Lord Haw-Haw Traditional Cache

William Joyce, aka Lord Haw Haw was an infamous Radio Propagandist who worked for Nazi Germany during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason in 1946.

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1. Near Lord Haw-Haw's grave you'll find a grave for the victims of a plane crash. What was the Dutch airliner called?

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The cemetary can be accessed when the main gate is locked through a small gate on the left hand side of the main gates. The cache owner has permission from the cemetary keeper who also looks after the cache.

There is limited room for small geocoins or a small TB.

William Joyce (April 24, 1906 – January 3, 1946), known as Lord Haw-Haw, was a fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during World War II.

He was born in New York, to Irish parents who had taken American nationality. William Joyce was born in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of three, his family moved to Galway Ireland, living at No.1 Rutledge Terrace, Rockbarton, Salthill They remained there until Joyce turned 17, when they moved to London. It was while studying at Colaiste Iognáid (“The Jes”) that his nose was broken in a fracas with a classmate. This gave him the high-pitched nasal whine which made his voice so distinct. Though the family were Roman Catholic, they were strongly unionist. William Joyce later claimed to have aided the Black and Tans.

Fearing reprisal attacks, the Joyce family left for London after the establishment of the Irish Free State, where Joyce applied to Birkbeck College of the University of London and to enter the Officer Training Corps. At Birkbeck Joyce developed an interest in fascism, and he joined the British Fascisti of Rotha Lintorn-Orman. While stewarding a Conservative Party meeting, Joyce was attacked and received a deep razor slash to his cheek. Joyce joined the British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Mosley in 1932, and swiftly became a leading speaker, praised for his power of oratory. He held the position of the BUF's Director of Propaganda.

He was instrumental in changing the full name of the BUF to British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936. He stood as a BUF candidate in the 1937 elections to the London County Council. However, when Mosley drastically reduced the BUF staff shortly after the elections (sacking Joyce), he left to form a breakaway organization, the National Socialist League.

In late August 1939, shortly before World War II commenced, he and his wife, Margaret, fled to Germany. He had been tipped off, probably by Maxwell Knight of MI5, that the British authorities intended to detain him under Defence Regulation 18B. Three weeks after his arrival in Germany, Joyce was working as a radio broadcaster for the Propaganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbels. Joyce became a naturalised German in 1940.

The name 'Lord Haw-Haw of Zeesen' was coined by the pseudonymous Daily Express radio critic Jonah Barrington in 1939, but this referred initially to Wolf Mitler, (or possibly Norman Baillie-Stewart). When Joyce became the best-known propaganda broadcaster the nickname transferred to him. Besides broadcasting, Joyce's duties included distributing propaganda among British prisoners of war, whom he tried to recruit into the British Free Corps, as a branch of the Waffen SS. Adolf Hitler awarded Joyce the War Merit Cross (First and Second Class) for his broadcasts.

Much of the content was laughably stupid, but every once in a while he managed to scare his audience. Using information provided by spies, he was telling the listeners the names of people killed by bombs on a certain street in London, or by saying that there were 50 steps in the Church tower at Bristol - audiences would become frightened by the accuracies of his claims.

In 1940 Joyce wrote a book (with the backing of the German Propaganda Ministry), titled "Twilight Over England: The Path to Democracy is the Road to Oblivion". The book was conceived as an appeal to the ordinary British man or woman fed up with the war. It was anti-Semitic rubbish, with as much appeal as “Mein Kampf”, whose views it largely echoed.

By using the airwaves, the Germans could transmit propaganda directly into the living rooms of the British populace. This was a significant innovation in psychological warfare.

According to an internal report of the British government, the broadcasts had a real effect:

"...The effect of Haw-Haw is considered in this region (Bristol) to be extremely insidious, and this danger is underestimated by the BBC and the Government, who do not fully appreciate to what extent this propaganda is believed..."

Around the same time, Joseph Goebbels (The Nazi Propaganda Minister) wrote:

"...Our English radio broadcasts are being taken with deadly seriousness in England. Lord Haw-Haw's name is on everybody's lips. We do not react, but intensify our broadcasts..."

On May 28, 1945 Joyce (pictured above at gunpoint, in captivity) was captured in a German forest by two British officers gathering a truckload of firewood, near Flensburg on the Danish border. They initially thought he was a German citizen and addressed the soldiers in French. Then he said in English, "Oh, there are three or four more here." The duo immediately recognized the distinctive voice of Lord Haw-Haw.

Joyce was carrying two passports, one of them in his own name, and another under the pseudonym Wilhelm Hansen. In the ensuing struggle he was shot in the leg by one of the soldiers.

Joyce was stretchered back to London and there he was tried on three counts of high treason. These were as follows:

* William Joyce, on September 18 1939, and on numerous other days between 18 September 1939 and 29 May 1945 did: - aid and assist the enemies of the King by broadcasting to the King's subjects propaganda on behalf of the King's enemies. - aid and comfort the King's enemies by purporting to be naturalised as a German citizen.

During the processing of the charges Joyce's American nationality came to light, and it seemed that he would have to be acquitted, based not upon innocence of the charges of aiding the Nazi war effort but rather a lack of jurisdiction; he could not be convicted of betraying a country that was not his own. However, Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had lied about his nationality in order to get it, entitled him to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the King. It was on this technicality, confirmed by the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords, that Joyce was convicted and sentenced to death. Perhaps a jail sentence would have been more appropriate, but it appears that the British were determined to get their man.

Joyce was executed by famed hangman Albert Pierrepoint on January 3, 1946, at Wandsworth Prison and was buried in an unmarked grave. He was the last civilian to be hanged for treason in Britain. The Crown considered trying his wife, Margaret, as well, but a secret memo recommended clemency for her. In 1976, Joyce was reinterred at New Cemetery here in Bohermore, Galway.

One is Germany Calling by Mary Kenny, which is an interesting study of the man.

There is a review from The Guardian here

The other is Hitler's Irish Voices: The Story of German Radio's Wartime Irish Service, by David O'Donoghue.

Both books are avaliable locally in Charlie Byrnes bookshop or Easons.

Padraig O'Conaire (Poet and Writer) (See also his statue in Eyre Square)

Lady Gregory (Friend of W.B. Yeats, co-founder of Abbey Theatre)

Walther Macken (Novelist and Playwright)