A Rope for Haw-Haw

When he was committed for trial last June, William Joyce had been a shabby sight. He was not shabby last week. In a blue suit, a white shirt, a blue tie, he looked dapper and confident.

In a small, oak-paneled room of London's Old Bailey, the chief criminal court in England, Joyce strode to the dock, bowed jerkily to the red-robed presiding justice, Sir Frederick Tucker, and sat down in a straight-backed chair. The charge against him was treason: that he had "adhered to the King's enemies" by broadcasting propaganda from Germany. A clerk asked him how he pleaded. The prisoner's reply rang out: "Not guilty!"

The Labor Government's new, youngish Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, opened for the prosecution. In a grave, melodious voice Sir Hartley said: "Members of the jury, today, exactly six years after he entered into the employment of the German broadcasting corporation, William Joyce comes before you on what is the gravest crime in our law. . . ."

Early Start. Joyce based his defense upon his origins. He was born on April 24, 1906, in Brooklyn, N.Y. His father, Michael, was Irish and his mother was English. When he was two, William's parents took him to England.

He was educated first by the Jesuits, then at the University of London. At 17 he was already a Fascist. While brawling in the streets he was cut from mouth to ear, and he carries the scar to this day. He joined Sir Oswald Mosley's Fascist group, later broke away to create a faction of his own. Whenever he needed credentials of any sort, he claimed British citizenship.

When he fled to Germany, just before World War II, he took with him a Manchester show girl, whom he married, although he had left a wife in England. Paul Joseph Goebbels' propaganda machine paid him $75 a month. Adolf Hitler bestowed on him the War Merit Cross, First Class. According to his own statement, he became a naturalized German citizen. The British nicknamed him "Lord Haw-Haw" and they laughed at him. But they never forgot his taunts at Britain.

The Third Count. Joyce's defense counsel (provided free under the Poor Persons Act) set up a simple and formidable defense: that Joyce was not a British subject. First Secretary H. E. Stebbins of the U.S. Embassy in London testified that Joyce's Irish father had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1894 (which, under U.S. law, would automatically make William a U.S. citizen).

Faced by this evidence that Joyce was not British, the presiding justice threw out the first two counts of the indictment, which were based on a presumption of British citizenship. But there was a third count: that Joyce behaved as a traitor in Germany between Sept. 18, 1939 and July 2, 1940, when his British passport expired. The prosecution argued that during this period, since he enjoyed the protection of a British passport, he owed allegiance to the British Crown, and that he had betrayed that allegiance.

The drab jury of ten men and two women retired to consider this point. In 25 minutes they returned a verdict: guilty. A figure in black came to stand beside the presiding justice. Mr. Justice Tucker sentenced William Joyce to be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Then the man in black, a chaplain, intoned "Amen."

Wormwood. The prisoner was so pale that his face scar gleamed red, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Leaving the dock, he smiled and waved at his brother Edwin, a British civil servant. Edwin waved back. To bystanders the two gestures looked like Fascist salutes. But when William had been led away, Edwin knelt on the courtroom floor and made the sign of the cross.

Without much hope of success, defense counsel said they would appeal to a higher court, and, if necessary, to the House of Lords. William Joyce was whisked away to await the noose at the famous Hammersmith prison, Wormwood Scrubs.

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