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| General Wainwright broadcasting surrender instructions over KZRH, 7 May 1942 |
At
the time when the Japanese administration took over the city of Manila on
January 2, 1942, there were no active radio stations on the air in the
area. A few days earlier, that is towards
the end of the month of December, some of the usable equipment had been removed
from the radio stations and the remainder was deliberately
damaged or destroyed. Just one antenna
system was left intact in the Manila area, and this was located at Cubao in
Quezon City. Thus all radio stations,
commercial mediumwave and shortwave in greater Manila, international
communication stations on the edge of Manila, and navy radio at Cavite, were
all silent.
However, in the era just before the
Japanese occupation, it is reported that there were 108 radio stations on the
air throughout the entire Philippines, though little is known as to what
happened to them under the Japanese administration.
The American army had safely removed
the 1 kW shortwave transmitter at KZRH in Manila and they re-activated this
as the Voice of Freedom in Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor Island on January
5. A few days later, American personnel
activated another shortwave station on the Bataan Peninsula as a part time
relay for the California station KGEI.
The transmitter for this relocated station was a 1 kW mobile unit that
had been previously in use for the original Far East Broadcasting Company under
the callsign KZRB.
Then
a few days later again, that is on January 14 (1942), a restored KZRH was
activated in Manila under the Japanese administration. The Japanese had discovered some radio
equipment hidden in the basement of the Heacock Building on Escolta Avenue and
together with some of their own imported equipment, they re-launched shortwave
KZRH on one of its original channels 9640 kHz.
The inaugural five hour program began at 7:00 pm Manila time.
For a period of almost exactly four
months, a war of words was waged between the Japanese KZRH in Manila on 9640
kHz and the American Voice of Freedom in Malinta Tunnel on the adjacent
channel 9645 kHz. However, the American
General Jonathan M. Wainwright addressed the Japanese General Masaharu Homma in
a special series of three broadcasts in English and Japanese over the Voice of
Freedom on Corregidor Island on May 6 (1942) requesting surrender. At 11:00 pm next day, General Wainwright made
a special broadcast over the Japanese held KZRH in Manila, indicating that the
American forces had indeed surrendered.
It was around this time also that
the only other radio broadcasting station still on the air anywhere in the
Philippines, mediumwave and shortwave KZRC in distant Cebu to the south, was also
taken over by the local Japanese administration.
During the next two and three years,
the Japanese established a whole network of mediumwave broadcasting stations
throughout the Philippines and these were identified with callsigns similar in
style to the sequence of callsigns in Japan.
Each callsign, using the English alphabet, began with the letters PI,
standing rather obviously for Philippine Islands, followed by two additional
letters. The 3rd
letter in the callsign indicated the sequence in which the station was
established and the final 4th letter indicated the city.
Some of these callsigns were as
follows:-
PIBC Philippine Islands B = 2nd station C = Cebu
PICD Philippine Islands C = 3rd station D = Davao
PIDI Philippine Islands D = 4th station I = Iloilo
Additional mediumwave stations were
installed in five other cities:-
Also Naga, Baguio,
Zamboanga, Cotabato, Legaspi
Projected
but never installed Tuguegarao
Programming from these mediumwave
stations was presented in five different languages:-
Tagalog
(ta-GAH-log), Spanish, English, Ilonggo, Cebuano, Japanese
Japanese programming
also included
language lessons, How to Learn Japanese
In Manila itself, the callsign of
the main network station was changed on October 14, 1943 from KZRH to PIAM. This was the ceremonial date for Philippine
independence. Program details were
printed daily in the Manila Tribune. The
meaning of the Manila callsign was as follows:-
PIAM Philippine Islands A = 1st station M = Manila
On shortwave, the callsign in use
for international radio programming via the revived KZRH-PIAM was PIRN:-
PIRN Philippine Islands
R = Radio N = Nippon
Other programming from the
Philippine radio stations was an off air direct relay on shortwave from Radio
Tokyo in Japan. At one stage, the
Philippine stations were under the administrative control of the larger and more
powerful Radio Shonan in Singapore. The
final broadcast from station PIAM in Manila was at the end of the year,
December 30, 1944.
There was an interesting clandestine
station on the air in the Philippines during the Japanese era. A man by the name of Malonzo stole goods from
Japanese warehouses and sold them on the black market. With this illicit money he bought radio
equipment and placed a clandestine station on the air. This station, mobile in nature, moved around
Manila to avoid detection. It was heard
in the United States and it was acknowledged in a broadcast from shortwave KGEI
in California.
Shortwave station KZRH in Manila,
under the Japanese callsigns PIAM and PIRN, was heard quite regularly in
Australia, New Zealand and also over in the United States. Two shortwave channels were in use, 9640
& 11600 kHz, sometimes in parallel.
The station identified on air as The Voice of the New
Philippines.
It is reported that the only
shortwave communication station in the Philippine Islands that was renovated
and in use under the Japanese administration was Globe Wireless. Globe Wireless in Manila began as Dollaradio
in 1929, and the name was officially changed to Globe Radio in 1934.
Thus,
the Japanese era of radio broadcasting in the Philippines stretched from the
beginning of the year 1942 until the end of the year 1944, a total of almost
three years. As far as we know, no QSLs were ever issued from
any of these stations during the era of Japanese control.(AWR Wavescan/NWS 270)
photo/Corregidor Historical Society)
