The Hitler–Hess Deception

by Martin Allen

  Hess had not faced such real personal danger since his time as a fighter-pilot of the Jagdstaffel 35, flying a handful of combat missions in a Fokker Dr-1 triplane in the autumn of 1918. That had been a 110-horsepower, wood-and-canvas triple-winged aircraft, most often associated with the daring escapades of the Red Baron. In 1941, Hess’s flying style still reflected his extremely out-of-date training. Whereas most Second World War combat pilots would have sought to avoid the enemy by utilising their aircraft’s maximum altitude – thirty-two thousand feet in the case of an Me-110 – Germany’s Deputy-Führer adopted the barnstorming tactics of the First World War, thundering in low over the Scottish countryside, skimming houses and trees, hedge-hopping and swinging this way and that through steep-sided valleys. While a Fokker triplane’s top speed was a stately 103 miles per hour, Hess’s Me-110 screamed in over the remote Lowland villages at almost four times that speed, and he was burning up his remaining fuel at an extremely high rate. Following Hess’s flight, the expressions of wonder should have been made not so much at the fact that he flew all the way from Germany to a remote corner of Scotland, but rather that he avoided killing himself in the process. However, Hess’s tactics during the flight should not be entirely denigrated, for they took him below Britain’s radar cover, and certainly prevented him from being spotted – silhouetted against the sky or horizon – by any patrolling fighter cover.

  It was Hess’s overwhelming desire for the success of his mission that made him throw caution to the wind. For one weekend only he was playing the star role as the daring adventurer who would fly deep into enemy territory to make peace. However, despite all the outward signs of careless abandon, Hess had spent months meticulously planning his flight, and had ordered several significant technical modifications to his aircraft to improve his chances of success.

  In the latter 1930s, while British scientists had been experimenting with radar, their German counterparts had also been studying radio-waves, but their endeavours had taken them down an entirely different path. German scientists had spent considerable resources developing the broadcast of powerful and concentrated radio beams which could be used for aircraft navigation, and they had gone on to create a network of radio beacons. By early 1940, forty-six such beacons existed, criss-crossing the skies above Germany and western Europe in an invisible network of airborne motorways four to five hundred metres wide, named Knickebeins.

  RAF Intelligence had long suspected that the Luftwaffe’s extremely accurate bombing of Britain’s airfields and cities had been assisted by some form of navigational aid, and in June 1940 the capture of a downed Luftwaffe pilot confirmed their fears. During interrogation, the pilot revealed that the Luftwaffe were using Knickebeins as a bomb-dropping aid involving two intersecting radio beams, the beams being picked up by a special aircraft-mounted receiver named a ‘Lorenz’.21 More worrying still, an expert evaluation concluded that a bomber using Knickebeins and a Lorenz receiver could achieve accuracy of within thirty-five to forty feet.22 This was a new and deadly secret weapon, one that British scientists eventually countered by broadcasting their own radio waves on a similar megacycle frequency to distort the Knickebein beams, a practice known as ‘beam-bending’ or ‘meaconing’; but not before many deadly Luftwaffe raids of unerring accuracy had caused much devastation.

  The Germans had maintained their navigational/bomb-ranging system by regularly changing the Knickebein frequencies.23 By the spring of 1941, Britain and Germany were fighting a continual war of the airwaves that saw Britain increasingly criss-crossed by a network of invisible flight paths.

  Rudolf Hess’s aircraft was fitted with a Lorenz receiver, which he tuned to a variety of Knickebein frequencies as he navigated his way firstly across western Europe, then the North Sea, and finally the British countryside.

  The fitting of a Lorenz receiver was not the only significant improvement that had been made to Hess’s Messerschmitt. An Me-110 was really designed for three men: the pilot, a navigator/radio man, and a rear gunner. As Hess was the sole occupant of his plane its radio systems had to be adapted. There was no room in the cockpit for the equipment itself, but after some experimentation the technicians at Messerschmitt managed to fit a set of remote controls so the radio equipment could be worked from the pilot’s seat.

