136 The Capture of William Joyce, After the Battle, AFTER THE BATTLE
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//-->Number 1363 69770306154080£3.95NUMBER 136© CopyrightAfter the Battle2007Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyManaging Editor: Gordon RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,The Mews, Hobbs Cross House,Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow,Essex CM17 0NN, EnglandTelephone: 01279 41 8833Fax: 01279 41 9386E-mail: hq@afterthebattle.comWebsite: www.afterthebattle.comPrinted in Great Britain byWarners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH.After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.LONDON STOCKIST for theAfter the Battlerange:Motorbooks, 33 St Martin’s Court, St Martin’s Lane,London WC2N 4ANTelephone: 020 7836 5376. Fax: 020 7497 2539United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Warners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PHAustralian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Renniks Publications Pty LimitedUnit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355E-mail: info@renniks.com. Web site: www.renniks.comCanadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131,1 Northrup Crescent,St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136E-mail: sales@vanwell.comNew Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817E-mail: milrchiv@mist.co.nzUnited States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports Inc, 151 Harvard Avenue,Stamford, CT 06902Telephone: 1-203-653-2272Fax: 1-203-965-0047E-mail: info@rzm.com Website: www.rzm.comItalian Distribution:Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33, Fax: ++390521 29 03 87E-mail: info@tuttostoria.itDutch Language Edition:SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 282, 6800 AG Arnhem.Telephone: 026-4462834E-mail: si@sipublicaties.nlWilliam Joyce as the British public first got to know him: as the leading speaker atmeetings of the British Union of Fascists. Although many disagreed with his racistviews and aggressive tactics, he was generally praised for his powers of oratory. Thejournalist and novelist Cecil Parker described a speech given by Joyce at the ParkLane Hotel: ‘Thin, pale, intense, he had not been speaking many minutes before wewere electrified by this man. I have been a connoisseur of speech-making for a quar-ter of a century, but never before, in any country, had I met a personality so terrifyingin its dynamic force, so vituperative, so vitriolic.’CONTENTSTHE CAPTURE OF WILLIAM JOYCEIT HAPPENED HEREThe Surrender of Nauru andOcean IslandPRESERVATIONRelics of War along the Barents RoadINVESTIGATIONMissing in BorneoWRECK RECOVERYT-34 Beutepanzer recoveredin EstoniaFROM THE EDITOR22230344347Front Cover:Renegade broadcaster William Joyce,wounded in the thigh at his capture near Flensburg,being carried into a British hospital at the ScharnhorstBarracks at Lüneburg on April 29, 1945. (IWM) Theformer military barracks are today the campus ofLüneburg University. (Karel Margry)Centre Pages:The Australian frigate HMASDiamantina,preserved at the Queensland Maritime Museum in Bris-bane, Australia. In September 1945, the ceremonies forthe Japanese surrender of the Pacific atolls Nauru andOcean Island took place aboard this ship. (David Green)Back Cover:Recovery of a turncoat T-34 tank from LakeKurtna Mätasjärv in north-east Estonia in September2000. (Meelis Mitt)Acknowledgements:For help with the William Joycestory, the Editor would like to thank, in the UK: GeoffreyH. Perry, Tim Carroll, I. Whittaker, and David List; inGermany: Dr. Broder Schwensen of the FlensburgStadtarchiv, Rita Asmussen and Britta Madsen; and inthe Netherlands: Johan van Doorn and Hans Houter-man. For help with the Missing in Borneo story heextends his appreciation to Peter Boer and also to HarcoGijsbers of the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocu-mentatie. For providing photographs and informationon the T-34 Beutepanzer he thanks Mihail Zenov.Photo Credits:AWM — Australian War Memorial;IWM — Imperial War Museum, London.In 1933 Joyce was member of a small BUF delegation sent to attend the Nazi Partyrally at Nuremberg, the first to be staged in that town and held from August 31 toSeptember 3. This picture appeared in the official Nazi brochure of the rally publishedshortly after the event. Joyce is standing third from left (flanked by French fascists inthe front row). Other members of the BUF delegation are Unity Mitford (far left),Alexander Raven Thompson, the BUF’s chief ideologist (fifth from left, with mous-tache) and Captain Vincent (sixth from left, with Highland bonnet and medals). Asthe brochure commented: ‘Even