Henry Conger Pratt received an honorary degree from Pennsylvania Military College in 1920. His forty year career in the Military started with an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Following graduation in 1904, he joined the army’s Calvary division, serving as aide to many generals, including a stint as aide to President Taft in 1911. Henry Pratt served in both World Wars and retired from the army reaching the rank of General. The capstone of his career occurred when General Pratt issued Public Proclamation 21, which effectively ended the internment of the Japanese and allowed the evacuees to return to their homes.

In 1917, Pratt was transferred from the Calvary to the Signal Corps for duty in the aviation section. The following year, he was appointed to the Division of Military Aeronautics at Washington, D.C. He served in this post until he went to France at the height of . Pratt worked with the American Expeditionary Forces, in France, in connection with aviation.

After the war, Pratt received training at many military facilities throughout the United Stated. In 1921, he completed the advanced bombing course at , Texas. By 1923, he had completed courses at The School of the Line and The Command and General Staff School, both at , . Pratt completed his advanced training in 1924, when he was graduated from the Army War College in Washington, D.C. With this training, Pratt went on to command many Air Corps bases and Air training schools throughout the United States and in (which had not yet become a state) from the late 1920s to the beginning of the 1940s.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Pratt served as commander of various bases in the United States, the Caribbean and finally in the Pacific. In October 1944, General Pratt was assigned as the acting commanding general of the in San Francisco, California. This post gave him the opportunity to make his greatest contribution to United States History. On December 17, 1944, Pratt issued Public Proclamation 21, which ended the exclusion orders that forced Japanese Americans into Internment Camps and established January 2, 1945 as the date they could return to their homes. Pratt retired from active duty in 1946.

During his lengthy military career, General Pratt received the following decoration and awards, including: The Distinguished Service Medal, June 1943; The Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy in 1933 and the Order of the Southern Cross.

This material is adapted from: Official Site of the . http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6807

Grave at Arlington National Cemetery