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| | The name has, however, become synonymous with American-born Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino (4 July 1916 - 26 September 2006), who broadcast on Radio Tokyo's "Zero Hour" program, using the name "Orphan Ann". She was arrested after the war and tried for treason in 1949. The jury found her innocent on seven of the counts of treason against her and guilty on one count, for which she was sentenced to ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine. | | The name has, however, become synonymous with American-born Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino (4 July 1916 - 26 September 2006), who broadcast on Radio Tokyo's "Zero Hour" program, using the name "Orphan Ann". She was arrested after the war and tried for treason in 1949. The jury found her innocent on seven of the counts of treason against her and guilty on one count, for which she was sentenced to ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine. |
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| − | Subsequent investigations after her release, during which time she had to work to pay back the outstanding amount of the $10,000 fine, revealled that she had assisted Allied POW's working at the station; had been abused and threatened by the Japanese because she had refused to relinquish up her US citizenship and accept Japanese citizenship. Throughout the war, she had been hoping for, and confident of, an Allied victory. | + | Subsequent investigations after her release, during which time she had to work to pay back the outstanding amount of the $10,000 fine, revealed that she had assisted Allied POW's working at the station; had been abused and threatened by the Japanese because she had refused to relinquish up her US citizenship and accept Japanese citizenship. Throughout the war, she had been hoping for, and confident of, an Allied victory. |
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| | It also transpired that several Japanese witnesses, who had testified at her trial, later admitted to perjuring themselves. However, these admissions only came after the occupying forces no longer had jurisdiction over Japan, thus exempting them from the threat of US prosecution. On the grounds of this new evidence, President [[Gerald Ford]] granted her a full pardon on 19 January 1977. | | It also transpired that several Japanese witnesses, who had testified at her trial, later admitted to perjuring themselves. However, these admissions only came after the occupying forces no longer had jurisdiction over Japan, thus exempting them from the threat of US prosecution. On the grounds of this new evidence, President [[Gerald Ford]] granted her a full pardon on 19 January 1977. |
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| | She sailed for Japan on 5 July 1941, aboard the ''Arabia Maru''. However, she left with no passport. The State Department refused to issue one on such short notice and instead, gave her a Certificate of Identification, saying that this document would be sufficient to get her to and from Japan. However, when she applied to return to the U.S. in November 1941, becoming more fearful of the situation in Japan, she was refused on the grounds that there was no evidence that she was an American citizen, and the document provided by the State Department was unacceptable. She was thus left stranded in Japan when war broke out in December. | | She sailed for Japan on 5 July 1941, aboard the ''Arabia Maru''. However, she left with no passport. The State Department refused to issue one on such short notice and instead, gave her a Certificate of Identification, saying that this document would be sufficient to get her to and from Japan. However, when she applied to return to the U.S. in November 1941, becoming more fearful of the situation in Japan, she was refused on the grounds that there was no evidence that she was an American citizen, and the document provided by the State Department was unacceptable. She was thus left stranded in Japan when war broke out in December. |
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| − | ==Beginning of the War== | + | ==Alone in a Hostile Land== |
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| | As a foreign national, Iva was regarded as an enemy alien by the Japanese authorities, who instructed her to renounce her American citizenship and register as a Japanese citizen. She refused, requesting instead to be sent to an interment camp along with other foreign nationals. Her request was refused, because of her gender and also because she was of Japanese descent. Alone, frightened and unable to read and barely able to speak Japanese, she returned to live with her uncle. | | As a foreign national, Iva was regarded as an enemy alien by the Japanese authorities, who instructed her to renounce her American citizenship and register as a Japanese citizen. She refused, requesting instead to be sent to an interment camp along with other foreign nationals. Her request was refused, because of her gender and also because she was of Japanese descent. Alone, frightened and unable to read and barely able to speak Japanese, she returned to live with her uncle. |
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| | However, problems arose when she was overheard expressing happiness at the [[James Doolittle#The Doolittle Raid|Doolittle Raid]] and neighbours accused her uncle of harbouring an enemy spy. In order to protect them, she left their house, renting a small apartment. She gave piano lessons to pay the rent, as well as for Japanese lessons. | | However, problems arose when she was overheard expressing happiness at the [[James Doolittle#The Doolittle Raid|Doolittle Raid]] and neighbours accused her uncle of harbouring an enemy spy. In order to protect them, she left their house, renting a small apartment. She gave piano lessons to pay the rent, as well as for Japanese lessons. |