the foreign guests are swept off their feet by thespirit and determination of the Hitler Youth’.2Joyce became notorious during the waras propaganda broadcaster in English forthe Nazi-German radio, and is generallyjudged one of the worst traitors in Britishhistory. Joyce’s sneering and jeeringbroadcasts from Germany — in thatpeculiar fake-Oxbridge drawl that earnedhim the nickname ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ — hada tremendous adverse effect on morale inwar-torn Britain. Regarded as a joke fig-ure at first, as the war got under way hisapparent inside knowledge of conditionsin Britain, his ability to spread rumoursand to play on ordinary people’s fear ofthe unknown, severely unsettled hisBritish audience. A BBC report, drawn upat the request of a worried Ministry ofInformation, established that by thespring of 1940 one-sixth of the adult pop-ulation or six million people were regularlisteners to Joyce’s programme (broad-cast on the 31 metre waveband), half or18 million people were occasional listen-ers, and only one third or 11 million neverlistened. The impact of Lord Haw-Haw’sbroadcasts gradually diminished after theend of the London Blitz in May 1941, butnever lost their effect entirely. By May1945, with the Allies fighting to end thewar in Europe, the hunt was on for theman whom many in Britain had grown tohate intensely. Joyce and his wife Mar-garet managed to evade capture longerthan many of the top Nazis but on May28 — three weeks after VE-Day — theirjourney ended near Flensburg on theGerman-Danish border. Found wander-ing in a wood by two British officers, oneof whom recognised his voice, Joyce wasshot in the thigh when his gesture to pro-duce a false identity card from his pocketwas mistaken for drawing a weapon. Thenews of Lord Haw-Haw’s arrest was asensation in Britain, and this picture ofhim lying wounded on a stretcher underarmed guard was carried by most news-papers and magazines in the followingweeks. (IWM)THE CAPTURE OF WILLIAM JOYCEWilliam Joyce was born at Brooklyn, NewYork, on April 24, 1906. His father, MichaelJoyce, originated from Killour nearBallinrobe, County Mayo, Ireland, and hismother Gertrude (née Brooke) from Cromp-ton in Lancashire. Michael had emigrated in1888 and taken American citizenship in 1894,and Gertrude had become American onmarrying him in 1905, so William was Ameri-can-born from American parents.In 1909, when William was three, the fam-ily returned to Ireland, settling in Galway,where four more children were born: Frank,Quentin, Joan and Robert. William was edu-cated at the Jesuit-run St Ignatius LoyolaCollege where he proved a clever pupil witha passion for debate, but also a gang-leader.Unusually for Irish Roman Catholics, bothhis father and young William were ferventlypro-British and strongly supported the Roy-alist cause. As a 14-year-old schoolboyWilliam — or so he later claimed — acted asan informer for the Black and Tans (theparamilitary Royal Irish ConstabularyReserve Force) during their campaign tosuppress the Irish rebels in 1920.In December 1921, with the Irish FreeState declared and fearing revenge from theIRA, William left Ireland in a hurry for Eng-land, the rest of the family following soonafter. The next year, he applied for the Uni-versity of London’s Officer Training Corps,falsely claiming to be American-born fromBritish parents, a lie that was supported byhis father, and was enrolled. In September1923 he entered University of London’s Bir-beck College to study English, passing inter-mediate BA courses in Latin, French, Eng-lish and History.As a student, he developed an interest infascism and in December 1923 joined theBritish Fascisti of Rotha Lintorn-Orman. Healso became president of his college’s Con-servative Society, where he soon gained areputation as a hard-line and race-consciousorator. In October 1924, while returning fromstewarding a Conservative Party meeting,Joyce was attacked by a gang of Communistsand received a deep razor slash across hisright cheek, which left a permanent scar fromthe earlobe to the mouth. By now his viewswere turning ever more anti-Semitic, so tohim his assailants were ‘Jewish Communists’.In 1927 Joyce graduated from Birbeckwith a first-class honours degree. That sameyear he married Hazel Barr, a 21-year-oldlike himself. Two daughters were born,Heather in 1928 and Diana in 1931. He failedto complete his MA thesis and his applica-tion for a job at the Foreign Office wasrejected — two setbacks which reinforced hisanti-Semitism. He found a teaching job at theVictoria Tutor College and registered for aPhD in philosophy and psychology at King’sCollege.In 1932, Joyce joined Sir Oswald Mosley’sBritish Union of Fascists and