American born, but raised in Ireland, Joyce was thin, pale, and intense young man. He appears in all three novels in the series, The Addlestone Chronicles. He was Director of Propaganda in Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the mid 1930s and later was promoted to Mosley’s second in command of the BUF. Throughout the late 1930’s he gave speeches and organised rallies for the BUF to increase membership numbers which at one stage amounted to 20,000 card carrying troops, who dressed in black, held rallies, and hassled and induced violence against Jews and other minorities. In late August, 1939, less than a month before the outbreak of WWII, he and his wife fled to Germany, having been tipped off that he was about to be arrested under Defence Regulation 18B. This law allowed the British government to intern individuals suspected of being Nazi sympathisers and, at the same time, suspended their rights to habeas corpus. Both Joyce and his wife became German citizens and he continued to support the Nazis through regular English language, short-wave radio broadcasts, titled Germany Calling. In these, he adopted the persona of Lord Haw-Haw. These transmissions, beamed to the UK and British Commonwealth countries, attempted to persuade British troops and the general public to abandon their war effort against the Nazis. After the war, he was arrested and charged with treason. In January, 1946, at the age of 39, he was hanged in Wandsworth Prison.
William Brooke Joyce (aka Lord Haw-Haw)
