Tokyo Rose

For other uses, see Tokyo Rose (disambiguation).
JOAK microphone and Iva Toguri D'Aquino (dubbed "Tokyo Rose" by some), National Museum of American History

Tokyo Rose (alternative spelling Tokio Rose) was a name given by Allied troops in the South Pacific during World War II to all female English-speaking radio broadcasters of Japanese propaganda.[1] The programs were broadcast in the South Pacific and North America to demoralize Allied forces abroad and their families at home by emphasizing troops' wartime difficulties and military losses.[1][2] Several female broadcasters operated using different aliases and in different cities throughout the territories occupied by the Japanese Empire, including Tokyo, Manila, and Shanghai.[3] The name "Tokyo Rose" was never actually used by any Japanese broadcaster,[2][4] but it first appeared in U.S. newspapers in the context of these radio programs during 1943.[5][original research]

During the war, Tokyo Rose was not any one individual, but rather a group of largely unassociated women working for the same propagandist effort throughout the Japanese Empire.[3] In the years soon after the war, the character "Tokyo Rose" – whom the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) now avers to be "mythical" – became an important symbol of Japanese villainy for the United States.[1] American cartoons,[6][7] movies,[8][9][10] and propaganda videos[11] between 1945 and 1960 tend to portray her as sexualized, manipulative, and deadly to American interests in the South Pacific, particularly by revealing intelligence of American losses in radio broadcasts. Similar accusations concern the propaganda broadcasts of Lord Haw-Haw[12] and Axis Sally,[13] and in 1949 the San Francisco Chronicle described Tokyo Rose as the "Mata Hari of radio".[14]

Tokyo Rose ceased to be merely a symbol during September 1945 when Iva Toguri D'Aquino, a Japanese-American disc jockey for a propagandist radio program, attempted to return to the United States.[1] Toguri was accused of being the "real" Tokyo Rose, arrested, tried, and became the seventh person in U.S. history to be convicted of treason.[1] Toguri was eventually paroled from prison in 1956, but it was more than twenty years later that she received an official presidential pardon for her role in the war.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Iva Toguri d'Aquino and 'Tokyo Rose'". Famous Cases & Criminals. Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.). Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Berg, Jerome S. The Early Shortwave Stations: A Broadcasting History Through 1945. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013. CREDO Reference. Web. Retrieved 5 March 2017. p. 205.
  3. ^ a b Shibusawa, Naoko (2010). "Femininity, Race, and Treachery: How 'Tokyo Rose' Became a Traitor to the United States after the Second World War". Gender and History. 22 (1): 169–188. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01584.x. S2CID 145688118.
  4. ^ Kushner, Barak. "Tokyo Rose." Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. Ed. Nicholas John Cull, et al. 2003. Credo Reference. Accessed 05 Mar 2017.
  5. ^ Arnot, Charles P. (June 22, 1943). "American Submarines Have Sunk 230 Japanese Ships in Pacific". Brainerd Daily Dispatch. p. 6. We were tuned in on Radio Tokyo when Tokyo Rose, the woman who broadcasts in English, came on the air with 'Hello America ... You build 'em, we sink 'em...'
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Leon Schlessinger, Tokyo Woes, retrieved 2017-05-22
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Pfau, Ann Elizabeth (2008). "The Legend of Tokyo Rose". Miss Yourlovin: GIs, Gender, and Domesticity during World War II. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231509565.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Pfau, Ann Elizabeth; Householder, David (2009). "'Her Voice a Bullet': Imaginary Propaganda and the Legendary Broadcasters of World War II". In Strasser, Susan; Suisman, David (eds.). Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. University of Pennsylvania Press.
  13. ^ Pfau, Ann; Hochfelder, David (April 24, 2008). "World War II Radio Propaganda: Real and Imaginary". Talking History.
  14. ^ Stanton Delaplane, 'Tokyo Rose on Trial: "Bribery" Comes up, but it's Ruled out of Court', San Francisco Chronicle, 16 July 1949, p. 3.