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Authors: Gordon Kerr
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radio performer, her broadcasts were extremely popular, loved for the American popular music she played.
In December 1944, The Zero Hour was shortened to sixty minutes, but was the main programme among a whole range of similar propaganda broadcasts including such as Three Missing Men, Saturday Jamboree and From One American To Another .
It continued to broadcast until about 12 August 1945. Three days previously the Americans had dropped their second atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki and three days later Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender. The Emperor’s words were the last heard on Radio Tokyo. It was shut down immediately after he finished his speech.
The Americans’ response to Tokyo Rose was Tokyo Mose. A twenty-six-year-old American journalist, Walter Kaner, broadcast to the occupying American troops six afternoons a week, between two and three in the afternoon, after the Japanese surrender. His theme tune, Moshi, Moshi Ano-ne, sung to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down, became popular with Japanese children and was known as ‘the Japanese occupation theme song’. Kaner entertained the troops with the music of Benny Goodman and Cab Calloway and irreverent comments about military life in the occupying army. He would come out with audience-pleasing lines such as, ‘The lack of material prevents many junior officers from having personal jeeps. It is an indictment of current conditions to report that some lieutenants are sorely inconvenienced and must double-up on dinner engagements.’
Meanwhile, the Americans launched a nationwide search for Tokyo Rose, eager to charge her with war crimes. Two American journalists joined the search. Henry Brundidge and Clark Lee announced a reward of $250 for information as to her whereabouts. Iva, by this time married to a Japanese-Portuguese man, Felipe D’Aquino, was in hiding, but desperate to get back to her family in the United States. She came forward to claim the money. However, when she signed a contract to give the two men an interview, identifying herself as Tokyo Rose, she was arrested. She never did see the cash. From then on, although there had been a number of Tokyo Roses, she became the person associated with the name. Initially, however, the authorities concluded that the evidence they had accumulated did not merit prosecution and Iva was released from custody. However, when she again requested an American passport, veterans’ groups and commentators, such as the famous broadcaster, Walter Winchell, became irate. They demanded her arrest and trial as a traitor.
The FBI had a vast amount of material relating to her case – Japanese documents, recordings of her broadcasts, interviews with her listeners, the troops who had served in the Pacific. These were turned over to the Justice Department. A grand jury was convened in San Francisco and she was indicted. She was arrested in Yokohama and brought to the United States. On arrival at San Francisco on 25 September 1948, she was arrested and charged with treason. Her case came to court on 5 July 1949, the day after her thirty-third birthday.
Although he did later admit to being prejudiced against Iva, Judge Michael Roche was careful with the testimony of the witnesses, disallowing much of it. A number of them had been flown in to testify against her purely for the daily allowance of $10 and an opportunity to visit the United States.
Iva was the seventh American citizen to be convicted of treason during the Second World War, joining the ranks of such as Mildred Gillars who had broadcast as ‘Axis Sally’ from Berlin and Martin James Monti, a United States Army Air Force pilot, who had defected to the Waffen SS in 1944.
She served just six years and two months of her ten-year sentence before being released early for good behaviour from the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, on 28 January 1956. After fifteen years she was finally able to return to her family
In December 1944, The Zero Hour was shortened to sixty minutes, but was the main programme among a whole range of similar propaganda broadcasts including such as Three Missing Men, Saturday Jamboree and From One American To Another .
It continued to broadcast until about 12 August 1945. Three days previously the Americans had dropped their second atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki and three days later Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s unconditional surrender. The Emperor’s words were the last heard on Radio Tokyo. It was shut down immediately after he finished his speech.
The Americans’ response to Tokyo Rose was Tokyo Mose. A twenty-six-year-old American journalist, Walter Kaner, broadcast to the occupying American troops six afternoons a week, between two and three in the afternoon, after the Japanese surrender. His theme tune, Moshi, Moshi Ano-ne, sung to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down, became popular with Japanese children and was known as ‘the Japanese occupation theme song’. Kaner entertained the troops with the music of Benny Goodman and Cab Calloway and irreverent comments about military life in the occupying army. He would come out with audience-pleasing lines such as, ‘The lack of material prevents many junior officers from having personal jeeps. It is an indictment of current conditions to report that some lieutenants are sorely inconvenienced and must double-up on dinner engagements.’
Meanwhile, the Americans launched a nationwide search for Tokyo Rose, eager to charge her with war crimes. Two American journalists joined the search. Henry Brundidge and Clark Lee announced a reward of $250 for information as to her whereabouts. Iva, by this time married to a Japanese-Portuguese man, Felipe D’Aquino, was in hiding, but desperate to get back to her family in the United States. She came forward to claim the money. However, when she signed a contract to give the two men an interview, identifying herself as Tokyo Rose, she was arrested. She never did see the cash. From then on, although there had been a number of Tokyo Roses, she became the person associated with the name. Initially, however, the authorities concluded that the evidence they had accumulated did not merit prosecution and Iva was released from custody. However, when she again requested an American passport, veterans’ groups and commentators, such as the famous broadcaster, Walter Winchell, became irate. They demanded her arrest and trial as a traitor.
The FBI had a vast amount of material relating to her case – Japanese documents, recordings of her broadcasts, interviews with her listeners, the troops who had served in the Pacific. These were turned over to the Justice Department. A grand jury was convened in San Francisco and she was indicted. She was arrested in Yokohama and brought to the United States. On arrival at San Francisco on 25 September 1948, she was arrested and charged with treason. Her case came to court on 5 July 1949, the day after her thirty-third birthday.
Although he did later admit to being prejudiced against Iva, Judge Michael Roche was careful with the testimony of the witnesses, disallowing much of it. A number of them had been flown in to testify against her purely for the daily allowance of $10 and an opportunity to visit the United States.
Iva was the seventh American citizen to be convicted of treason during the Second World War, joining the ranks of such as Mildred Gillars who had broadcast as ‘Axis Sally’ from Berlin and Martin James Monti, a United States Army Air Force pilot, who had defected to the Waffen SS in 1944.
She served just six years and two months of her ten-year sentence before being released early for good behaviour from the Federal Reformatory for Women at Alderson, West Virginia, on 28 January 1956. After fifteen years she was finally able to return to her family
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