By This blogger has some interesting thoughts
During the WWII, GIs in the Pacific theater sent letters back home carrying stories of a woman they called “Tokyo Rose.” She was the siren of the Pacific, calling out to the lonely American servicemen in a sultry voice, carried by Japanese radio waves. She taunted them, insulted them and foretold their eventual demise.
Stories of Tokyo Rose are common in the war correspondence. Yet the attempts to find the woman have gone nowhere. One woman, named Iva Toguri d’Aquino, was eventually convicted. However, this seems to have been a media driven witch hunt rather than a careful investigation.
Toguri was a second generation Japanese-American who got caught visiting an aunt when the war started. She did serve as a “radio girl,” but under the name “Orphan Ann.” Her voice did not match the descriptions of Tokyo Rose. Unfortunately for her, she was the only radio girl to remain an American citizen after the war, making her the only possible guest of honor for an American show trial.
In fact, there doesn’t seem to have been any one person who went by the name “Tokyo Rose.” There were twenty-seven different female broadcasters at some point in the war, but none consistently used the handle of “Tokyo Rose.”
(…)
The stories of Tokyo Rose were examined by the Office of Warfare Information (OWI), looking for the how she got her supposed intelligence. In the end, the OWI categorically rejected the stories as urban legends:
There is no Tokyo Rose; the name is strictly a GI invention … Government monitors listening in twenty-four hours a day have never heard the words Tokyo Rose over a Japanese-controlled Far Eastern Radio.
I have no opinion either way. What I’ll just say is this. Trying to prove is very hard, and the longer something has been out there as a ‘fact’ the harder it is to disprove.
A big hat tip to Doug at Outside the Beltway.
12:01 am on December 6th, 2010 1
Wasn't the moniker Tokyo Rose created by Americans?
Oh, and while we're on the subject of WW2 propaganda. General MacAuliffe didn't just answer "Nuts!". It wasn't just a one-word answer as every history books repeats it to have been. I have from a reliable source that F-word was involved.
1:02 am on December 6th, 2010 2
Speaking of incredibly witty replies to a request for surrender, the one that takes the cake is probably Governor Frontenac's reply to the emissary of William Phips in 1690. The messenger was blindfolded and led through rough terrain after rough terrain to give the impression that Quebec city was much more heavily fortified than it really was and then through an organized mob that insulted and assaulted him to give the impression the city had a large and uncontrollable population. One he was finally brought before Frontenac, who had dressed in his fanciest of clothes, he was told, "I have no other answer to make to your general than by the mouth of my canons and the shots of my rifles. He must learn that is not how to intimidate a man such as I."
5:42 am on December 6th, 2010 3
And Beijing Betty doesn't exist either. I'm just a figment of your imagination.
5:43 am on December 6th, 2010 4
Tokyo Rose looked far better than half the people in America today.
7:04 am on December 6th, 2010 5
Be careful with that kind of talk…
…you could easily get the name Taegu Tom around here.
Your messages aren't so different.
Kushibo will likely push for Tianjin Tom… or Peking Tom.
Teadrinker will prefer Toronto Tom.
Glans will vote for Global Rising Temperature Tom.
…but, now that I look at it, you are right.
Tokyo Rose DOES look better than half of the people in America… and she looks better than most of the women, too.
7:53 am on December 6th, 2010 6
This is the first that I ever heard that Tokyo Rose might be an urban legend. I had read that the woman pictured above was Tokyo Rose & had been executed. I hope that the authorities had evidence that THIS woman had in fact made treasonous statements & wasn't executed by mistake.
8:37 am on December 6th, 2010 7
Or I could be the Peeping Tom.
10:17 am on December 6th, 2010 8
Downs Tom?
10:23 am on December 6th, 2010 9
Tom certainly is "special" in every possible meaning of the word, I fear.
12:37 pm on December 6th, 2010 10
At #7, Perhaps it should be spelled "Peiping Tom."