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| − | She found employment at the Domei News Agency, working as a typist, transcribing English-language news broadcasts for the agency. It was here that she saw the report containing the names of her family in America, who had been shipped off to Gila River Interment Camp in Arizona. Already shocked by this news, she returned home one night, to find her room being searched by the dreaded Kempeitai Military Police. At this point, Iva again requested to be interned, but this too was declined and she was told, with typical Japanese efficiency, that it would cost too much to feed her, especially when she was perfectly capable of earning a salary. | + | She found employment at the Domei News Agency, working as a typist, transcribing English-language news broadcasts for the agency. It was here that she saw the report containing the names of her family in America, who had been shipped off to Gila River Interment Camp in Arizona. Already shocked by this news, she returned home one night, to find her room being searched by the dreaded ''Kempeitai'' Military Police. At this point, Iva again requested to be interned, but this too was declined and she was told, with typical Japanese efficiency, that it would cost too much to feed her, especially when she was perfectly capable of earning a salary. |
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| | Shortly thereafter, Iva was hospitalized for six weeks, suffering from malnutrition, pellagra and beriberi. In order to pay the hospital bill, she had to borrow money from her landlady, as well as from a Portuguese national, Felipe d’Aquino, who shared her pro-American feelings and with whom she had struck up a friendship. In order to pay them back, she took on a second job, working as a typist for Radio Tokyo. Her job was to type up English-language scripts, drafted by the Japanese Propaganda Ministry, which would then be broadcast to the Allied troops in the Pacific war zone. | | Shortly thereafter, Iva was hospitalized for six weeks, suffering from malnutrition, pellagra and beriberi. In order to pay the hospital bill, she had to borrow money from her landlady, as well as from a Portuguese national, Felipe d’Aquino, who shared her pro-American feelings and with whom she had struck up a friendship. In order to pay them back, she took on a second job, working as a typist for Radio Tokyo. Her job was to type up English-language scripts, drafted by the Japanese Propaganda Ministry, which would then be broadcast to the Allied troops in the Pacific war zone. |
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| − | [[Image:Tokyo Rose.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A mug shot of Iva Toguri, taken at Sugamo Prison on 7 March, 1946. It bears the same caption as the photograph above.]] | + | It was at this moment that she met three Allied POWs, Major Charles Cousens, an Australian and a former Radio Sydney celebrity, who was captured at the fall of [[Singapore]], and his two associates, the American Captain Wallace Ince and the Filipino Lieutenant Normando Reyes, both of whom had been captured after the fall of [[Corregidor]]. |
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| | + | Their haggard and underfed state touched Iva and she decided she would try and assist the soldiers who were fighting for her side. Initially, they were suspicious of her attempts at friendship and pro-American attitude, and thought she was a spy planted by the ''Kempeitai''. However, they came to trust her after she began to smuggle food and medicine to them. The result of this is that when Radio Tokyo instructed Cousens to add a female DJ to the "Zero Hour" show, he immediately requested Iva by name. |
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| | + | ==Orphan Ann== |
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| | + | {cquote|According to union hours, we are through today! We close off another chapter of free propaganda in the form of "Music For You" — for my dear little orphans wandering in the Pacific. There are plenty of non-union boffs coming around the corner, so be seeing you tomorrow, but in the meanwhile always remember to be good!} |
| | + | (A 20-second excerpt from the closing of the “Orphan Ann” segment of the "Zero Hour", broadcast on 14 August 1944) |
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| | + | Meanwhile, the three Allied POWs had been using their "Zero Hour" programme to wage a covert sabotage campaign, undermining the Japanese propaganda efforts. They did by fluffing their lines on-air, and making use of innuendo, double entendre, sarcasm, or rushed or muffled delivery of their lines. After their overseers caught onto their ruse, they reverted to delivering their lines in a mechanical monotone, sounding like they were being forced to read what was in front of them. Now that a fourth member was to be added to the team and thus their conspiracy, they needed somebody they could trust. In their current circumstances, that person was Iva Toguri. |
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| | + | She agreed to join them, although reluctantly at first and on the condition that she broadcast anonymously. However, when the authorities insisted that all announcers had to have a name, she chose "Ann", taking the name from the abbreviation of "announcer" - ANN - which appeared in front of her lines in the script. Cousens added the "Orphan" and 'Orphan Ann" was born. They created a personality to go with the name, combining Iva's natural bubbly personality with that of the popular "Little Orphan Annie" radio character and tied in with her phrase "Orphans of the Pacific”, which described her audience of Allied GIs. Cousens' genius was in managing to transform a propaganda broadcast into a joke shared between himself and the GIs. |
