Under the radio-wave controls of December 1941, private possession of shortwave receivers was severely restricted during the war. If you listened to shortwave broadcasts you were scolded for espionage and your shortwave radio was confiscated. There seem to have been cases where the set was returned with its shortwave receiving function destroyed. If you were considered to have ideological problems, there was torture as well.
So after the defeat there were people who felt peace had really come by assembling shortwave radios freely.
An aside: not long after the Pacific War ended, a black market specializing in electrical parts sprang up on the sidewalks from Ogawamachi to the Sudacho area in Kanda. Every imaginable electrical part was, quite literally, laid out on the street. I am not certain whether this was the forerunner of today's Akihabara, but in any case American military radio sets were sold there, and you could buy cheaply even ultra-high-frequency vacuum tubes such as the "Sora," said to have been developed by the old Japanese army just before the defeat. I remember taking such junk apart and rebuilding it, freely assembling the "phantom shortwave radio" that during the war would certainly have gotten you executed as a spy for merely possessing it, and feeling in that the arrival of peace.
*Tsushin Kogyo* 31(1)(353), Tsushin Kikai Kogyokai, 1991-01. National Diet Library Digital Collections National Diet Library Digital Collections ↗
It is human nature to want to listen to what you are told not to listen to, and in 1944 in Tendo, Yamagata Prefecture, secret gatherings were held to listen to shortwave radio. The participants were as follows.
- Saito Ichiro, a teacher at the Yamagata Youth Normal School, who at the time taught science and English. Right after the defeat he raised a ruckus with his students over school reform, and later became a professor emeritus at Yamagata University. Meticulous and thoroughgoing by nature, he liked looking after people.
- Ebina Kota, a literary youth, took part in the labor movement, was arrested, and then became a radio dealer. Assembling and operating the shortwave radio was his job. After the war he became a member of the Japanese Communist Party. He was a helpful sort and a man of backbone.
- Niizeki Shogo, in his days as a substitute teacher at Tendo Elementary School, threw himself into the life-composition movement (an educational method of having children write compositions about their own experiences and thoughts as they felt them; it was suppressed during the war), and was once caught by the Special Higher Police. During the war he worked at the Tohoku Precision plant; after the war he served in turn as a town hall official and as a city and town assembly member, contributing to the development of the city administration.
- Mimori Gonyushin was the chief priest of Sozengyoji temple, and around this time he was active as head of the Imperial Rule Assistance Young Men's Corps and was well known as a Boy Scout leader. After the war he became the administrative head of the Otani branch of Shinshu Higashi Honganji, and carried great weight in the Buddhist world.
- Kitamura Kinsaku, a graduate of the Tokyo Pharmaceutical College, ran a pharmacy at the time. In the confusion after the war he served as deputy mayor of Tendo, and later became a city assembly member.
Teikoku Himitsu Tanteisha, ed., *Taishu Jinjiroku*, 22nd ed., East Japan volume, Teikoku Himitsu Tanteisha, 1962. National Diet Library Digital Collections https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3012267
It is strange to see a hard-right head of the Imperial Rule Assistance Young Men's Corps getting on well with leftists who had been arrested over the labor movement and the composition movement, but they all sensed "the deception of the Imperial Headquarters announcements" and had "a strong desire to know the truth." They could not suppress it, and gathered secretly late at night at Ebina's house to listen to foreign broadcasts on shortwave radio.
Listening to the broadcasts, they could grasp the course of the war as if it were in their hands. "The situation, growing darker with defeat day by day, was told to us in an extremely persuasive tone."
After listening, holding down their excitement, the four talked about all sorts of things. Even in wartime, there was this shape of youth.
But the activity did not last long. At the Tohoku Precision plant the diversion of supplies became an issue, and Niizeki Shogo's house was searched.
Unfortunately, Niizeki was a compulsive diarist. Naturally the shortwave radio was written up in detail as well. The four were beside themselves with anxiety.
Mimori aside, Ebina and Niizeki had been arrested by the Special Higher Police before. In short, they were people with ideological problems. Saito, too, was routinely looked down on at school as the fellow who taught the enemy's language. There was a strong chance this would not end with the radio being confiscated and a "watch yourself from now on."
The police would pass it to the military police, and "we would surely be subjected to all kinds of treatment — forced labor, beatings. Trembling with fear, we spent our days in resignation and despair" — but the summons never came. Instead American Grumman aircraft began flying over Tendo, and in time August 15 arrived and the war was over.
After the defeat, the reason they had never been summoned came to light.
Niizeki the compulsive diarist had also recorded in detail his conversations with M, a Special Higher Police officer at the Tendo police station. The content was top-secret information concerning General Ishiwara Kanji of the East Asian League. Leaking top-secret information was a major blunder for the Tendo police station. They absolutely did not want the military police to know. So the police could not use the Niizeki diary as evidence and summon the four. Niizeki's habit of recording everything worked out in a good direction.
The incident was handled internally. M was removed from the Special Higher Police and demoted to the remote Oguni station. There is a sequel to this story too. Demoted, M lamented his bad luck, but then came the defeat, and Special Higher Police officers were purged by order of the occupation forces. Having been demoted and reduced in rank, he escaped the purge and was able to serve out his career to retirement age.
Nobody ended up unhappy, so I would like to call it a happy ending, but there was one regrettable thing. This incident was what made Niizeki give up the diary he loved.
As you can tell from his enthusiasm for the composition movement, Niizeki was abnormally fond of writing diaries. It is hard to imagine now, but it was an incident traumatic enough to make that Niizeki abandon his diary. His friend Kitamura regretted it, saying that if Niizeki "had written the movements of postwar Tendo in his diary, it would have been a marvelously valuable source."
Saito Ichiro Kyoju Tsuitoroku Kankokai, ed., *Kaiso no Saito Ichiro*, Saito Kikuko, 1982.12. National Diet Library Digital Collections https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12195090