Hitler's deputy crashed in Scotland

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Postby Dugald » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:49 am

Graham, I have read your postings about Hess with interest, but not with any great measure of agreement in what you're saying. Hess in Govan police station for example? Nah, I don't go along with this at all. I lived in Govan then, and you can be sure if Hess had been there Govan would have known all about it.

As I believe it, on Saturday May 10, 1941, Hess flew alone in a two-seater fighter plane from an airfield deep in Germany with the intention of landing on a private airfield on the Duke of Hamilton's estate, located about 12 miles from Eaglesham. He couldn't find the airfield and flew out over the Firth of Clyde and dropped his one disposable fuel tank. He then flew inland and bailed out, suffering only a broken ankle when he landed in a farmer's field near where his plane crashed. Hess was captured by a ploughman armed with a hay fork. Hess was unarmed, as was his plane, and he offered no resistance. He told the ploughman his name was Alfred Horn. The ploughman took "Alfred Horn" to his house and his mother gave "Alfred" a cup of tea.

The police and Home Guard were informed of the captured German airman and he was soon recognized as the Deputy Führer of Germany. He was moved to a Boy Scout Hall in Giffnock, and then to the Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow, where a doctor took care of the Nazi's broken ankle ( and one of the army officers at the barracks was later court-martialed for being half asleep and improperly dressed when the Home Guard arrived!).

On the day after Hess landed I read about it in the newspaper and I'm not altogether sure whether I picked up the "Sunday Mail" on the Sunday morning, or the "Daily Record" on the Monday. I lean heavily however, to believing it was the "Sunday Mail", and I have some recollection of a "Sunday Mail" reporter getting a "scoop of a lifetime" when he found out about Hess landing in Eaglesham, and the "Sunday Mail" published it. It should be an easy matter at the 'Mitchell' to get the Glasgow papers for May 10th, and 11th, 1941, and while you won't read anything about the dropping of fuel tanks at West Kilbride, I think what you'll read will be more closely consistent with what actually happened, and somewhat at odds with your post of April 3rd

Cheers, Dugald.
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Postby Graham » Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:46 pm

Hi Dugald, I never said Hess was in Govan police station, it was Strathclyde/ City of Glasgow (I'm sure Alastair could refresh my memory here) Police that claimed he had been held there. Likewise Giffnock Police station. Neither event happened as far as I am aware.

As far as the "scoop of a lifetime", a man called Nick Rowswell recounts on a BBC website that :

"Instead of informing the Duke of Hamilton, the farmer chose to alert his contact, George Simpson, who navigated his way through blacked-out Glasgow to Eaglesham, where "after a few questions to confirm the deputy Fuhrer's identity, my grandfather finished his tea and shot him."

Before anyone jumps down my throat I perhaps should mention that Simpson was a photographer and it was his pictures that appeared the next day on the front page of the Daily Mail :wink:
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Postby Dugald » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:22 pm

Graham, you're quite correct, it wasn't you who said anything about the Govan Police Station, it was Alastair Dinsmore, as shown in the quotation from your post of April 3rd shown below:

"Alastair Dinsmore also informs me that both Giffnock and Govan police stations also claim to have had Hess as a resident,..."

Further to your 12:46 pm post of today, in which you provide a quotation from Nick Rowswell's recount on a BBC website in which he claims this other fellow George Simpson says:

'...where " after a few questions to confirm the deputy Fuhrer's identity, my grandfather finished his tea and shot him." '

I assume it was Hess who was shot by the grandfather; anyway, there's a lot of hearsay, among other questionable things, involved here, and I see little reason to attach any credence to it at all.

Likewise, the 'message' in italics referred to in Apollo's post of April 4th is deserving of just about the same credence as I'd attach to this alleged claim by George Simpson!

Cheers, Dugald.
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Postby Apollo » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:41 am

One of the important things to remember when considering 'accounts' of Hess's arrival in Scotland, and subsequent movements, is that many of the writers have personal agendas, ranging from potential security-based 'mis-information' that would have been circulated at the time (to prevent sympathisers mounting a rescue attempt, or perhaps simple murder by any vigilante minded person/group), to self-promotion and profit by reporters, journalists or writers. I've often mentioned the remarkable 'discovery' of a new 'fact' or revelation every few years, and certain authors suddenly re-appearing with a new book. Very handy for the old income.

