NO ISLANDER IMPLICATED IN JAP RIOT

No Bainbridge Island Japanese-Americans or Japanese aliens have been implicated as yet in the pro-Axis Pearl Harbor Day rioting, Ralph P. Merritt, director of the relocation center at Manzanar, Calif., told The Review by long-distance telephone Monday evening.

No complaints against the Bainbridge Island group have been made, Mr. Merritt also declared.

He explained, however, that he could not clear Bainbridge Island evacuees of all blame until the official investigation is completed.

"So far as we know there may be some Islanders who were involved," Mr. Merritt said. "I say that just to protect myself because we do not yet know the whole story. There was much confusion during the riot and it is hard to determine which evacuees caused the trouble and which were loyal."

All this week The Review received reports from Islanders who said friends in Manzanar had written them declaring flatly that no Island Japanese participated in the riot.

Press services said earlier that a small group of pro-Axis evacuees led a shouting, rock-throwing mob in a demonstration, shouting: "Pearl Harbor! Banzai!" One was killed and nine wounded when the Army was forced to fire to halt the mob.

"I can say this, though," Mr. Merritt told The Review. "There is peace and quiet in the Bainbridge Island 'village' here today."

The center's director explained that the Island's 275 evacuees have "withdrawn" to themselves ever since being taken to the center, last spring. The Islanders are but a tiny portion of the 10,000 evacuees at Manzanar, most of whom came from California communities. Other Northwest Japanese are interned at Camp Eden, Ida. Mr. Merritt said the Islanders have erected a large sign, "Bainbridge Island," near their barracks home.

The camp director added that the "whole trouble" lay in a few "agitators who were able to weld a mob into the disturbance." He said such a demonstration could "occur at any time in any large group of people."