May 28, 1945: The Arrest of Lord Haw-Haw

May 28, 1945: William Joyce, the British broadcaster of fascist propaganda known as Lord Haw-Haw, is captured at Flensburg, Germany, trying to sneak into Denmark.

William Brooke Joyce was born on April 24, 1906 in Brooklyn. When he was a boy, his Irish father and English mother moved to Ireland with him. He was on the British side in the Anglo-Irish War, but was later rejected for a job in the Foreign Office.

In 1924, at age 18, he attended a meeting in support of a Conservative Party candidate for Parliament. While there, he was slashed with a knife, leaving him with a permanent scar on his face, half of a "Glasgow smile." He usually claimed it was a Jewish Communist man who did it, but his first wife told historian Colin Holmes that it was an Irish woman.

In 1932, he joined the British Union of Fascists, and impressed its leader, Oswald Mosley, with his public speaking ability. In 1934, Mosley named Joyce the BUF's Director of Propaganda. Mosley fired him in 1937, and Joyce formed the National Socialist League.

When Nazi Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain declared war on them 2 days later, and Joyce fled to Germany. By September 6, he was already reading propaganda for Germany's English-language radio service. Radio critic Jonah Barrington called him "a gent moaning periodically from Zeesen who speaks English of the haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety." In his next column, he called Joyce "Lord Haw-Haw."

Joyce liked it, and ran with it. His broadcasts urged the British people to surrender and were well known for their jeering, sarcastic and menacing tone. Unlike Americans listening to Mildred "Axis Sally" Gillars and the various women calling themselves "Tokyo Rose," no one was laughing back at him. He was treated as a serious matter by his ex-countrymen. He was also treated as a serious matter by Adolf Hitler, who awarded him the War Merit Cross.

With the Soviet Red Army closing in on Berlin, Joyce recorded his final broadcast on April 30, 1945. Rambling and audibly drunk, he chided Britain for pursuing the war beyond mere containment of German,y and repeatedly warned of the "menace" of the Soviet Union. HIs last words: "Heil Hitler, and farewell." He did not yet know that Hitler had killed himself at 3:30, local time, that afternoon.

He was arrested on May 28, and was taken back to London. He was tried, convicted, and, on January 3, 1946, at Wandsworth Prison in South London, at the age of 39, executed by hanging. The traitor was unrepentant: In his final statement, he railed against the Jews and the Soviet Union.

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May 28, 1945 was a Monday. Rock and Roll icon John Fogerty and famous physician Hunter "Patch" Adams were born. And there were 3 baseball games played that day:

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-6 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Braves, 2-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Eddie Miller singled Frank McCormick home with the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 5-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.