Tokyo Rose

None of the G.I.s I knew in the Pacific in WWII were angry with Tokyo Rose.  She was too entertaining.  She recited  lots of nonsense, but we were pretty sure that her trash talk was essentially for her own people, who probably wanted to believe most of it.  We certainly didn't have to. When she was telling us that an aircraft carrier floating a hundred yards off our stern was being sunk, we didn't have to ask CINCPAC if “Rosie” was mistaken.

           

The thing was that, for all of her silliness, her radio program was the easiest to receive, and  she played all the best contemporary LP's.

           

Broadcasts from the States was usually like listening through a fish tank, wavering, and often interrupted by bad weather.  Ships could have relayed stuff, but that would have been an invitation to Japanese subs.  Rosie was reliable, and tuning in was secure.

Australia wasn't all that great to tune into, and they played "Aussie" stuff.

           

Rosie had to have been working from a monster station.  Bad weather and sunspots never spoiled reception.

           

One of our favorite pastimes was hearing her recite ships “sunk” by the Japanese fleet, and then seeing who would be first to identify those ships.     

Once Rosie named a C.V.E. we were alongside getting some supplies from. But she must have been an elitist, as she didn't mention our ship, just the big one. 

Security in war time is important, of course, but its effectiveness was at best moot.  When my brother-in-law's B-17 was shot down by the Germans in Rumania, the plane's crew were taken to an interrogation officer who pointed to each crewman and, in acceptable English, identified each by name, rank, home town, and prewar job. 

           

In the Pacific,  we always had a pretty good idea where the Japanese were, how many, how well equipped, and if they were readying any action.  We just couldn’t tell people at home that we knew. Which meant that Rosie's real effect was on her own country.

           

Once I wrote a long letter.  I dressed it up with cartoons of airplanes in the margins, palm trees, and wings on a steam boat. A month or so later, a response arrived.  My letter had been censored ... sort of. A censor had very neatly razor bladed out each drawing.  But, he, or she, had also left every clipped sketch inside the envelope. 

Some people at home actually knew things about my ship and schedule that I didn't.  I did not know when my first leave would begin until the day my leave papers arrived on board.  I only learned the name of my home bound ship by reading the bow on it as my exec and I were being motored to it.  Yet I was met at the pier in San Francisco, and my uncle in Berkeley had a reception waiting for me.  Maybe Tokyo Rose knew it, too -- but she didn't like to tell good news.

  

We loved her LP's.  Wouldn't you tune in Rosie when she was playing “Begin the Beguine,”  “Contrasts,” and “Don't Get Around Much Anymore”?  Oh, I forgot.  You weren't born then.