LORD HAW-HAW by the same author * Fiction COME DUNGEON DARK THIS HAPPY BREED A STRANGER MYSELF TO MAKE US GLAD NOBODY GOT INTO TROUBLE Non-Fiction JUST BACK FROM GERMANY MY HOST MICHEL William Joyce as his pre-war audiences saw him-aggressively untidy in trench coat and muffl er, carrying a heavy stick. the tough. scarred features relieved by an underlying humour LORD HAW-HAW - and William Joyce The Full Story -------_.*-------- by J. A. COLE FABER AND FABER 24 Russell Square London First published in mcmlxiv by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square London W.G.l Printedin Great Britain by Lazimer Trend & Go Ltd Plymouth All rights reserved ©J. A. Gole 1964 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • For some of the information essential to an account of William Joyce's life I am indebted to Mrs. Margaret Joyce and Mr. John Macnab. They were aware that I never shared William Joyce's views or sympathized with his activities, but apart from assuring themselvesthat I intended to write a serious book on Joyce, they made no attempt to influence me in the treatment of the material they made available. Miss Marjorie Daunt, Professor Wiliiam Matthews of the University of California, and the Registrar of BirkbeckCollege kindly assisted me with accounts of his student days.For permission to use the British Broadcasting Corporation's monitoring and audience research reports I. thank Mr. Roland Fox, the Corporation's Director of Publicity, and Mr. R. J. Silvey, the Head of Audience Research, whose staffs gave me willing assistance, as did those of the BBC library and sound archives. The Foreign Office and the Civil Service Commission were helpful in answering my inquiries. It will be obvious to the reader that I have also received much information from German sources. These prefer not to be men­ tioned, but I wish to thank them. J. A. Co LE 7 CONTENTS -----------,*----------- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS page 7 FOREWORD 13 I. THE MERRY J OYCES 17 2. THE SCAR 26 3. THE FATAL PASSPORT 37 4. 'WHENCE CAME YOU?' 49 S. SPILT CHAMPAGNE SS 6. QUIET WEDDING 65 7. STEER STRAIGHT 72 8. LET FATE DECIDE 82 9. THE DRINK WAS GOOD 93 10. JOB-HUNTING IN BERLIN 101 11. THE BIRTH OF LORD HAW-HAW 110 12. HONEST INJUN! 120 13. THEY SPOKE WITH ONE VOICE 132 14. THE SECRET STATIONS 135 IS. TWILIGHT OVER ENGLAND 140 16. A SMASH HIT 148 17. JOKE OVER 154 18. No PASSPORTS FOR SPIES 159 19. FAUST TO MEPHISTOPHELES 170 20. A LETTER TO J OYCE 179 21. DIVORCE 185 22. THE YELLOW STAR 197 23. THE RED ROSE 204 9 Contents 24. 'THE HANGING JUDGE' page 215 25. GOEBBELS TRIES TO SAVE JOYCE 223 26. HAW-HAW'S FAREWELL 228 27. RUSSIAN ROULETTE 236 28. 'GOD BLESS OLD ENGLAND' 250 29. SOMETHING IN THE CITY 257 30. 'THEY HAVE ME TAPED' 269 31. BUSINESS AS USUAL 280 32. CLOSE OF PLAY 287 33. THE POPULAR HAW-HAW SHOW 305 BIBLIOGRAPHY 308 INDEX 310 10 ILLUSTRATIONS * William Joyce as his pre-war audiences saw him frontispiece I. Young William Joyce, proud and solemn in his new black shirt facing page 40 2. Margaret Cairns White at 21 41 3. The 'Officer in the Tower', Lieutenant Norman Baillie-Stewart 112 4. Joyce's trailer for a programme celebrating the end of the war in the West 113 5. Margaret [oyce in Berlin in 1942 27 2 6,7. A letter from prison to a devoted supporter after page 272 8. A letter from prison when Joyce had only one chance left facing page 273 9, 10. A letter written by Ioyce on the eve ofhis execution 288 11, 12. A letter written in Joyce's last hour after page 288 13. The proof of[oyce's American birth 288 14. The end of the Joyce case facing page289 11 FOREWORD -----------'*----------- Anyone in Great Britain old enough to have listened to the radio during the Second World War remembers William Joyce who, by a curious process which I shall describe, came to be known as Lord Haw-Haw. Those too young to remember him perhaps need to be told the circumstances which made Joyce's name one of the best-known of the war. Beforethe war both the British Broadcasting Corporation and the German radio organization, Reichsrundfunkgesellschaft, were broadcasting in each other's languages. For governments to state their case to listeners abroad-as they now do on such a massive scale-was even then not new; the contestants in the Spanish Civil War had maintained regular English-language broadcasting services. But when war broke out between Britain and Germany listeners in each country heard for the first time the voice ofan enemy addressing them in their homes, and the impact on them was tremendous. On both sides during the war sound radio was the main form of amusement (cinema