Tokyo Rose

[Cd.]

http://www.earthstation1.com/Tokyo_Rose.html



She was probably the most listened-to disc jockey in history, yet hardly anyone remembers her as such today, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lingering infamous legend surrounding her. Brought up by her immigrant Methodist parents to think of herself as an American, Iva Ikuko Toguri (1916 - ), a first generation Japanese-American ("Nisei") was forced to broadcast propaganda for Japan during World War II, after her native U.S. abandoned her there mere days before the Pearl Harbor attack, and despite her continual efforts throughout the war to return home.



Chosen out of the NHK/Radio Tokyo typing pool to be a disc jockey by the very Allied POW's being beaten and starved into writing her shows, she became an adept at sabotage of her own broadcasts, trained to read and eventually write her segments of "The Zero Hour" the way the POW saboteurs intended, while helping to keep these soldiers alive at mortal personal risk with food, medicine, clothing and hope during her almost daily visits to their cells. Though employed to broadcast pro-japanese propaganda, her outspoken support of the Allies off-mike (while cleverly concealing it within her message and delivery on-air) resulted in numerous arguments and even fist fights at work, and continual harrasment at home and elsewhere. She literally cheered in the streets as U.S. Gen. Doolittle's Raiders flew over Tokyo, and cheered yet again when the first American B-29's appeared over Tokyo in the fall of '44 (the first one was a BR-29 reconnaissance craft named "Tokyo Rose").



When she decided that NHK and the Japanese Army were interfering too much with the show, she started not showing up for work, spending months incommunicado without permission, at one point taking a month's retreat at a Church college to receive religious instruction to convert to Roman Catholicism. She was the only Japanese of Allied national citizenship involved with broadcasting WWII Japanese propaganda to refuse to give up their citizenship, even in the face of the twice-weekly and sometimes daily 3 AM harrassments she endured at the hands of the Kempeitai Thought Police.



Yet in spite of, and ironically because of this, she was to be only person ever tried or sent to prison for these broadcasts, based wholly upon evidence that U.S. authorites had fabricated and threatened two NHK workers who had given up their American citizenship, George Mitsushio and Ken Oki, into perjuring themselves with. In a trial she was subjected to precisely because she had kept her precious citizenship intact, she was to see it revoked in the end as part of her punishment. Hers was the most expensive trial in American history up until that time, and probably the most garishly trumped-up of all its show trials, though these facts have been largely forgotten.



All this in order that she might have foisted upon her for popular and political purposes the title of "Tokyo Rose", even though neither she nor anyone else had ever broadcast for the Japanese under that name, and had in fact never even been in front of a radio microphone till fall of 1943, years after the myth of a single "Tokyo Rose" arose from the imaginations of Allied soldiers in the Pacific who tried to put a face on the many female voices coming from numerous Japanese controlled radio stations. Though long since pardoned by President Ford, himself a veteran of the Pacific War and survivor of many kamikaze attacks, controversy over her supposed guilt continues even to this day. Of her own broadcasts, during which she actually used the name "Orphan Ann", all that remains are a smattering of scripts, and a precious few recordings that can barely be accounted for on two hands.

[Truth Teller]

There was a Englishman who did satrical [so-called] propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis who called himself Lord Haw Haw,after the war he was hanged for those broadcasts.

I heard one of the broadcasts on WFMU-FM [www.wfmu.org] an I can't understand why he was executed for a broadcast that was [at worst] unfunny [most pathetic and boring satire I've ever heard].


As a child ,I watched Mc Hale's Navy [often written by Joseph "Catch 22" Heller],while that was a often dumb Hollywood sit com,it did show that many troops listened to Tokyo Rose I know she didn't use the name, I read your post] for the music she played,and took her commentary as the they had to put up with to hear her,that they made fun of it and didn't take it seriously.

I had a reletive in Veitnam,he said they had such a dj during that era that played Hendrix,Frank Zappa and The Beatles,no one took her "drop your weapons " talk seriously,passed the bong [Mc Hale and his men drank booze] and listended to the next song .

[Johnson]

Originally posted by Truth Teller
There was a Englishman who did satrical [so-called] propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis who called himself Lord Haw Haw

eh, no... he was nicknamed Lord Haw Haw

And he was an American.
He was hung because he was an American using a british passport to broadcast PRO nazi propaganda, in england.

He was a member of the british union of fascists, often wearing his blackshirt to his broadcasts.

[Cd.]

Originally posted by Blackshirt
Originally posted by Truth Teller
There was a Englishman who did satrical [so-called] propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis who called himself Lord Haw Haw

eh, no... he was nicknamed Lord Haw Haw

And he was an American.
He was hung because he was an American using a british passport to broadcast PRO nazi propaganda, in england.

He was a member of the british union of fascists, often wearing his blackshirt to his broadcasts.

Isn't the right to free speech guranteed in Britian? If so what could they charge Lord Haw Haw with?

It reminds me of Erza Pound, the US poet who lived in Fascist Italy and broadcasted to US troops during the war.

[Truth Teller]

Well,I obviously don't approve of the blackshirt,but the bottom line is I can't see how somebody could be executed for a boring radio broadcast [technically the charge was treason,but I think that was streching the definition of the word treason].

The same with the so-called Tokyo Rose,she was a dj, nothing more,nothing less,the GI's [who weren't innocents] listend to her for the music she played and either ignored or made fun of her propaganda [Mc Hale's Navy was right about that],she didn't hurt the war effort,she maybe even might have helped it.

Criminal is right about Erza Pound too.

[Johnson]

Originally posted by Criminal

Isn't the right to free speech guranteed in Britian? If so what could they charge Lord Haw Haw with?

It reminds me of Erza Pound, the US poet who lived in Fascist Italy and broadcasted to US troops during the war.

Not during the 30's and 40's.
Read up on Regulation 18b
Ezra Pound.. yeah, but he was eventually released.




short bio of lord haw haw

(Updated 1/18/00) - William Joyce, aka "Lord Haw Haw", an American citizen whose obtaining of a British passport in 1938 while a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists ultimately resulted in his being hanged for treason by the British, signs on shortwave stations Bremen and DXB on the 31 meter shortwave band. Strong arguments have been made over the years that Joyce should not have been found guilty of treason, since the prosecution's argument that he owed allegiance to Britain during the period of time he was in possession of a British passport was a questionable one that should not have resulted in a guilty verdict. While at least one American broadcaster for the Axis who was found guilty of treason has since been justly exonerated, the fact that the naturalized American citizen Joyce broadcast propaganda targeted to Americans which met American criteria for treason makes it certain that were he not tried for treason in Britain, he would have been in America - the difference would likely have been the punishment he would have received for the offense, since no other American broadcaster of propaganda in WWII was sentenced to death.