Needless to say, there's a real need to review numerous, disparate sources when attempting to form an overall picture, and accounts from the time are still probably the most reliable, being relatively free of more modern 'revelations' and 'discoveries'.

For example, the likelihood of a story about 'distressed pitchfork props' falls into the unlikely class, as it's not very likely that it wouldn't have been related many times long before the 1970s - it's hardly D-Notice material, and those involved would surely have been dining out on the story long before if it was true.

More irritating are the sillies that don't appear in any of the accounts, but get perpetuated in 'authoritative' sources without citing any references. For example, Hess was never held at PoW Camp No 21 Cultybraggan (going by the official records) but a Scottish Gazetteer supported by the University of Edinburgh, the Scottish Tourism website, and the BBC repeated it in January as part of an article about the Comrie community's wish to purchase the PoW camp where Hess was held (Sorry, the Beeb's link is now dead). Two have an interest in keeping the story going, the third has used it without researching and verifying.

Camp 21 housed those German/Nazi PoWs considered to be the most dangerous and hard-core fanatics - so this probably accounts for the assumed Hess connection.
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Postby Graham » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:53 pm

Apollo wrote:One of the important things to remember when considering 'accounts' of Hess's arrival in Scotland, and subsequent movements, is that many of the writers have personal agendas, ranging from potential security-based 'mis-information' that would have been circulated at the time (to prevent sympathisers mounting a rescue attempt, or perhaps simple murder by any vigilante minded person/group), to self-promotion and profit by reporters, journalists or writers. .


That is my point exactly. As I said in my previous reply to you, which version of the story do you think sounds more like something made up by the media - the one where a plucky farmhand captures a high-ranking nazi official with the aid of his trusty pitchfork, or the the one where said farmhand goes out to investigate a noise in a field near his cottage, finds a man with a broken ankle and helps him back to his home where his old mum offers to make him a nice cup of tea?

Obviously the first version conjours up a far more glamorous image-without the pitchfork it can't really be said that McLean "captured" Hess and you have to admit that "Hess Drops in For Cup Of Tea" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "Hess Captured by Local Farmer"..........
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Postby Graham » Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:47 pm

Here, courtesy of Alistair at the Police Museum, is a map of the crash site......

Image
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Postby Apollo » Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:53 pm

Thanks for that gem :)

Looks like he and his aircraft were almost reunited on the ground!
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Postby Graham » Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:56 pm

It's a shame that the GSO runs right over the top of the crash site, otherwise a trip with a metal detector might still have been worthwhile.
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Postby Graham » Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:15 pm

Apollo wrote:Personally, I have to question the voracity of a story that claims reporters on a farm had to go and buy a new pitchfork and distress it to make it look used.


From the book Old Eaglesham by Rhona Wilson;

Hess was discovered in a field by David McLean, an Eaglesham ploughman, who was regaled as a hero by the sensationalist press, although his only claims were that he had helped Hess back to his house and made him a cup of tea.The papers preferred their own version of the story, however, which was that McLean had captured Hess in yokel fashion, at the end of a pitchfork. A brand new (and doctored) pitchfork was acquired and dispatched to America where it raised some £9,000 for the war effort. Later, it was honoured with a place in a museum of war relics

This story was also bourne out by one of those involved in procuring the pitchfork in a letter to the Glasgow Herald although I haven't managed to trace a copy of that yet, but I will :wink:
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Postby Apollo » Sun Apr 22, 2007 9:05 pm

That quote does differ a little from the original post about the pitchfork, and suggests McLean never saw the item in question, which was nothing more than a sham that never saw Mclean or Hess, but was (unsurprisingly?) snatched up by the American as a 'false icon'.

I wonder what Ms Wilson expected McLean to do with the injured Hess who wasn't going anywhere, either by his own desire, or as a result of broken
ankle and injured back?