7:22 pm on December 6th, 2010 11
@6-Iva Toguri was not executed but was tried and confined for 15 years I think before being let out. She spent the rest of her life clearing her name. It's unfortunate that she got wrapped up in a witchhunt at the end of the war and paid a price for being an American in the wrong place at the wrong time…
8:07 pm on December 6th, 2010 12
It's always been acknowledged that there were many women who broadcasted Japanese propaganda, in English, over Japanese radio during the war. It's just that Iva Toguri D'Aquino bore the brunt of the blame for all of it because she was an easier target because she was an American citizen and she survived the war. BTW, It was President Ford who eventually pardoned her in 1977.
8:17 pm on December 6th, 2010 13
While we're on the subject, anyone know anything about "Seoul City Sue"?
8:29 pm on December 6th, 2010 14
She got wrapped up in a witch hunt because she was a Yellow Asian. Whites who are racist in their DNA, tended to put all of them into concentration camps.
8:50 pm on December 6th, 2010 15
Archie, she beat the hell out of Berlin Bertha in my book.
10:49 pm on December 6th, 2010 16
The profile mugshot is a little misleading.
She isn't quite Holly Graf ugly… but she ain't the hot little Asian girl some of you think you see in the picture.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0…
Frankly, I like my America-hating traitorous biitches to be a little hotter.
http://img.listal.com/image/388939/600full-jane-f…
11:41 pm on December 6th, 2010 17
"but she ain’t the hot little Asian girl some of you think you see in the picture."
Ewwww…. uuuugly…. oo-eck..
I gotta hand it to the Japs. Beautiful ones are really beautiful, but the ugly ones are really ugly. I prefer the Korean women, they're the best.
12:29 am on December 7th, 2010 18
Looking at the picture, I don't blame the Americans putting her in jail!
12:33 am on December 7th, 2010 19
Koreans, Japs or biitchie little fonda would all look the same when your looking down at the top of their heads. Graft would likely look ok from that angle as well.
4:30 am on December 7th, 2010 20
Tom #14, You've got some real stones to be calling people 'racist'. Some of the comments that you have made here on ROK Drop would make a Klansman blush. I agree with you on one thing, ain't no way that this woman is hot although after quite a few beers I might consider doing her.
8:16 am on December 7th, 2010 21
ChickenHead 16, I think they're both beautiful. The funny thing was, the GIs enjoyed the "Tokyo Rose" broadcasts, whoever was at the mike.
ChickenHead 5, no, that doesn't bite. I dunno. Maybe Dihydrogen Monoxide Tom, but that's too long. Polonium-210 Tom? Better, but not quite right. Chicken Cloaca Tom? That's closer to what we need.
10:13 am on December 7th, 2010 22
"Whites who are racist in their DNA…"
Damn, your dumb.
10:14 am on December 7th, 2010 23
(Read my reply carefully, Tom. There's still hope for you if you catch the irony of my own statement).
2:52 pm on December 7th, 2010 24
"Tom #14, You’ve got some real stones to be calling people ‘racist’."
I am not the one who put these Japs in the concentration camps, so why am I the racist one? But I do understand why this woman was jailed. With a face like that, she needs to be in jail and the key to the locks thrown away. My god, her Jap face gives me the creeps.
3:28 pm on December 7th, 2010 25
#24,
Hey, buddy. None of us were alive in the 1940's.
Oh, and "Japs"? Fess up. You're no more Korean than Kim Jong-il, or should I say, Yuri Irsenovich Kim.
3:41 pm on December 7th, 2010 26
Eh, white people, asian people, no more racist than each other. Just white people got ahead a bit when the Chinese had a couple bad Emperors at the wrong time in history, so white people were able to act on idiot urges more often.
That said…
Q: "so why am I the racist one?"
A: "But I do understand why this woman was jailed. With a face like that, she needs to be in jail and the key to the locks thrown away. My god, her Jap face gives me the creeps."
4:21 pm on December 7th, 2010 27
So? How's that racist?