Propaganda Queen: Iva Toguri, and other propagandists of World War Two.

Twenty-five-year-old Iva Toguri, born and raised in Los Angeles, found herself trapped in Japan when that country bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into World War II.

Forced into service as a radio propaganda broadcaster, Toguri became world famous as “Tokyo Rose.”

After the war — on Oct. 6, 1949, 75 years ago today — she was sentenced to 10 years in prison and stripped of her citizenship. President Gerald Ford would pardon her in 1977.

Toguri left her parents in Los Angeles in July 1941 to travel to her parents’ homeland to visit ailing relatives and to study medicine. Her key mistake: She chose to travel without a passport.

Two months later, she found she needed that passport in order to return. As a natural-born U.S. citizen, she was entitled to one — but being out of the country, that would take time.

Before the State Department could comply with Toguri’s request, war broke out. She was unable to leave Japan.

Toguri found work as a clerk until November 1943, when officials at Radio Tokyo put her — and her English-speaking skills — to work on an evening program called “Zero Hour” that was aimed not at Japanese residents but instead at English-speaking servicemen throughout the Pacific Theater.

Toguri was billed as “Orphan Ann.” She did the usual disc jockey work — introducing records and making station identifications — but she also had about 20 minutes or so an evening to read and comment on news items — greatly slanted, naturally, aimed at harming the morale of the enemy.

But even folks at the time didn’t find her effective at doing that. U.S. sailors and troops called her “Tokyo Rose” and generally mocked her commentary. At times, she would even mock herself, announcing to her audience that she was serving up another “program of dangerous and wicked propaganda for my victims in Australia and the South Pacific.”

She longed to return home, however. Married and in poor financial shape after the war, Toguri accepted $2,000 from two American reporters who wanted to interview the infamous “Tokyo Rose.” She took the money and did the interview — which led to her arrest by U.S. occupation officials.

Toguri spent a year in jail, was released and denied re-entry to the U.S. In 1948, she was arrested a second time, charged with eight counts of treason and brought to San Francisco for trial. She was convicted on one count, given a 10-year prison sentence and stripped of her citizenship. Nearly 30 years later, multiple news investigations would find the two primary witnesses at her trial had perjured themselves after being coached on their testimony by the FBI, under threat of being charged with treason themselves.

After her release in 1956, Toguri moved to Chicago, went to work for her father’s business and fought off a series of deportation orders. President Gerald Ford granted Toguri a pardon — and restored her U.S. citizenship — on his next-to-last day in office on Jan. 19, 1977. Toguri was 60 years old.

Toguri died in 2006 at the age of 90.

Toguiri in 1977.

Other Notables World War II Propaganda Broadcasters

"Axis Sally," Mildred Gillars

Federal Bureau Of Prisons

A former Broadway showgirl who moved to Berlin in 1934, Gillars worked on a program called the “Home Sweet Home Hour,” broadcasting to English-speaking GIs, questioning their motives for fighting Germany and telling them their wives and girlfriends back home will reject them if they’re wounded.

Gillars was called “Midge” on the air, but most American servicemen referred to her as “Axis Sally”— even though there was an Italian-American woman also broadcasting at the time as “Sally.”

In 1949, Gillars was convicted of treason and sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison. She was released in 1961 and died of colon cancer in 1988 at age 87.

"Lord Haw Haw," William Joyce

British Army Film and Photographic Unit

Born in Brooklyn, Joyce grew up in Ireland. He became a supporter of Germany’s Nazi movement in 1932 and fled from Britain to Berlin just before war broke out in 1939.

With an impeccable cosmopolitan accent, Joyce was put to work on English-language radio stations, where he became known for gleefully reciting fatality reports during the London blitz.

While Joyce was trying to slip out of the country after the surrender, soldiers recognized his distinctive voice and halted him at the border with Denmark. One soldier accidentally shot him in the buttocks.

Joyce stood trial for high treason, was found guilty and was executed in January 1946. Joyce was 39.

"Gustav Siegfried 1," Sefton Delmer

The Bundesarchiv

It wasn’t just the Axis powers that engaged in fake news during World War II. In September 1940, Delmer — who had worked as a broadcaster for the BBC — was tasked with creating elaborate propaganda broadcasts.

Delmer’s angle: The broadcast was supposedly German, not British. An announcer played the role of Gustav Siegfried — “der Chef,” or the Chief — who would spill all sorts of news, intelligence reports and vicious rumors. All were fake, of course. The Chief would blast German officials as well as Allied figures — all in the name of appearing authentic.

After the war, Delmer worked as a foreign newspaper correspondent and wrote a book about his wartime exploits. He died in 1979 at age 75.

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