The night that we captured Hitler’s deputy
First-hand account of Hess’s ill-fated Scots flight found in fireman’s log book
IT was one of the most mysterious episodes of the Second World War.
Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess secretly flew to Scotland hoping to broker peace without the Nazi leader’s knowledge.
But after a series of mishaps Hess ended up being taken prisoner.
Now an incredibly rare first-hand account of the bizarre events has come to light in a fire station log book.
It was salvaged from a skip in the 1960s by an eagle-eyed fireman who noticed it covered the war years.
Among the routine entries was one documenting the incidents that could have shortened the war by four years.
On the night of May 10, 1941, Hess piloted a Messerschmitt Bf 110 from Germany, intending meet the Duke of Hamilton, who he had been told knew Winston Churchill.
But after the aircraft ran out of fuel Hess bailed out and the plane crashed on a farm at Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. A policeman found him nearby with a broken ankle.
The report was discovered in the Fire Record Book of Darnley fire station in Renfrewshire.
It was written by watch room attendant James Whitelaw, who noted: ‘Motor pump… deployed to extinguish fire caused by crash landing. Messerschmidt [sic] 110. Twin engine monoplane fighter. Aircraft partly destroyed by fire and effect of crash landing.
‘The pilot Deputy Fuerher [sic] Rudolph Hess, who was the sole occupant of the machine, bailed out just before the aircraft crashed.
‘He was taken to Floors farmhouse suffering from a broken ankle and was detained pending the arrival of a detachment of the Home Guard, when he was removed to Maryhill Military Barracks.’
The book was saved from being thrown out at Darnley station in 1963 by the fireman father of the man now selling it through London-based Bonhams. It is expected to fetch £1,200 at auction later this month. Matthew Haley, head of books and manuscripts at Bonhams, said: ‘The Hess affair was so improbable and bizarre it was almost Monty Python-esque.
‘To have the record of the incident from the fire station that put out the flames of his plane when it crashed into the Scottish countryside is truly fascinating.’ After his capture, Hess was held as a prisoner of war by the British for the duration of the conflict.
After taking the stand at the Nuremburg Trials he claimed to be suffering from amnesia but was convicted of crimes against peace. Hess spent the rest of his life in Spandau Prison, West Berlin, where he committed suicide, aged 93, in 1987.