As country music grew in popularity in America throughout the 1940s and 1950s, the roots of the genre also took hold in an unlikely place: Japan.
During World War II, the Armed Forces Radio Service provided entertainment for American troops stationed in Japan. But in the days after the war ended in 1945, the United States established a more permanent, far-reaching band of stations for its servicemembers remaining on bases in the rebuilding country. Until it was disbanded in 1997, this was known as the Far East Network.
