If these encyclopedic entries get annoying, honk.
Chapter 333
The station commonly known as Radio Free China in the west is mostly called by it's official name in China, as the “Radio Corporation of China”a name under which a company of the same name still operates to this day. It was only one of almost a dozen Radio stations that beamed Allied propaganda into Axis and Sphere countries though the German and French Services of the BBC are most commonly known for this in British and European publications. Radio Free China was started in 1942 only months after the Sphere declared war on Britain.
Previous efforts to disrupt the Japanese had been less than successful which was hardly surprising considering the distance and disadvantageous placement of the strongest British Transmitters (even when in Canada) so when the war did break out at last it was decided that aiming it at the Japanese was a waste of time considering that they were far more coherent politically and slaved to authority than even the Soviet or German civilians.
Even though the station called itself the RCC it was payed for and run by the British military. Run by a mixture of MI6, the Australian Secret Service and the military at first the station was using pre-recorded broadcasts and pre-war reels of Chinese music. However these were few and of low quality, but it would still take until September 1942 for things to change.
Even then still limping from a wound received in Burma James Winthorpe Sanders, freshly promoted and late of the 2/26th Cavalry surveyed the broadcast station around the transmitter in southern Australia. Built in summer 1939 it had at first been meant to counter Soviet/German and Japanese propaganda and also relieve the Overseas Service of the BBC of some of it's responsibilities. Originally the plans had called for merely 50kW of transmission power but several high-ranking ABC executives successfully lobbied the Government for a high-powered station instead. So when built Shepperton Station near the town of the same name in Victoria consisted of not one, but three transmitters, of which none saw any service before war broke out and the site was seized by the Department of Defence.
One transmitter with 50kW, another two with 100kW were now ready for use. With a permanently stiff leg and his throat still sore from nearly chocking on a chicken-bone Colonel Sanders instantly axed most of the programming. In times of the 'White Australia' policy there hadn't been a single actual Chinese on the staff and whatever his personal convictions had been on the matter Sanders realized that this needed to be changed.
The Chinese exile community in Australia was not as large as it is today but Sanders still put the recruitment of those speaking the broadest number of dialects possible on the list. His superiors reluctantly agreed on the insistence of Admiral Cunningham who saw the station as something that would aid the war effort and thus needed to be supported.
This proved to be harder to accomplish than one might suspect at first glance. The 1901 Immigration Restriction Act was at least officially still on the books (and would be until 1970) even though it hadn't been fully enforced since the Sino-Japanese War had ended and because of this there were less than 50.000 ethnic Chinese in Australia and of those more than half had been born in-country and spoke only a passing form of any dialects their ancestors might have brought with them. Still, two months later the station could sport regular broadcasts in Mandarin and Cantonese, with Chinese music donated by the community.
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The following transmission day has been recorded and saved for prosperity by the RCC and excerpts are used with their permission. The Mandarin and Cantonese broadcasts were made simultaneously (albeit on different frequencies) and nearly identical. ISBS Heritage Centre, 2010
The first thing we hear is a pre-war recording of the late Cole Porter's '
Anything Goes[1]' performed in Mandarin in Shanghai in 1936. The song is the daily opener for the programming and is also played numerous times during the day. The song is followed by an assortment of contemporary British and pre-war Chinese music selected each evening by a lottery among the staff of the station. After half an hour the nine o'clock news begin.
“12th April 1943, and this is the RCC Morning News. This morning four Dutch Divisions landed on and began the liberation of the Japanese-occupied Island of Sumatra. Good progress has been made and all units are fully ashore.[...]”
“In Burma Allied Forces, including the Republic of China Army, have resumed offensive operations against Siamese-Japanese Forces and crossed the border into Siam itself.[...]”
“In Malaya two Allied Marine Divisions have conducted an assault crossing of the Johore straits and[...].”
After between fifteen and twenty minutes of news another ten minutes of Music follow before the news is repeated again. After the second round of news morning programming begins. On the 12th April this included one adapted and one original episode for the Australian version of 'It's that man again' translated into Mandarin and sometimes slightly changed for the intended audience. For the entirety of the morning until twelve o'clock, punctuated once every hour on the clock for fifteen minutes of news. This practice was adopted by the BBC as early as 1940 and is generally credited with the emergence of the 45 minutes (without commercials) format for Radio and TV shows alike.
At twelve there would be a mid-day short summary of the news broadcast throughout the day, followed by two hours of popular music. The afternoon, until the end of programming was spent with 'information' and 'education' programming, with news again broadcast at four and again shortly before the end of the daily programming at six.