swiftlyemerged as a leading speaker, reputed for hisaggressive and vitriolic rhetoric. In 1934, hewas promoted to BUF’s director of propa-By Karel Margryganda and later to deputy leader. After thebloody debacle of the BUF’s June 1934Olympia rally, Joyce was instrumental inshifting the party’s policy from campaigningfor economic revival to anti-Semitism and, in1936, in changing its name to British Unionof Fascists and National Socialists.In 1935, Hazel having fallen in love withhis friend and BUF colleague Eric Hamilton-Piercey, Joyce separated from his wife. Soonafter, he began courting Margaret White, a25-year-old redhead from Carlisle, who hadcome to several BUF meetings to hear himspeak and had soon been noticed by him. InFebruary 1937, the month his divorce camethrough, they married.That same month he stood as a BUF can-didate for the London County Council elec-tions — a vote that he lost. Two months laterhe was sacked from his paid position whenMosley drastically reduced the BUF staff,the lack of funds giving Mosley a goodexcuse to get rid of his increasingly antago-nistic deputy. Together with John Beckettand Angus Macnab, and with financial back-ing of stockbroker Alex Scrimgeour, Joyceformed a new splinter party, the NationalSocialist League, and set up a newspaper,The Helmsman.However, the party failed toattract members as war with Nazi Germanynow seemed increasingly inevitable and by1939 membership had dropped to about 40.3Margaret Cairns White was born in Manchester on July 14,1911, the daughter of a manager of a textile warehouse. Fromher earliest teenage years she was interested in politics andshe joined the British Union of Fascists in 1933, aged 22.Margaret first met William Joyce on February 7, 1935, havingtravelled from Manchester to Dumfries with a coach-load ofother Blackshirts especially to hear him speak. They began arelationship soon afterwards, went to live together in 1936 andgot married on February 13, 1937. A good-time girl, outgoingand feminine, she spent her life fleeing boredom.BROADCASTING FOR NAZI GERMANYOn August 26, 1939 — five days before theoutbreak of war — Joyce and his wife leftBritain by ferry and travelled to Germany.He had been tipped off by Maxwell Knight,an MI5 contact, that the British authoritiesintended to intern him under Defence Regu-lation 18B. Joyce departed the country usingan illegally obtained passport. Back in July1933, he had applied for a British passport,falsely describing himself as ‘a British citizen,born in Galway, Ireland’. He had the docu-ment renewed on August 24, just two daysbefore his departure.Arriving in Berlin on the 27th, Joyce couldinitially not find employment but a chanceencounter with fellow-Mosleyite DorothyEckersley eventually led to him getting anaudition as an English newsreader at theReichsrundfunkhaus (Reich BroadcastingHouse) on September 11. Although it did notgo well, he was given the first live bulletin toread later that day — the first of the hun-dreds of radio propaganda broadcasts hewould make for Germany during the war. Hewas offered an immediate job as editor andannouncer with the English broadcastingteam, the formal contract with the Reichs-rundfunk-Gesellschaft (Reich BroadcastingCompany) being signed on September 18.Thus he began his career as a propagandabroadcaster for Germany. Night after nightfor the next five and a half years he wouldbring the Nazi view of the war into people’shomes.4On August 26, 1939 — five days before the outbreak of the Sec-ond World War — William and Margaret Joyce left England andtravelled to Nazi Germany. Offering his talents to the Reichs-rundfunk (German radio), he read his first news bulletin in Eng-lish on September 11 and joined the English Language Serviceas editor, soon rising to become its leading commentator —known to millions of Britons as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’. This wartimepicture shows Hauptkommentator Joyce in his Blackshirt uni-form with Hitler-style hair and moustache, his face disfiguredwith the razor slash from 1924.Joyce but for another renegade broadcaster,Norman Baillie-Stewart, but the epithet wassoon transferred to Joyce. With several Eng-lish-speaking broadcasters taking turns atreading the daily news, at first listeners inBecause of the affected upper-class tone ofhis voice, he soon acquired the nickname‘Lord Haw-Haw’. The sobriquet had beencoined byDaily Expressjournalist JonahBarrington on September 18, 1939, not forThe Reichsrundfunkhaus (Reich Broadcasting House) on Masurenallee in Berlin-Charlottenburg, where the Joyces worked. Today it is named Haus des Rundfunksand serves as the headquarters of Radio Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB).Like