  One other important modification to Hess’s plane reveals a great deal about his attitude to his daring flight. The fuselage of the Deputy-Führer’s Me-110 was half a metre longer than that of a normal production machine, and along its top a thin copper tube ran from the cockpit to an added-on half-metre section midway to the tail. Within this tube ran a steel cable connected to a handle near the pilot’s seat. Had Hess encountered a major problem and been forced to ditch his aircraft over the sea, pulling this handle would release an inflatable rubber dinghy complete with survival facilities to sustain his life until rescue.

  During his flight low over the Scottish countryside, Hess had easily managed to evade the three Spitfires over the east coast, his twin-engined Me-110 possessing sufficient power to outrun the British fighters; but his progress across the Lowlands was now being noted by various listening posts.

  At 10.23 p.m. Hess’s low-flying aircraft had been heard and reported by a Royal Observation Corps post based at Embleton, and then, less than fifteen minutes later, by an ROC post at Ashkirk approximately ninety miles to the north-east, placing Hess’s speed at this time in the region of 360 m.p.h. Just at this point he crossed into the sector of airspace covered by RAF Ayr, and here the response to the incoming enemy aircraft was a little more potent. A Boulton Defiant was scrambled to intercept it.

  To the RAF plotters and air staffs on duty that night, the flight of a lone Me-110 was a most unusual occurrence, particularly since it was known that the Messerschmitt did not carry sufficient fuel reserves to make the return journey home. The response, however, was still fairly paltry. Boulton Defiants like that sent to intercept Hess’s Me-110 had initially been deployed in the Battle of Britain, but they were so outdated and their losses against Germany’s Me-109s so appalling that despite the gravity of the air war, they were withdrawn from service in the south of England entirely. They were simply too slow to compete with the far more powerful planes of 1940. A Defiant was an effective night-fighter when deployed against the heavy, slow Heinkel 111s, but against a faster and more powerful Me-110 it was outclassed. The Defiant from Ayr never even managed to make contact with Hess’s plane. Despite this, within days Britain’s Air Minister would stand before the House of Commons and brazenly declare that Hess’s plane had been ‘in imminent danger of being shot down’ prior to the moment he baled out.24

  Intriguingly, evidence did emerge in late 1999 that there had been a separate effort to intercept Hess’s Me-110, but that it had been scuppered on the instructions of RAF Fighter-Command itself.25 Two Czech pilots, Vaclav ‘Felix’ Bauman and Leopold Srom (who had returned to their homeland after the war), related to a Czechoslovakian military historian how, whilst flying Hurricanes out of RAF Aldergrove in 1941, they had been scrambled on the night of 10 May and ordered to intercept a lone German aircraft heading towards the Firth of Clyde, just forty miles from Aldergrove. On reaching the Forth in record time, the two pilots spotted the plane. However, just as they were about to attack, an urgent message came through over their radios ordering them to ‘Stop action and return.’ Believing there had been a mistake, Flight-Sergeant Bauman responded that they were within range, but he was cut short and told, ‘Sorry, Felix, old boy. It is not possible. You must return. Now.’26

  By the time Bauman and Srom spotted Hess’s plane, the Deputy-Führer was little more than nine minutes’ flying time from Dungavel House. It was at this point that a major oversight began to take on increasing importance. At the time of his approach to Britain’s east coast from the North Sea the light had been a major concern to Hess, as he had not wanted to be spotted and perhaps shot down by an enemy unaware of the importance of the pilot or his mission. Now, however, dar
kness became an increasing problem. Dusk had fallen, and Hess could not make out the ground contours or the road and rail networks he had hoped to use for his final approach. One mistake, and within a mere two minutes he could have been as much as six or seven miles from his anticipated position. Unsurprisingly, Hess did indeed miss Dungavel, overshooting his destination to find himself on the west coast of Scotland. He was later to recall that as he neared the coast he had been able to make out ‘the glassy sea … in the light of the rising moon’,27 but little else. Although he had not known it, Hess’s navigational skills had been better than he realised. He had actually overflown Dungavel House at 10.45 p.m. before continuing on to the coast. Those awaiting the arrival of the German leadership’s emissary had heard the aircraft passing nearby in the darkness.

