Today marks the 70th anniversary of Iva Toguri D’Aquino being charged for treason for her work as Tokyo Rose.
Rose was a radio announcer in Tokyo, broadcasting in English, messages to American troops that were meant to sink their morale and presumably the war effort against the Japanese during World War II.
D’Aquino wasn’t the only Tokyo Rose, but the one who was most well known.
Bio put a list together of the five things you should know about D’Aquino.
- She was an American citizen who went to Japan to visit her sick aunt. US immigration officials denied D’Aquino reentry after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.
- She refused to announce her American citizenship and the
Japanese labeled her an enemy of Japan. - She took a job as a radio announcer and mocked the pro-Japanese propaganda of the program she worked on, The Zero Hour. Her sarcasm, however, was lost on both the Japanese and the US.
- An interview she gave to Cosmopolitan Magazine was interpreted as a confession and the US charged her with treason.
- She was convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in prison. President Ford pardoned her in 1977.
You can find out how she was tricked into “confessing” and why President Ford pardoned her in Bio.