Radio journalist Lord Haw Haw – better known as William Joyce, was captured by the British Army in May 1945 and hanged for treason in January 1946. Debate continues to this day as to his citizenship and his fast tracking to execution in an English jail remains legally questionable. But of course, Scotland had its very own Lord McHaw Haw in the form of Donald Alexander Grant from Alness in Easter Ross who over the course of two years, broadcast his own flavour of “Germany Calling” under the guise of Radio Caledonia.

The station’s message was basically “What are the Scots doing fighting England’s war. The Germans are our friends” and, despite a claim that the broadcasts were from somewhere in Scotland, the station was actually based in Charlottenburg in far off Germany.
Seemingly few in his native Caledonia listened to his tartan propaganda and by 1942 Radio Caledonia had been taken off the air by the German propaganda ministry. Following the fall of the Third Reich, Grant surrendered to the British authorities and was jailed for six months in February 1947 for the offence of assisting the enemy. He then returned to Alness to work in the family grocery business for a few months before fleeing abroad in the face of local condemnation and threats of violence due to his so-called ‘Tartan Treachery’.
So oddly, the infamous Joyce was hung for treason but the young lad from the Black Isle got a bit of leniency despite the fact that he pleaded guilty for pretty much the very same offence.
Location: Alness, UK

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