'Propaganda and Disinformation in the Asian Theatre' Kashmir Central University Press. 1997
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To Admiral Cunningham the RCC was merely one of more than a dozen major and minor projects that beamed propaganda into the Sphere but he was aware of how important it could be. The Free Chinese Army was a tiny force when compared to others and there were those that doubted it would stand up to the Japanese if it had to fight for real but Cunningham, and thus by extension the British Pacific Command had no choice but to trust them. The Pacific Theatre was not starved of equipment as it had been during the first dark months but his ground Forces were still smaller and expected to do more with less than in Europe.
If the FCA could bring in another two or three Divisions then he wouldn't push them away. The RCC was incredibly important for that goal. Not only were several employees former members of the Chinese Army but also recruitment for the FCA (and that did include the Republic of China Air Force) was picking up since the station was run by Sanders and his staff. Sanders had spent six years in China, part in the British concessions before the Great War, part as a salesman for Vickers before the fall to the Japanese. He had argued for more British support for the Nationalists and at the same time gained an appreciation for the people of China and the station reflected it.
The Japanese could not do much in response. Of course there was the usual propaganda coming out of Tokyo and the Chinese were fighting hard against the Soviets but that was not because they were loyal allies to the Japanese, it was because they hated the Russians almost as much as the Japanese.
That didn't mean they liked the British much, the countries shared too much history for that but at the very least the Chinese Exile leaders that passed for any Exile Government of the Republic of China knew that the British Empire had no designs on Chinese territory except for maybe a more defensible frontier for Hong Kong, a small enough price to pay.
What the British also did was to give them massive support for their own efforts at home. The farther north one went the harder it got as the people were more scared of the Soviets than of the Japanese but in the souther provinces, especially along the coast and on Hainan. There the insurgency was becoming increasingly violent as strike and counter-strike fuelled the spiral of violence though the British weapons that trickled into the area certainly helped.
In a way China was tearing herself apart and there was nothing anyone could do but fuel the fire. It was here that the post-war partition of China had it's roots.
Still, the Free China Army would bloat to no less than eight Divisions before the war was over (of them two Armoured) before the war was over and form the professional core of the post-war Chinese Army. During the war itself it would fight everywhere in South-East Asia and China itself and eventually turn out to be a far more professional and competent than the Army of the Chinese State. Being paid, fed and housed properly was probably a large part of why the recruiters among the recently surrendered could pick the best and most reliable of them.
But in April 1943 the Army had yet to prove itself though it would soon get the opportunity to do just that for Siam would soon attempt to change sides, thus imitating the the minor Axis countries in Europe. The problem there was though that Tokio had read the same Newspapers.
Even as they advanced the three and a half Marine Divisions (1st and the fresh, mostly Indian 2nd Royal Marine Divisions, the newly re-named Canadian Marine Division and an ANZAC Brigade) advanced up Malaya against stiff but scattered Japanese resistance. The former Siege Forces had pulled back into a better defensive position but even so the drive eastwards along the coast by the Chinese 2nd Division into Siam threatened to cut the significant Sphere forces on the Malay Peninsular off from the Siamese capital and trap them between two Allied Armies.
The British 1st Marines were already, less than three days after the crossing approaching the main Japanese defensive line outside of Melaka and poised to smash it to pieces with the help of the Air Force and the Allied line of Battle that was standing ready to support the advance on both sides of Malaya, with half of Force A, five Carriers, cruising up and down in the bay to keep away the enemy air units in French Indochina and Siam. Several tries to attack both the Dreadnoughts and the Carriers had each time little damage had been inflicted. The Canadians were still short one deck, Bonaventure was still in Darwin under repairs and would not be able to re-join the fleet for at least another two weeks but for the present HMAS Melbourne had joined Battlegroup Able-Two-Seven and together with Illustrious, Implacable and Formidable they formed a bulwark, while Furious, Invincible, the brand new Rodney[2], Victorious and Indomitable[3] attacked the Japanese positions on Borneo. There was a great risk to all Allied ships but Cunningham gambled that with the help of RAF and RAAF out of Singapore they would be able to chew up most, if not all Japanese attacks.
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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?
[1] Of course a version with better Mandarin than that, but that scene gave me the idea.
[2] Remember, the old HMS Rodney was sunk by the Scharnhorst... Somehow...
[3] And that's just what the RN has in the Pacific, and the Senior Service is ever-growing, though not near as fast as the USN did IOTL. British ship-building is severely taxed and would not be able to do it would they be forced to build anything like the OTL convoy escort force. If the U-Boats were even half as effective as in OTL 1943 then this would force the Allies in the Pacific to stay on the defensive for at least another year or even two. But alas, the U-Boats are all but defeated so instead of expanding small docks for Black Swans, large ones are constructed for Carriers, Cruisers and Destroyers. The British ship-building industry will be in excellent shape after the war and with the RN having to do the job that in OTL was left to the US Navy. H&W, Vickers and the lot won't go bust any time soon.