  Germany’s Deputy-Führer turned his plane back inland and began zigzagging in an attempt to locate Dungavel House. By now he had been forced to jettison his empty spare wing-tanks, and his fuel was running dangerously low. He knew he had mere minutes to land his plane safely, or he would have to abandon it.

  In 2000 a former WAAF, under the pseudonym of ‘Mrs Abbot’, as she wished to remain anonymous, recalled that on the night of 10 May 1941 she and a friend had been leaving Dungavel House’s kitchen when they were surprised to see that the airstrip’s landing lights had been turned on.28 So unusual was this occurrence, contravening strictly enforced blackout regulations, that they hoped the lighting-up had not resulted from ‘some infernal electrical fault that would attract Jerry raiders and get us killed’.

  Moments later, the two women were relieved to see the lights blink out, plunging the airstrip back into darkness. But to their surprise they soon heard an aircraft coming in low over the countryside. They had ‘half expected the lights to go back on again. But they remained off.’ Some ten minutes later ‘Mrs Abbot’ and her companion, still standing out in the darkness, ‘heard an aircraft – presumably the same one – pass over again’.

  Quite why the airstrip lights went out and were not relit has never been clearly understood. It may be that the ME-110’s pilot had prior instructions to make radio contact with Dungavel as he was making his approach, and that those waiting on the ground suddenly became aware that their visitor was not Ernst Bohle after all. Hess may even have unwisely announced exactly who he was, causing much alarm, for while the SO1 plotters might have expected to be able to stall negotiations with Bohle by raising some point which he’d have to consult Berlin about, Rudolf Hess, as Deputy-Führer, had the power to take executive decisions. There would be no hope of pulling the wool over Hess’s eyes, as might have been the case with Bohle.

  In the time-honoured fashion of someone wishing to deter an unwelcome visitor, the men at Dungavel’s airstrip may have panicked on hearing that it was someone other than Bohle aboard the plane, turned out the lights and pretended not to be in. They would not have minded in the slightest if some Nazi dignitary were killed in a plane crash, which would have served very nicely to stall the Messrs HHHH negotiations further anyway.

  ‘Mrs Abbot’ had been curious enough about the ‘strange incident’ of the landing lights to make enquiries about it. To her surprise, she learned that they had been switched on as the result of a phone call from Bowhill, yet another of the Duke of Buccleuch’s country properties, located a mere thirty miles south-east of Dungavel House. Significantly, Bowhill was directly under the flight path of Hess’s Me-110. Rudolf Hess had overflown it eleven minutes before his arrival in the airspace over Dungavel House.

  There is one more significant piece of evidence. Another WAAF who also wishes to be identified under a pseudonym, as ‘Mrs Baker’, was also at Dungavel that night. She later recalled that in the late spring of 1941 two packing cases were delivered to the castle, and placed in storage at the airstrip’s hangar. The cases caused some curiosity among the personnel based at Dungavel, for they were stamped with markings which indicated that their place of origin had been the Messerschmitt works in Augsburg. ‘Mrs Baker’ went on to assert that although she had not seen what was in the cases herself, she was told by an acquaintance that they contained ‘petrol tanks’. This statement is quite remarkable, not least because it would appear impossible for Britain to have obtained aircraft parts from the Messerschmitt works in time of war.

