Treason on the Airwaves

This work traces the extraordinary journeys of three World War II radio broadcasters in Germany and Japan whose wartime choices became treason in Britain, Australia, and the United States. John Amery, a member of a well-connected British family, joined Hitler's propagandists in Berlin. He was executed for treason by Britain after the war. Charles Cousens was a soldier in Japanese captivity when he was put to work on Radio Tokyo with a team of Allied POWs. Cousens was later tried as a traitor in Australia. Iva Toguri, better known as Tokyo Rose, was an American student visiting Japan when war broke out. She broadcast her English show on Radio Tokyo out of necessity rather than conviction. The United States jailed Toguri for treason. Through these powerful stories, this work not only sheds new light on the history of wartime radio broadcasting in Germany and Japan, but also examines the laws of treason in Britain, Australia, and the United States and the ways in which trials such as these helped shape modern-day treason trials. All three accounts provoke thoughtful questions as to the nature of justice-and the justice of retribution. This work traces the extraordinary journeys of three World War II radio broadcasters in Germany and Japan whose wartime choices became treason in Britain, Australia, and the United States.

Judith Keene is Associate Professor of History and the Associate Dean of Post Graduate Research in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. She teaches and writes on twentieth century cultural and political history and on European film history and is the author of Fighting For Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist Spain During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 (2001).