Her story also disagrees with that of McLean at the time, in which he states the pitchfork was the only item he had to hand on the farm (and was later filmed with), after he left his cottage and saw a parachutist floating down into his field after the aircraft crashed. McLean also noted that the flyer refused the tea, but did accept a drink of water.

Ms Wilson didn't by any chance identify the pitchfork museum, as in public or private?

(I'm wimping out, and just noting existing tales, and not offering support for or against any. I just want to dig and learn more).
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Postby Graham » Mon Apr 23, 2007 1:40 am

Apollo wrote:That quote does differ a little from the original post about the pitchfork, and suggests McLean never saw the item in question, which was nothing more than a sham that never saw Mclean or Hess, but was (unsurprisingly?) snatched up by the American as a 'false icon'.

I wonder what Ms Wilson expected McLean to do with the injured Hess who wasn't going anywhere, either by his own desire, or as a result of broken
ankle and injured back?

Her story also disagrees with that of McLean at the time, in which he states the pitchfork was the only item he had to hand on the farm (and was later filmed with), after he left his cottage and saw a parachutist floating down into his field after the aircraft crashed. McLean also noted that the flyer refused the tea, but did accept a drink of water.

Ms Wilson didn't by any chance identify the pitchfork museum, as in public or private?

(I'm wimping out, and just noting existing tales, and not offering support for or against any. I just want to dig and learn more).


As yu can see I have just quoted verbatim from the book. I agree that there are minor errors in the text but the basic details of the story are correct.The story I orignally heard was that the pitchfork was provided to Mr McLean for use in the photos. Why there wasn't a suitable one to hand I cannot remember but I'm sure the details will emerge in due course.

If you watch the newsreel footage of McLean he doesn't exactly come across as some one who is recounting a story but more one who is reading from a prepared script, but I suppose that could be rationalised away.

I dare say there will be a record of who bought the pitchfork at auction (probably the same guy who bough London Bridge :wink: ) but it does appear here...

New York Times July 12, 1942, Sunday
USO WILL EXHIBIT IMPLEMENTS OF WAR; Pitchfork Used in Capture of Rudolf Hess Is Included


The pitchfork used by the farmer who captured Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader, when his plane landed in Scotland in 1941 will be on exhibition this week with various implements of war and air raids paraphernalia at the Museum of Science and Industry or New York, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

Unfortunately they want paid for the rest of the article, so that'll need to do for now. The mystery continues...........
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Postby Field Marshall Shug » Mon Apr 23, 2007 7:41 pm

On his first night I think he slept at the Maryhill barracks and made a big deal about not eating meat and did some yoga-style exercises. But by Nuremburg, he was chomping on meat and couldn't have cared less about th alternative lifestyle which Hess followed in Germany.
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Postby Graham » Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:27 pm

Field Marshall Shug wrote:On his first night I think he slept at the Maryhill barracks and made a big deal about not eating meat and did some yoga-style exercises. But by Nuremburg, he was chomping on meat and couldn't have cared less about th alternative lifestyle which Hess followed in Germany.



and by the time he got to Spandau he had managed to lose an old bullet wound too!
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Postby Apollo » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:36 am

Funnily enough, the drivel about the 'missing' bullet wound was produced by yet another author with a book to publicise and sell to make a buck out of the event, and was based only his own 'expert' suppositions, which he strangely, was unable to later produce any records to validate:

More imaginative even than the occult explanation of the Hess mission is the theory that the real Rudolf Hess was replaced with a double, and that the man who died at Spandau in 1987 was not the Deputy Fuhrer at all. The most celebrated proponent of the so-called doppelganger theory is Dr Hugh Thomas, a former army surgeon who examined Hess in September 1973 while attached to the British Military Hospital in Berlin. The publication of his book The Murder of Rudolf Hess in 1979 prompted questions in the House of Commons and the Bundestag, and generated further controversy in 1988 when it appeared in revised form under the title Hess: A Tale of Two Murders. Thomas relied on his own medical expertise. During the First World War Hess was known to have been wounded twice: once by shrapnel in June 1916, followed by a more serious chest wound caused by a rifle bullet on the Romanian front in July 1917. According to Thomas, the 'major scars on his chest and back' caused by both wounds should have been highly visible even after 60 years, yet were not recorded by any one of the 58 doctors who examined Hess after 1941. Thomas was unable to locate any detailed contemporary medical notes, but made a number of assumptions which hypothesised extensive tissue damage and a large exit wound on the back. Thomas also accepted muddled assertions that Hess had been treated by the renowned chest surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, whose technique for treating gunshot wounds usually entailed the partial removal of a rib. The fact that Hess refused to see his wife and son until 1969 was also cited as further evidence.
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Postby Graham » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:00 pm

