW2 history, and I've been a junkie for a long, long time. Thing is, I rarely read anything home front about the war, so this was like a whole new universe to me. Unfortunately, Iritani is not the author to tell the story. She is skin deep as far as history is concerned -- she knows her way around and makes no goofs, but there is no assessment, no deep probing, no analysis. She wants the glossy magazine cover story, primarily told through the experience of Emily Hahn, a New Yorker columnist living in Singapore and according to the author, well read and well known in the States. Again, news to me. If there's supposed to be a good guy in the story, she's it. Iritani paints her as ahead of her time, challenging gender norms, crossing racial barriers for lovers, a casual opium addict, a cigar smoker and keeper of exotic animals as pets to shock society. She all but sets her up as an early day Mary Sue, but thankfully no comic super powers ever materialize but absolutely she paints her as a I Don't Need No Man kind of gal.
She chooses, on the eve of hostilities, to get involved with a British intelligence officer and on a lark, they decide to have a child. He'll get a divorce and they'll get married and live like they want to, his naval career be damned and all that garbage. That paradise gets shattered by the war and Emily Hahn easily gets my nomination for Mother of the Year, two, maybe three years running. She refuses repatriation for a couple of years because her man is in a POW camp in Singapore, so it makes sense to wait for him and expose her child to potential abuse/abduction/murder by the Japanese. Sure, fine, great. In the late mid war years she finally agrees to it and sails on home with her daughter to great applause and media attention. Her man somehow survives and they do tie the knot. 200 pages wasted on her ridiculous story that could have been told in less than 20.
There's just about no information on the actual negotiations between the two nations for these repatriation journeys, only the money spent on them. She drops the tidbit that once sailing down the South American Coast the ship stops in at 2 more ports to pick up more less than willing deportees the Japanese want back but gives no information how and why they got thrown into the pot. But I get to hear all about the entertainment and the food and liquor available and the social networks and the snobbery of the Richie Riches coming back from Japan.
This is candy counter history, sugary delights wrapped up in brightly colored paper, devoid of nourishment save for the Peruvian section and the bit about Sumner Wells being investigated for homosexual acts aboard trains.
She performed a miracle of sorts: transforming a serious story of the second world war with what amounts to human trafficking by the United States to meet a quota aboard the ships, the detainment of US citizens in camps to appease American racial prejudices, the shoddy treatment of American civilians in Japan by its government, including torture -- and manages to turn it into something rather breezy and light hearted, reminding me of say, the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
She earned this 1 star rating.
Iritani is a gossip hound obsessed with the rich and famous of that era. Nearly every person she chronicles in the book is connected to someone who is the most prestigious, has great influence, is the wealthiest so and so, works for the greatest company that does X, famous for this, famous for that, there's even the most famous shopkeeper in the world (not kidding). And from that bit you can guess there's some fearsome name dropping in this one, to make it a Who's Who list, as well. Hemingway, Gellhorn, Agnes Smedley, Charlie Chaplin, Chiang Kai Shek, and even Glen Miller. Yes, Glen Miller just cause she dipped into the European theater for a spot of tea and thought she had to mention someone well known from the war. I'm almost disappointed Marlene Dietrich didn't get a bit part.
I was about to give up on it just a few hours in though it's only about 14 hours total but I stuck around for chapter 5, The Backup Plan: Japanese Peruvians. So the story is that the Japanese government was somewhat willing to exchange American civilian internees for a like number of Japanese internees. The first such exchange on the Gripsholm involved the diplomatic personnel of both nations. The second was more involved: America wanted any civilian they had, Japan wanted prominent Japanese businessmen and men who could aid in the war effort, either with expertise or simply a body for the army. What they eventually got was a polyglot shipment of folks detained in American relocation camps that were willing to be deported: as US citizens, they could not be forced into deportation/repatriation (most had no Japanese citizenship or passport). But... Peruvian Japanese, forced out of their businesses and homes once the war started due to racial tension in Peru and fear of Asian foreigners, had no such protection, so Uncle Sam and Peru did a deal. We gave them loans and military equipment, they gave us bodies. Shipped to the States on trains, detained in camps and then weeded out for the repatriation journeys.
I had never heard of such an event in WW2 history, and I've been a junkie for a long, long time. Thing is, I rarely read anything home front about the war, so this was like a whole new universe to me. Unfortunately, Iritani is not the author to tell the story. She is skin deep as far as history is concerned -- she knows her way around and makes no goofs, but there is no assessment, no deep probing, no analysis. She wants the glossy magazine cover story, primarily told through the experience of Emily Hahn, a New Yorker columnist living in Singapore and according to the author, well read and well known in the States. Again, news to me. If there's supposed to be a good guy in the story, she's it. Iritani paints her as ahead of her time, challenging gender norms, crossing racial barriers for lovers, a casual opium addict, a cigar smoker and keeper of exotic animals as pets to shock society. She all but sets her up as an early day Mary Sue, but thankfully no comic super powers ever materialize but absolutely she paints her as a I Don't Need No Man kind of gal.
