During World War 2, the British public was eager to hear about their loved ones overseas. The British Empire’s great size meant that British soldiers and sailors were literally fighting all over the world, and, often, news about these fighters was slim at best. And that’s why the British public often turned to their radios, their “wireless” sets, to hear what they could about the condition of loved ones overseas. And, the person they turned to more and more as the war went on was known as Lord Haw-Haw.

You must remember that from 1940 until the early part of 1942, the British military and the British people were the only ones standing between the aggression of Nazi Germany and the United States. Until the US entered the war officially in December 1941, it was up to Britain to be the sole remaining democracy in Europe as Hitler had taken all of Europe that he wanted to take (and even began invading the Soviet Union in 1941). Britain’s back was against the wall. The Blitz, the systematic bombing of British cities by the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe), was hurting public morale. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI stood as stalwart reminders that the will of the people needed to remain strong as news of loss after loss came home to London and Manchester and Leicester and the other cities and towns and villages of the United Kingdom.

And people were hungry to know if their loved ones were alive. And that’s where Lord Haw-Haw’s broadcasts came in. You see, Lord Haw-Haw would go on the radio and tell people how British troops were doing. He’d detail where the various groups and armies were fighting. He’d read lists of casualties–killed, wounded, missing–and, for the families who were desperate to hear from their loved ones, they were ever so happy to finally get word as to where their soldiers and sailors were fighting and how they were doing.

Well, you might be thinking that this type of information would be dangerous to the secret strategies of the British high command as they were planning the war. These reports by Lord Haw-Haw were basically relaying information that the enemy could and might use. You’d be right. The government was furious that these broadcasts were being made, even if the families of the troops got comfort from them. But the government powers were powerless to stop them, interestingly.

The real name of Lord Haw-Haw was actually William Joyce, a man who had been born in the United States. Joyce and his family left the US when he was young and went to Ireland. There, he fought in the Irish War of Independence while still in his teens. Afterward, he was educated in England, receiving a university degree there. Then, for a time, Joyce worked as a teacher. He married a British woman named Margaret, and he received his residency.

When he was making his war-time broadcasts, Joyce tried to affect a nasally, upper-class British accent, and that’s where the nickname Lord Haw-Haw came from. One critic of his broadcasts said she imagined him having a monocle and a turned up nose and would be “snooty” if you met him in person. Actually, Joyce was blonde and thin and had a large scar on his cheek. He was good at different English accents having a good ear for imitation and having lived in the US, Ireland, and the UK.

And the British people tuned in. In droves. At the peak, it was estimated that over 18,000,000 British listeners heard Joyce’s voice weekly. And the reason the British government couldn’t stop Lord Haw-Haw as he told the whereabouts of British troops and read off his lists of casualties was that he was not broadcasting in the UK at all.

No, Lord Haw-Haw was a product of Joseph Goebbels’s Nazi propaganda machine because Joyce defected to Germany in 1939. And for his defection, for the damage he did to the British war effort, and because of the negative impact he had on British morale, William Joyce was hanged for treason by the British government in 1946.