and theatre going being complicated by the black-out, poor transport and raids) and the principal source of up-to-date news. The infant television services, not yet emerged fromthe novelty stage, were suspended, and radio, unchallenged, entertained and informed civilians at home, in factories and air raid shelters, and the fighting forces wherever they were. The warwasfought to a background of radio noises. In Germany one of the sounds was the jamming of enemy broadcasts, but this interference was only partly effective. The British did not resort to jamming; in fact, in the early days of the war British news­ paperspublished, alongside information about BBC programmes, the times of the enemy's news bulletins. Listening to hostile 13 Foreword broadcasts in Britain never, therefore, brought with it-as it did in Germany-the awful thrill of breaking the law and risking severe penalties. German broadcasts were openly discussed by everybody in Britain, frequently mentioned in Parliament, answered by the BBC in its domestic services, extensively written about in newspapers, and parodied by comedians. One broadcaster from Germany to Britain eventually stood out, so much so that many people forgot that he was one of a team and regarded him not only as personally responsible for all the enemy's English-language broadcasts but as actually in­ fluencing the German conduct of the war. He was a former member of British Fascist organizations, and on the radio he achieved the largest audience that an English-speaking Fascist has ever had. Myths evolved about him; to this day he is quoted, whenever people recall his famous nickname, as having made statements which he never uttered. Most of what people think they know of him is fable and not fact. Somehow he got under the nation's skin; for the British he probably qualifiesas the most­ hated man of the Second World War and time has scarcely modified the angry reaction to his activities. His trial was sen­ sational because of the possibility that his unexpected defence would succeed, and the judge's ruling in his case extended the law of treason. Even his execution did not appease British anger, and an extra­ ordinary viciousnesshas characterized much of the writing about him. As though to reassure themselves that he was not so alarm­ ing after all, some writers have tried to dismiss him as a social reject, a crook and a buffoon. A desire to wreak a literary revenge on Joyce was, I suppose, natural enough in the immediate post­ war period, but what was written in anger now looks spiteful and even absurd. Shortly before his death Joyce expressed the view that his life provided material for a book, and this is one of the few points at which his opinions and mine coincide. But although he hoped his biography would be written, he would not have expected someone who differed from him so fundamentally to do it. I took on the task because I thought that such a fascinating story ought to be recorded and because other accounts of him, largely based on the meagre information which emerged at his trial, have been incomplete. I have had the advantage of much authentic unpub- 14 Foreword lished material, and so I am able to present the first full survey of Joyce's career. He was much occupied with blood and race, and his claim to citizenship which was not legally his led to tragedy (although he called it victory). I begin, therefore, with the history of Joyce's family, and how he came to be such a reluctant American. 15 Chapter I THE MERRY JOYCES -----------*----------- The Joyces have imprinted their name on the map of Ireland­ an area north of Galway is marked Joyce's Country. I have seen varying versions of how they became established there. That favoured by William Joyce started with a Norman family named Joyeux going to England with William the Conqueror. In the twelfth century two descendants, brothers called Joyce, set out under Earl Fitzgerald for Ireland. One got no farther than Wales; the other went on to Ireland, arriving in 1172 and founding a branch of the family styled the <gentlemen Joyces', whom William Joyce claimed as his ancestors. Descendants of the Joyce who stayed in Wales migrated to Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth I; these later arrivals were known as <the tinkers'. A modern standard work, Irish Families, by Edward Mac­ Lysaght, makes no reference to the gentlemen or the tinkers but mentions the first Joyce of whom there is authentic record in heland as Thomas de Iorse or Ioyce, a Welshman who in 1283 married the daughter of O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, and went with her to Galway.