William Joyce real name to his listeners; and he would occasionally be announced as "William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw". Urban legends soon circulated about Lord Haw-Haw, alleging that the broadcaster was well-informed about political and military events to the point of near-omniscience. Although listening to his broadcasts was officially discouraged (but not illegal), many Britons heard the broadcasts. At the height of his influence, in 1940, Joyce had an estimated six million regular and 18 million occasional listeners in the United Kingdom. The broadcasts always began with the announcer's words, "Germany calling, Germany calling, Germany calling". These broadcasts urged the
William Joyce then drove him to a border post and handed him to British military police. Joyce was then taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey on three counts of high treason: "Not guilty" were the first words from Joyce's mouth in his trial, as noted by Rebecca West in her book "The Meaning of Treason" (as noted by Whittaker Chambers in his 1947 review of that book). The only evidence offered that he had begun broadcasting from Germany while his British passport was valid was the testimony of a London police inspector who had questioned him before the war