The first line of "Yawara" seemed familiar--Katsu to omou na, omoeba make yo- -, so I consulted Ivan Morris' The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan---the last chapter in the book about the WW II Kamikaze pilots.
Sure enough, there again was the first line of the song: Never think of winning! Thoughts of victory will only bring defeat... from a popular song of the kamikaze.
I can certainly understand what her voice meant to those conquered people. She is a source of great pride even now I'm sure.
Watch her as a child singing and dancing in war devastated Tokyo in Tokyo Kid in 1950, and as a fun- loving teen-ager in 1955 in Janken Musume (the one on the left with the yellow top; "janken" is sort of like our "Rock, Paper, Scissors" and "musume" means "girls").