She chooses, on the eve of hostilities, to get involved with a British intelligence officer and on a lark, they decide to have a child. He'll get a divorce and they'll get married and live like they want to, his naval career be damned and all that garbage. That paradise gets shattered by the war and Emily Hahn easily gets my nomination for Mother of the Year, two, maybe three years running. She refuses repatriation for a couple of years because her man is in a POW camp in Singapore, so it makes sense to wait for him and expose her child to potential abuse/abduction/murder by the Japanese. Sure, fine, great. In the late mid war years she finally agrees to it and sails on home with her daughter to great applause and media attention. Her man somehow survives and they do tie the knot. 200 pages wasted on her ridiculous story that could have been told in less than 20.
There's just about no information on the actual negotiations between the two nations for these repatriation journeys, only the money spent on them. She drops the tidbit that once sailing down the South American Coast the ship stops in at 2 more ports to pick up more less than willing deportees the Japanese want back but gives no information how and why they got thrown into the pot. But I get to hear all about the entertainment and the food and liquor available and the social networks and the snobbery of the Richie Riches coming back from Japan.
This is candy counter history, sugary delights wrapped up in brightly colored paper, devoid of nourishment save for the Peruvian section and the bit about Sumner Wells being investigated for homosexual acts aboard trains.
She performed a miracle of sorts: transforming a serious story of the second world war with what amounts to human trafficking by the United States to meet a quota aboard the ships, the detainment of US citizens in camps to appease American racial prejudices, the shoddy treatment of American civilians in Japan by its government, including torture -- and manages to turn it into something rather breezy and light hearted, reminding me of say, the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
She earned this 1 star rating.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The author delves deeply into one of America’s least shiniest years in history during World War II, when Japanese Americans who were legally living in the United States as well as hundred who were U.S. citizens, were rounded up and sent to internment camps. In addition, hundreds of Japanese American civilians in the U.S. and in Latin America were rounded up and dispatched to Japan in exchange for hundreds of American and other Allied civilians who were trapped in Asia during the war. This book walks us through how this happened. It highlights the many individuals whose lives were involved – both those in the U.S. and Latin America and those who were trapped in Asia, as prisoners and some still free, as the war unfolded. At the highest levels of both U.S. and Japanese governments the bartering, negotiating, impasses, stalled talks, and positions brokered by the Swiss and the Spanish governments continued. The trades finally took place moving hundreds of individuals across the seas but most starkly – creating despair and shock in Japanese-Americans who were shipped unceremoniously to Japan – many of whom had never stepped foot on Japanese soil in their entire lives and didn’t speak the language. I was struck by how well the author was able to capture the personalities and details about the myriad of people that were involved. They came alive on the pages – real people who were neighbors, community leaders and members, business owners, and much more – people one would interact with on a daily basis. And then there was the larger than life character in Emily Hahn and the hard work done by James Keeley. This is a well-documented and well written account of the many lives impacted during those years and the emotional, mental, and physical scars that lingered well into the rest of their lives. I highly recommend this book. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The fascinating story of wartime civilian exchange between the United States and Japan during WWII.
Blending carefully:
* the global context (with the advancement of war)
* diplomatic intrigue
* thoroughly documented personal stories from both sides (Japanese and American)
There is no hero in this story. Instead, you will learn about ordinary and extraordinary people, whose lives were uprooted by global events. Forced onto a ship sailing to a country they sometimes did not know at all (some did not even speak the language at all), they truly lost everything, including their identity. Evelyn Iritani tells their stories - forgotten victims in global events that shook the whole world.
If there is no hero, there is a villain here. War, the eternal tragedy. Humans bombing civilians under the pretense of "defending freedom". Politicians signing decrees that sent thousands of law abiding people, most of them US citizens, into camps where they were imprisoned for years. Adding insult to injury, the tax office would strip them of all their possessions, since they could not pay their taxes anymore (their bank accounts were frozen and thus, completely inaccessible).
In Japan, Americans did not get better treatment. Some of them were tortured in a language they did not understand, until they accepted to "admit" they were spies... Even if they were just English teachers or missionaries.
Living abroad, while it is an interesting adventure during good times, bears such risks. There is always a loyalty conflict between the "homeland" and your adopted country. In hard times, immigrants are often suspected of being spies or traitors. The reality is they do not really fit in any country. Evelyn Iritani did a wonderful job at describing this tension, especially for children, forced to leave the only country they had always known.