her husband, Margaret Joyce began working for the German radio, signing acontract in October 1939. Known as ‘Lady Haw-Haw’ she specialised in programmesdirected at the women of Britain. Here she is at the microphone with an official fromthe Nazi Propaganda Ministry.Britain were puzzled about Lord Haw-Haw’sidentity. The guessing game continued forsome time but by December theSunday Pic-torialhad positively identified the newenemy announcer as William Joyce.At first, Joyce only read news bulletins buthe was soon asked to do more opinionpieces. These commentaries on the war werenot broadcast live but pre-recorded, andJoyce was soon allowed to himself write thescripts for them. Titled ‘Views on the News’and broadcast at 2230 hours (German time)each night, they always began with the call-sign ‘Germany calling!, Germany calling!’ —but Joyce’s German intonation made itsound like ‘Jairminny calling!’At first the British people considered LordHaw-Haw mainly a joke, a figure of fun, afavourite object of parody. But as the warwent on, he seriously got under people’sskin. In the public imagination Lord Haw-Haw acquired phenomenal, almost clairvoy-ant powers of knowing what was going on inEngland. His agents were thought to be soubiquitous that they could keep every publicclock in Britain under constant supervision.He was said to have accurately predicted notonly British troop movements but also evenminor postings of civil servants; he wasreputed to have command over Germanbomber forces and having sent them to tar-gets according to his whims. Everyoneclaimed to have heard him mention his orher town or village by name. As public beliefin his claims and statements grew, so did peo-ple’s hatred of him. More and more Joycecame to personify the enemy. Generally con-sidered to be a traitor of the worst kind, hebecame, for many British, the most hatedpersonality of the war.Three weeks after Joyce began broadcast-ing for Germany, his wife Margaret washired as an editor and speaker by the Reichs-rundfunk as well. Starting on October 3,1939, she began a weekly talk to the womenof Britain aimed at lowering their morale bycomparing their lives unfavourably to that ofRight:No. 29 Kastanienallee, practicallyaround the corner from the Rundfunkhaus,where the Joyces lived from 1941 to 1945.women in Germany. Easily recognised fromher distinctive London-Mancunian accent,within days she was being dubbed ‘LadyHaw-Haw’ by British listeners. TheDailyMirrorcorrectly identified her in March 1940but she was not introduced by her own nameuntil December 9, 1942.In early 1940 Joyce found time to expoundhis views — his hatred of the British press andpoliticians, international capitalism, the com-munists and the Jews, all of whom he blamedfor the downfall of the British Empire and thewar — in a book titledDämmerung über Eng-land(Twilight over England), published bythe German Foreign Office in both a Germanand an English edition.On September 26, 1940, his British pass-port having run out in July, both William andMargaret took out German citizenship.Life for the Joyces in wartime Berlin wasinitially good. William and Margaret relishedhis new-found celebrity status and the mater-ial privileges it brought. Both vivacious char-acters, they enjoyed the metropolitan life,the socialising, the drinks and diners at theirfavourite bars and restaurants, the concertsand dance clubs. Their expatriation hadbrought them closer together.However, as time went on their relationshipbecame more turbulent. Always the flirtingtype, in the winter of 1939 Margaret began alove affair with a married German officer,Nikolaus von Besack. Her infidelity led to vio-lent rows with William. In February 1941,they acquired a comfortable flat at No. 29Kastanienallee, only to go and live separatelya few months later, Margaret finding a smallapartment of her own in Bülowstrasse.Left:In early 1940 Margaret began a loveaffair with an aristocratic German officer,Nikolaus (‘Nicky’) von Besack. AWehrmacht intelligence officer, he spokeexcellent English and they first met whilehe was on temporary assignment to theReichsrundfunk to help out the short-staffed English Language Service. Theaffair lasted throughout the war, inter-rupted only by von Besack’s tours of dutyat the front, and was the cause of Williamand Margaret getting a divorce in August1941 (they re-married six months later).Although von Besack had explained toMargaret in 1943 that he could not possi-bly marry her because she was not ‘aproper German’, she was still devastatedwhen he suddenly married anotherwoman in February 1944. Even after thewar, by then a widow, she sought to re-establish contact with him.5
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