Tokyo Rose
Eventually Iva Toguri ended up working as a typist at Radio Tokyo. As a native English speaker it was her job to edit the scripts being prepared for broadcast for grammar and syntax errors. In the beginning these errors were numerous and, by all accounts, some of the broadcasts were nothing short of hilarious because of them. However, as the military officers in charge of this particular branch of propaganda gained some expertise in their jobs the quality of the broadcasts improved. They become professional when Prisoners of War with radio experience, notably Australian and American, were coerced into writing and producing the shows. Iva was tapped to be one of the announcers. She did not want to do it, but in wartime Japan one did not disobey direct orders from the army, not if one wanted to stay out of the labor camps or even (in extreme cases) keep one's head.
Most of the shows followed similar formats. There was music, both popular and classical, but always Western, introduced by a (usually) female disc jockey, POW messages, news from America gleaned from American sources, and jibes at the Allied war effort. The news from home was generally in the line of natural disasters, American ships sunk, Allied battle losses, anything that would demoralize the troops. It could be unnerving and, until Midway, it often was. After Midway the news portions had little to do with reality and the shows became almost a burlesque.
Iva Toguri's regular show was called "Zero Hour". She had a light, witty, comic style of delivery that proved to be immensely popular with the GI's and her show quickly became the most popular radio show in the Pacific theater. She would introduce herself as "your favorite enemy, Orphan Ann."
It may seem odd that a professed American patriot would do a propaganda program aimed at demoralizing her nations army, but in fact it had quite the opposite effect. Her comical delivery was deliberate, and took any of the 'sting' out of her words. Instead of lowering morale, she boosted it. Indeed, she received much praise from American troops during the war and in the post war period for her role in amusing and entertaining them. Iva herself said she was waging a small war in her own way against the Japanese, with the only means she had available. Rather than being an evil propagandist, this "Tokyo Rose" was a fifth
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