World War II Database

Mrs. Iva Ikuko Toguri D'Aquino was a nisei, or Japanese-American, who visited a sick aunt in Japan when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She was stranded in Japan and unable to go home as war waged on between the two Pacific giants. Initially harassed by the Japanese for her US citizenship, she was eventually enlisted as a disc jockey because of her English language skills. Among other disc jockeys, it was her responsibility to spread propaganda targeted at American troops. Americans who listened to the propaganda-ridden broadcasts named her as one of the "Tokyo Rose". While she did not learn of this nickname until 1944, she did give herself an alias, "Orphan Ann", for her broadcasts. During her tenure at Radio Tokyo, she took care of Allied prisoners-of-war by providing them with food and medicine.

After the war, Toguri was tried for treason by the US government in July 1949. She was fined US$100,000 and served six out of a ten-year prison sentence in West Virginia. After a 60 Minutes interview gave Americans her story from her own perspective, she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in Jan 1977. Her husband was never given permission to move to the United States to join her. They would divorce, reluctantly, in 1980.

Toguri ran the J. Toguri Mercantile Co. on Belmont Avenue near Clark Street in Chicago until she passed away in 2006. She spoke little about her involvement in the Pacific War; "She had a hard outer shell, and you could understand why," said Thomas Tunney, a neighborhood restaurant owner.

You can listen to her sign-on to her show "Zero Hour" at the EarthStation1 website.

Iva Toguri Timeline

Photographs

Share this article with your friends:

Delicious   Digg   Facebook

Reddit   StumbleUpon   Twitter

Stay updated with WW2DB:

Subscribe to RSS Feeds

Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Anonymous says:
   16 Feb 2009 11:12:09 AM
   
   she was a scape coat! hard to believe all the other japanese war criminals got away!! how many japanese officers really paid for their crimes.

Posting Your Comments on this Topic

Your Name
Your Email
	Your email will not be published
Your Comments
Security Code

Note: Please refrain from using strong language. HTML tags are not allowed. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. WW2DB site administrators reserve the right to moderate, censor, and/or remove any comment.