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| | + | Iva's portion of the show only lasted twenty minutes a day and she spent the rest of her time on her original job, typing up scripts, as well as scavenging for black-market food and medicine for “her” POWs. |
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| | + | However, things were starting to change for the worse. As the tide of war continued to turn against Japan, Iva's ongoing pro-American stance began to cause problems with her co-workers. She resigned from the Domei News Agency after Felipe d’Aquino, whom she was now dating, became embroiled in a fight, because of something she had said. She took up a position at the Danish embassy and received a portion of her salary in luxury items from the embassy's diplomatic rations. These she later traded on the black market for more food for the POws. |
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| | + | As for the "Zero Hour", Cousens had suffered a heart attack and was taken off air, as was Ince, who was removed for insubordination. Reyes had been declared a "friendly alien", following Japan's annexation of the Philippines. This left Iva, who carried on, re-writing Cousens' old scripts to keep the feel (and subversive elements) of the show. |
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| | + | Despite the upheaval in the "Zero Hour" team, the show was seen as a success by the Japanese Army. This was based on reports they received from the neutral Portuguese and Swedish embassies in Japan that American forces were following the broadcasts of "Tokyo Rose". However, nobody at Radio Tokyo knew who "Tokyo Rose" was, but nevertheless, officials were happy the enemy were listening. |
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| | + | Subsequent interviews with servicemen revealed an interesting disparity in just who "Tokyo Rose" was. Their descriptions of the content of the shows, suggested that they were listening to “Orphan Ann”, but their descriptions of voice seemed to point towards Foumy Saisho’s “Madame Tojo” or Ruth Hayakawa’s “Nightingale of Nanking” - certainly not Iva's delivery style. |
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| | + | ==End of the War== |
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| | + | By now, Iva and Felipe were living together, and Iva was avoiding going to work at Radio Tokyo as much as possible. Ive and Felipe were married, following Iva's quick conversion to Catholicism, although the ceremony was interrupted by an air raid. |
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| | + | Iva was forced to return to work, after being threatened by a plainclothes member of the ''Kempeitai'', but by then the writing was on the wall and within three months, she was cheering as Emperor [[Hirohito]] broadcast Japan's unconditional surrender. She began to make plans to return to America, but unfortunately, events conspired against her. |
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| | + | ==The Hunt for "Tokyo Rose"== |
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| | + | Following the Japanese surrender in September 1945, the search began for Japanese military leaders and others who may have committed war crimes. The military took the lead in this, with the press joining in the hunt, often following, but sometimes beating the military in tracking down the suspects. |
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| | + | Two of these reporters, Henry Brundidge, from Cosmopolitan, and Clark Lee, from INS, set out to find “Tokyo Rose", unaware that no such person existed and the the name was created by ''American'' troops. Still, their investigations - and the offer of $250 for information leadig to Tokyo Rose - eventually led them to Iva Ikuko Toguri d’Aquino. Iva's name was provided to them by Leslie Nakashima, a ''nisei'' working at Radio Tokyo and Clark Lee promptly released the information to the public at large. |
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| | + | On meeting Iva, Brundidge and Lee offered her $2,000, which they later reneged on paying, for exclusive rights to interview her. Iva agreed, and signed a contract that identified her as “the one and only ''Tokyo Rose''”. |
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| | + | [[Image:Tokyo Rose.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Another mug shot of Iva Toguri, taken at Sugamo Prison on 7 March, 1946. It bears the same caption as the photograph above.]] |
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| | ==Bibliography== | | ==Bibliography== |
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| | * [http://www.kensmen.com/tokyorosea.html H. K. Anderson, 64th SQ, provides a perspective on Iva Ikuko Toguri d'Aquino] | | * [http://www.kensmen.com/tokyorosea.html H. K. Anderson, 64th SQ, provides a perspective on Iva Ikuko Toguri d'Aquino] |
| | * [http://web.archive.org/web/20020207051158/foia.fbi.gov/rose.htm The FBI's official records of its 1948 Espionage investigation of the “Tokyo Rose” case, released under the FOI Act] | | * [http://web.archive.org/web/20020207051158/foia.fbi.gov/rose.htm The FBI's official records of its 1948 Espionage investigation of the “Tokyo Rose” case, released under the FOI Act] |
| | + | * [http://www.earthstation1.com/Tokyo_Rose.html Recordings of some of Orphan Ann's broadcasts, as well as a full "Zero Hour" episode] |
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| | [[category:World War II]][[category:Japan]] | | [[category:World War II]][[category:Japan]] |