Russell Warren Howe - The Hunt for Tokyo Rose

ENSIGN GEORGE HENSHAW claimed to have listed all the prisoners at Suragadai, or Bunka. Some of the men were cooks, orderlies, and other camp staff. The following were ordered to perform tasks with Nippon Hoso Kyokai, and many of them were questioned by the CIC, the FBI, or by Allied equivalents.

ASTERITA, Joseph John Ooe), Wake Island civilian, from Brooklyn, New York. Minor radio work and cook.

BRUCE, Lance Corporal Donald Carswell, British army, from Glasgow, Scotland. Typed scripts.

COUSENS, Major Charles Hughes, Australian army, from Sydney. Senior prisoner of the camp. His radio work is described in this book.

COX, Major Willistin Madison, Jr., U.S. Army Air Corps, from Tennessee. Second ranking prisoner. Minor radio duties.

DODDS, Darwin H., Wake Island civilian, from Boise, Idaho. Singer and occasional master of ceremonies on Hinomaru Hour, relieving Provoo and Wisner. Participated in The Postman Calls.

DOOLEY, Warrant Officer John H., Australian army. Wrote commentaries and helped in kitchen.

FUJITA, Sergeant Frank, U.S. Army, from Abilene, Texas. Minor radio duties.

HENSHAW, Ensign George (Buck), U.S. Navy, from Los Angeles. Wrote Three Missing Men series, helped with Saturday Jamboree, spun turntables.

HOBBLITT, Corporal Frederick M., U.S. Army, from San Francisco. Master of ceremonies, and read POW messages on The Postman Calls. Worked under Ince, who wrote and directed the program. (Misdescribed in the FBI files as a marine.)

INCE, Captain Wallace Ellwell (misspelled Elwell by Henshaw and Ewell by some others). Radio name: Ted Wallace. His NHK work is described in this book.

KALBFLEISCH, Second Lieutenant Edwin, Jr. Wrote and read political commentaries of three or four minutes duration, then refused to cooperate.

LIGHT, Technical Sergeant Newton, U.S. Army, from Roanoke, Virginia. According to Henshaw, he was the stenciling man and he prepared all the scripts after they had been written in rough draft form by the various POW writers.

McNAUGHTON, Lieutenant John M., British army, from London. Initially wrote commentaries, then radio dramatizations of stories.

MARTINEZ, Private First Class James Gutierrez, U.S. Army, from Kingsville, Texas. Had minor radio duties and helped in kitchen.

MARTINEZ, Private First Class Ramon Perez, from Laredo, Texas. Disc jockey on Spanish-language program, Saturday Jamboree. (Not related to James, above.)

ODLIN, Technical Sergeant Walter C., U.S. Army, from Andover, New Hampshire. Wrote commentaries.

PARKYNS, Flight Sergeant Kenneth G., Royal Australian Air Force, from Liverpool, New South Wales. Some writing; appeared on Australian Hour; assistant chief camp cook.

PEARSON, Corporal Harry, British army. Scriptwriter and musician. Helped with Saturday Jamboree.

PROVOO, Sergeant John David, U.S. Army. Chief animator of Hinomaru Hour and Humanity Calls.

QUILLE, Larry W, Wake Island civilian, from La Grande, Oregon. Wrote scripts, but was later relegated to the kitchen.

RICKERT, Corporal Albert Powhatan, U.S. Marines, from Louisville, Kentucky. Typed scripts for Ince and others.

SHATTLES, Stephen Herman, Wake Island civilian, from New Orleans (and Hattiesburg, Mississippi). Wrote and acted in radio dramas, read commentaries, and did mimeographing.

SHENK, Warrant Officer Nicolas, Army of the Netherlands. Did some writing. Chief camp cook.

SMITH, Radioman First Class Frederick Ferguson, U.S. Navy. Wrote commentaries and typed scripts.

STREETER, Mark Lewis (or Louis). Wake Island civilian, from Ogden, Utah. Wrote commentaries and dramas and later had his own program called Enerjocracy.

WILLIAMS, Henry Charles Ralph Fulford (George). British Colonial Service. Refused to cooperate.

WISNER, Second Lieutenant Jack K. (misspelled Wisener by Henshaw), U.S. Army Air Corps (Henshaw mistakenly says Army). Alternated as master of ceremonies on The Postman Calls, and with Provoo on Hinomaru Hour and Humanity Calls, for which he wrote and read a few assigned commentaries.

After the war, Corporal Pearson used the skills acquired at NHK to get a job as a reporter in Cape Town, South Africa. Quilles work, rejected by the Japanese, enabled him to become a reporter on the Fullerton (Texas) News-Tribune. Provoo was convicted of treason but acquitted on appeal; he spent many years in mental hospitals. Streeter was imprisoned, but charges of treason were finally dropped. The wandering Dutchman Shenk did not go home but stayed on in Tokyo to work for the War Crimes Department of the U.S. Eighth Army. All of the American officers who worked for Tokyo radio were promoted on their return. Corporal Rickert was made a marine officer.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Light and the Shadows

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(a novel)

Theirs the Darkness:

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Black Star Rising:

A Journey through West Africa

Black Africa:

Vol. I From Pre-History to the Eve of the Colonial Era

Vol. II The Colonial Era and Modern Times

The African Revolution

Along the Afric Shore:

An Historic Review of Two Centuries of U.S. Relations with Africa

The Power Peddlers:

How Lobbyists Mold Americas Foreign Policy

(with Sarah Hays Trott)

Weapons:

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Mata HariThe True Story

The Koreans:

Passion and Grace

Flight of the Cormorants

(a novel)

Copyright 1990 by Russell Warren Howe

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5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Howe, Russell Warren, 1925

The hunt for Tokyo Rose / Russell Warren Howe.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Tokyo Rose, 1916

2. United StatesBiography.

3. Japanese AmericansBiography.

4. World War, 19391945Japan.

5. Trials (Treason)CaliforniaSan Francisco.

I. Title.

CT275.T717H68 1989

940.54'88752'092dc20 8935273 CIP

[B]

ISBN 0819174564 (alk. paper)

British Cataloging in Publication Information Available

THE AUTHORS OF THE CONSTITUTION of the United States were aware of the excesses and injustice that often flow from the emotional accusation, TREASON. James Wilson of Pennsylvania, one of the wisest and most influential delegates at the convention, insisted on defining this ultimate crime against the state in the charter. He hoped to prevent political abuses of power against government-proclaimed enemies of the patria. He wanted the new nation to avoid the numerous and dangerous excrescenses that disfigured the English law of treason.