HISTORIC VE DAY ANNIVERSARY EDITION
A CELL is ready in the Tower of London for Lord Haw-Haw, William Joyce, the radio traitor who fled to Germany in 1939 and broadcast propaganda in English to audiences in this country on behalf of his Nazi masters. Introducing his radio programme with the words ‘Germany calling, Germany calling’, Haw-Haw spent five years trying — and dismally failing — to indoctrinate British families with the Fuhrer’s vile creed.
Reports from Europe last night told of his capture, although there was confusion as to his whereabouts and no confirmation in London.
Even if he remains at large, at the Tower all is prepared for him and the guard is standing by.
It is expected he will be held in the cell once occupied by another traitor, Norman Baillie-Stewart — known as the Officer in the Tower and imprisoned for five years in 1933 for betraying military secrets — passing Traitors’ Gate and the Bloody Tower on his way in.
After his release, Baillie - Stewart went to Germany with the Nazi girl to whom he disclosed the secrets and, like Haw-Haw, broadcast German propaganda.
Some say that talk of the Tower for Lord Haw-Haw is a diversion, and he could go i nstead to Wormwood Scrubs or to Wandsworth Prison.
Whatever the truth, his fate is sealed — and he knows it.
When he made his last broadcast this week, Lord Haw-Haw was very drunk.
His understudy, Edward Dietze, took over for him last night, addressing England glumly on the Wilhelmshaven emergency
radio. ‘ For the l ast ti me, perhaps, I shall be able tonight to give my views on the news,’ Dietze said.
He attacked Bolshevism, as usual, and wound up with a testimonial to Hitler — ‘the legend of Adolf Hitler will be eternal . . . i t will never be eradicated from the hearts and minds of German youth.
‘They will think of him as the man who united the Germans for the first time in history.’
Although spoken by Dietze, the words were pure Joyce. True to zealous form, this is a man who speaks of the late Fuhrer as if he were alive, and wishes that his dark creed will rule eternal.
There can be little doubt that when this traitor is sentenced in a British court, as surely he will be, such words will see him at the end of a rope.
There is only one man to see that fitting punishment through: hangman Albert Pierrepoint, whose last judicial duty on these shores was performed at Wandsworth Prison upon that notorious German agent, Karel Richter, convicted of espionage at the Old Bailey in October 1941.
Mr Pierrepoint, whose wife, we understand, runs a confectionery shop in Manchester, will relish the task of sending a man such as Joyce to his doom.
But first, we need confirmation that the notorious Lord Haw-Haw has been found.
Although some reports claim he has been captured, others indicate that he remains at large, having fled to the north of what remains of Germany.
But surely, with his distinctive scar upon his treasonous face, those brave men hunting him will shortly be able to see that he is brought back to the land against which he has railed this near half-decade.
And, when he i s at l ast captured, there are many cells that await him.
None would prove to be so discomforting — and yet fitting — as that which awaits him at the Tower of London.
Haw-Haw will be sent to his doom