Apollo wrote:Funnily enough, the drivel about the 'missing' bullet wound was produced by yet another author with a book to publicise and sell to make a buck out of the event, and was based only his own 'expert' suppositions, which he strangely, was unable to later produce any records to validate:

More imaginative even than the occult explanation of the Hess mission is the theory that the real Rudolf Hess was replaced with a double, and that the man who died at Spandau in 1987 was not the Deputy Fuhrer at all. The most celebrated proponent of the so-called doppelganger theory is Dr Hugh Thomas, a former army surgeon who examined Hess in September 1973 while attached to the British Military Hospital in Berlin. The publication of his book The Murder of Rudolf Hess in 1979 prompted questions in the House of Commons and the Bundestag, and generated further controversy in 1988 when it appeared in revised form under the title Hess: A Tale of Two Murders. Thomas relied on his own medical expertise. During the First World War Hess was known to have been wounded twice: once by shrapnel in June 1916, followed by a more serious chest wound caused by a rifle bullet on the Romanian front in July 1917. According to Thomas, the 'major scars on his chest and back' caused by both wounds should have been highly visible even after 60 years, yet were not recorded by any one of the 58 doctors who examined Hess after 1941. Thomas was unable to locate any detailed contemporary medical notes, but made a number of assumptions which hypothesised extensive tissue damage and a large exit wound on the back. Thomas also accepted muddled assertions that Hess had been treated by the renowned chest surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, whose technique for treating gunshot wounds usually entailed the partial removal of a rib. The fact that Hess refused to see his wife and son until 1969 was also cited as further evidence.


Ah yes, I've read Hugh Thomas' book. As you say, the assertations or claims of anyone who is out to "make a buck" have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

In his book it is evident from his description of Floors Farm and it's environs that Thomas has never set foot in the area, and some other claims are somewhat fanciful, but this in itself does not cast doubt upon the information he imparts based on his own field of expertise.

The fact that Hess allegedly refused to see his wife and only allowed a visit from his son late in his life only adds further credence to the suposition that the prisoner in Spandau was not the real Hess. Wolf Hess was only three years old in 1941, so one could postulate that he would have only a hazy memory of his father and therefore it would be relatively easy for a doppleganger to pass himself off as Hess snr if he had a rudimentary knowledge of the family history.

It would be far more difficult for such an imposter, however, to fool Hess' wife, Ilse, given that they would obviously share many more memories and IMO this only adds to the case for it not being the real Hess who was imprisoned.

Returning to your point questioning the accounts of those who were out to "make a buck" from the Hess story, surely you must then include David McLean, who if you recall, contacted the media almost immediately upon "capturing" Hess. I'm sure if you would care to play Devil's Advocate for a minute you must agree that it is unlikely that Mr McLean was not remunerated for his countless interviews which, by your own admission, would mean anything claims he made would have to be treated with at least as much suspicion as those assertations made by others that were involved before,during and after the fact. This would naturally include the website you appear to have garnered the majority of your information from (whose main stock-in-trade appears to be cds, records and pop memorabilia ), which whilst decrying other author's work only offers one source of reference for the claims it makes - a book which the website is attempting to peddle, which brings us neatly back to your point about the validity of the accounts of those who are out to "make a buck" :wink:

The complete story will probably never be known and there are many people in the local area who have tales to tell or claim to have parts of the plane or other such trinkets relating to Hess. One collegue of my father claimed to have the life raft from the plane and Alistair Dinsmore told me of someone who handed an aircraft part into the police museum claiming it had come from the landing site despite it bearing marks which indicated it was manufactured several years after the crash!
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