The book cover shows Walt Woodward working on the Bainbridge Review's linotype machine and Bainbridge Island Japanese Americans being marched down the dock to a waiting ferry.

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash. —"In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story" has been released by Fenwick Publishing Group in collaboration with Graphic Arts Center Publishing and the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community (BIJAC).

The book is an account of one couple’s fight to help a community grapple with the internment of its Japanese American citizens — the first group to be forcibly exiled under Executive Order 9066 in 1942.

This is the true story that inspired “Snow Falling on Cedars” by novelist David Guterson, who wrote the foreword.

Walt Woodward (1910-2001) and Milly Woodward (1909-1989) ran the Bainbridge Review, the local newspaper on Washington state’s Bainbridge Island. Situated a half-hour ferry ride from Seattle across the gray waters of Puget Sound, the island was home to more than 200 Americans of Japanese descent.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, the country was thrown into a state of fear and panic. These citizens were viewed with suspicion, and deep-seated veins of racism surfaced in communities across the country.

The Woodwards used the pages of the Review to plead for compassion and restraint. But on March 30, 1942, on President Franklin Roosevelt’s orders, soldiers armed with rifles that had fixed bayonets took 227 Bainbridge Island men, women and chidlren from their homes.

Army trucks transported them to a ferry waiting at Eagledale Dock to deliver them to a train on Seattle’s waterfront and forced exclusion for the duration of World War II.

During the internment, the Review regularly published news of the exiled islanders’ weddings, births, deaths and other milestones — as well as details about the conditions in the Minidoka and Manzanar camps, where the Woodwards had four correspondents.

One of the Manzanar correspondents was Paul Ohtaki of San Francisco, who passed away last April at the age of 83.

Written by the late couple’s daughter, Mary Woodward, “In Defense of Our Neighbors” offers a unique perspective on a troubling chapter in American history. Woodward, who still lives on Bainbridge Island, is well positioned to offer insights on a community that faced a crisis like no other in the country and the principled couple remembered today as a symbol of heroism to Japanese Americans and defenders of civil liberties.

Eagle Harbor is going to be home to the nation’s newest national monument. The Bainbridge Island Nikkei World War II Internment and Exclusion Memorial has been designated a satellite of the Minidoka internment camp site in Idaho.

The bill creating the monument was passed by Congress on April 29 and signed into law by President Bush less than two weeks later.

Mary Woodward was instrumental in fundraising, lobbying for and creating this memorial.

“With never-before-published artifacts and photos from local historical societies and the families of the interned citizens themselves; poignant reflections from internment survivors and Bainbridge locals; and an engaging, informative narrative, ‘In Defense of Our Neighbors’ is an enlivening, original perspective on the enduring legacy of World War II and the history of Japanese Americans,” said the publisher.

For more information, contact Fenwick Publishing Group Inc. at 3147 Point White Dr., Suite 100, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 or (206) 842-3981 or visit the website at www.fenwickpublishing.com.