Via this post at PCL Linkdump, some great info from Sammy:
I forgot where I dug this up. It's been a while.
...On May 28, 1945 Joyce was captured in a German forest by two British officers gathering a truckload of firewood. Near Flensburg on the Danish border, Capt. Alexander Adrian Lickorish of the Reconnaissance Regiment, and Lt. Perry came upon an odd, tramplike figure with a walking stick. The tramp pointed to some logs with his walking stick, and addressed the men in French. Then he said in English, "oh, there are three or four more here." The duo immediately recognized the voice of Lord Haw-Haw.
Perry engaged the man in conversation for a few minutes "about coniferous and deciduous trees," after which Perry became certain it was Joyce. Joyce had kept his left hand in his pocket the entire time. When Joyce picked up a log with both hands, Perry asked him "you wouldn't be William Joyce by any chance, would you?" Joyce's hand fell back into his pocket. Perry drew his gun and shot him in the leg. Joyce was carrying two passports, one of them in his own name, and another under the pseudonym Wilhelm Hansen.
Joyce was taken back to London on a stretcher, where he stood trial for high treason. Nobody denied that he had made the radio broadcasts. The only issue was whether Britain had any jurisdiction. By now, Joyce had become a German citizen. Before that, he had been an American. But the prosecution argued that during the period that Joyce held a valid British passport, he had a reciprocal duty to Great Britain. It's a ridiculous argument today, and it was equally ridiculous then. But the British were determined to rid the world of Lord Haw-Haw, so their courts upheld the legal farce.
And that's how the Limeys hanged a Kraut for treason.
And let that be a lesson to all you youngsters out there: Some people can't keep their mouths shut to save their necks. Literally.

Comments