I wonder what my own parents, repatriated to France as children during the Algerian war, went through. On my father's side, they truly lost everything in the process - the family could only carry a little suitcase when they fled. We were moving cities every two years when I was a child, never building a sense of home anywhere. I am starting to understand that for my parents, home was a dangerous place and you could be kicked out any moment. They never came back to Algeria, just like some Japanese Americans never came back to the US after the war. Some things, once broken, never get the luxury of repair. War is truly the greatest tragedy, and the aftershock lives on through generations. May we never forget.
Thank you NetGalley, Evelyn Iritani and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC. An excellent book with great storytelling and impeccable sourcing through a wealth of archives.
Blending carefully:
* the global context (with the advancement of war)
* diplomatic intrigue
* thoroughly documented personal stories from both sides (Japanese and American)
There is no hero in this story. Instead, you will learn about ordinary and extraordinary people, whose lives were uprooted by global events. Forced onto a ship sailing to a country they sometimes did not know at all (some did not even speak the language at all), they truly lost everything, including their identity. Evelyn Iritani tells their stories - forgotten victims in global events that shook the whole world.
If there is no hero, there is a villain here. War, the eternal tragedy. Humans bombing civilians under the pretense of "defending freedom". Politicians signing decrees that sent thousands of law abiding people, most of them US citizens, into camps where they were imprisoned for years. Adding insult to injury, the tax office would strip them of all their possessions, since they could not pay their taxes anymore (their bank accounts were frozen and thus, completely inaccessible).
In Japan, Americans did not get better treatment. Some of them were tortured in a language they did not understand, until they accepted to "admit" they were spies... Even if they were just English teachers or missionaries.
Living abroad, while it is an interesting adventure during good times, bears such risks. There is always a loyalty conflict between the "homeland" and your adopted country. In hard times, immigrants are often suspected of being spies or traitors. The reality is they do not really fit in any country. Evelyn Iritani did a wonderful job at describing this tension, especially for children, forced to leave the only country they had always known.
I wonder what my own parents, repatriated to France as children during the Algerian war, went through. On my father's side, they truly lost everything in the process - the family could only carry a little suitcase when they fled. We were moving cities every two years when I was a child, never building a sense of home anywhere. I am starting to understand that for my parents, home was a dangerous place and you could be kicked out any moment. They never came back to Algeria, just like some Japanese Americans never came back to the US after the war. Some things, once broken, never get the luxury of repair. War is truly the greatest tragedy, and the aftershock lives on through generations. May we never forget.
Thank you NetGalley, Evelyn Iritani and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC. An excellent book with great storytelling and impeccable sourcing through a wealth of archives.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Desperate to exchange their people caught in enemy lands, the governments of Japan and the United States violated the rights of law-abiding civilians, in some cases, kidnapping and imprisoning people to use as bargaining chips. The misconduct of government officials is appalling but perhaps not surprising in war. This is told more from the American side than the Japanese.
First, the Japanese and Japanese-Americans on the west coast were rounded up and placed in primitive camps with armed guards, robbing them of their possessions and bank accounts. When too few volunteered to be repatriated to Japan, Latin American countries were asked to round up their Japanese. Brought to the US to be traded for Americans caught in Japan, they were not given visas, so they were illegal enemy aliens.
America sent people to Japan aboard the Swedish liner Gripsholm. Japan sent the Americans on a fleabag with food full of worms.
A few of the exchanged people are followed throughout the ordeal, including Americans who endured torture at the hands of the Japanese. Children who didn’t speak Japanese had to go to Japan because a parent was born in Japan. Of the 124 Japanese American-born children sent to Japan in the exchanges, 108 eventually returned to the United States.
May 1, 2026
So much has been published about WWII in both fiction and non-fiction that it is difficult to find a new take on the topic. Safe Passage provides a look at the people involved in the exchange of citizens, in particular, with the Japanese. These rich tales show governments of all stripes running over their own people and violating their rights. Might not be pretty to see what your country did, but it is necessary to fully understand one's history.
April 30, 2026
Interesting
I love history. My Dad was in WW2 in the Navy. I've always wanted to know more of what happened to the intered Japanese. Dad died when I was 18, so I never got to ask him questions. That's why I look for books like this one, to find out about the persons who survived the war.
I love history. My Dad was in WW2 in the Navy. I've always wanted to know more of what happened to the intered Japanese. Dad died when I was 18, so I never got to ask him questions. That's why I look for books like this one, to find out about the persons who survived the war.
April 19, 2026
This book gives insight on how the Japanese Americans and the Japanese people in internment camps were treated during WW2.
April 9, 2026
A really well researched book that relies on interviews with surviving members of these diplomatic voyages. We get the story behind this exchange of citizen hostages , all of the intrigue and shadiness surrounding it, and stories of those on board the ships telling us about their experiences. This is an aspect of WW2 in the Pacific theater that I was unaware of until now, and Iritani did a great job storytelling here. Highly recommended nonfiction read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews