Palau Broadcasting Station

The Palau Broadcasting Station (パラオ放送局) was a ratio station established by NHK in September 1941 in Koror, then the capital of Palau, when it was under Japanese occupation. The station began broadcasting in September 1941, but closed in 1944 when the occupation ended.

The station only broadcast on shortwave radio (6090 kHz, 9565 kHz, 11740 kHz, all 10 kW each) throughout its existence,[1] using the JRAK callsign.

History

Before the beginning of the Pacific War in 1941, Palau was under a Japanese mandate since 1919. A station opened in September of that year with NHK, who was solely responsible for using it for management and programming, opening a station at an International Telecommunications Association facility. As the southernmost base, it was useful to disseminate propaganda in favor of Japan's invasions and expansionism.[2] The station started broadcasting on September 24, 1941. Its first director was Meikichi Iwasaki, who later moved to the NHK Okinawa Broadcasting Station in May 1943. His opening speech noted that the station was set up to accomplish the missions of the Broadcasting Report, as well as to demonstrate all of the actions and satisfy listeners in the Japanese mainland.[3]

The station's was headquartered in Airai and had a transmitter manufactured by NEC, located in Ngatpang. Most of the time, it relayed the service aimed at East Asia (6:00-10:00, 11:30-13:00, 14:00-15:30, 16:30-22:00) in Japanese, while it had two periods of English-language programming a day (15:30-16:00 catering Hong Kong and Hawaii, 22:00-00:00 catering Java and Singapore).[4] Plans to expand the facilities started in 1942, in order to separate the equipment for communication and transmission, but the plans were halted in 1943 when a ship sunk while transporting equipment.[4]

In 1944, the number of air raids on the island grew, prompting NHK to close operations of the station on August 1.[2] The transmitters were subsequently destroyed by the US forces.[4] The same US forces later established WSZB on the AM band; that station is currently known as T8AA.

References

  1. ^ Oka, K. "日本放送協會". Oka Laboratory (in Japanese).
  2. ^ a b Shimada, Shōko (July 2019). "放送史料集 パラオ放送局" (PDF) (in Japanese). NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute.
  3. ^ "本棚" (PDF). Himeyuri Peace Museum Newsletter (in Japanese). Himeyuri Peace Museum. May 31, 2023. p. 7.
  4. ^ a b c Ogino, K. "太平洋戦争時の占領地におけるラジオ放送". 京滋ミーティングのホームページ (in Japanese).
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