  Or would it? One simple fact must be borne in mind: in the world of Intelligence, anything is possible. Yes, it would have been remarkably difficult for Britain to obtain aircraft parts from Germany. But it should be noted that the Spanish air force was equipped with Me-110s, and the Messerschmitt works at Augsburg continued to supply it with spare parts until the winter of 1943. Samuel Hoare, having discussed with Albrecht Haushofer the technical requirements of the German emissary’s visit, may have requested Captain Hillgarth to obtain a pair of drop-tanks from General Vigon. They could then have been dispatched to Britain aboard the weekly flying boat from Lisbon to Portsmouth, and thence shipped to Dungavel.

  Such deals were grist to Hillgarth’s mill. Within a few months he would be busy paying many millions of US dollars to Franco’s generals in a massive bribery deal to keep Spain neutral. It worked. The Generalissimo was supported in his neutral stance by his key men, the Iberian Peninsula remained war-free, and Churchill’s faith in Hillgarth continued unbounded. Indeed, Churchill would soon support Hillgarth’s pleas for more bribery money with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, writing: ‘We must not lose them now, after all we have spent – and gained. Vital strategic decisions depend on Spain keeping out … Hillgarth is pretty good.’29 The acquisition of a few aircraft parts would have been a simple matter for a man such as Hillgarth.

  ‘Mrs Baker’ was to make one other interesting statement concerning the night of 10 May 1941 at Dungavel House. She commented that ‘the Duke and his people were in the Kennels’, adding that this group included a Pole.30 Pressed by an interviewer concerned that she might be mistaken, for it was known that the Duke of Hamilton was at RAF Turnhouse that night, the elderly lady had responded in annoyance: ‘Not the Duke of Hamilton. The Duke of Kent!’

  ‘Mrs Baker’s comment about a Pole being present at Dungavel that night is perturbing, but may be erroneous. It should be remembered that in 1941 she was a young woman, and had probably had little or no contact with foreigners. It may be that an officer with a strong north-eastern European accent was identified as Polish for ease of explanation to a curious young WAAF.

  There was a man in Britain in May 1941 who was known to the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Buccleuch and Ernst Bohle. Furthermore, he was known to have a strong north-east European accent, and he was an old friend not only of Alfred Rosenberg, but also of Albrecht Haushofer, and of Rudolf Hess too in an indirect manner. He was one of the most important members of covert British intelligence if one wanted to make contact with an important personage in Germany. He was a Balt of former east Prussian stock, whose family had lost all their possessions, land and aristocratic standing at the end of the First World War. His name was Baron ‘Bill’ de Ropp.

  Thus, on the evening of Saturday, 10 May 1941, there were many men gathered in three key places, awaiting developments that might come with the German emissary.

  At Dungavel House waited the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Buccleuch and a north European who was almost certainly Bill de Ropp, together with three or four mechanics who were ready to fit twin drop-tanks and refuel the visiting aircraft. Also present, as will appear, was a dark-haired, neatly tailored man named S. Voigt. He was from SO1 Woburn, delegated to report on the emissary’s meeting and, perhaps, to keep an eye on the Dukes of Kent and Buccleuch for the duration of Bohle’s visit.

  At Woburn Abbey the protagonists and co-ordinators of the whole Messrs HHHH operation – Rex Leeper, Anthony Eden, Hugh Dalton, Sir Robert Vansittart, Robert Bruce Lockhart, Brigadier Brooks, Hugh Gaitskell, Leonard St Clair Ingrams, Thomas Barman, Richard Crossman and Con O’Neill – undoubtedly lurked in SOE’s operations room, connected to the outside world by teletype,
telephone and transmitter. Perhaps they took an occasional stroll outside, where they could not help but see the raison d’être for their whole highly dangerous deception operation. To the south, the evening sky glowed red; London was burning.

  Winston Churchill, deep in the Oxfordshire countryside, whilst mindful of the developments about to take place in Scotland, was also kept abreast of the situation in London. He was later to write: ‘The worst attack was the last. On 10 May the enemy returned to London with incendiary bombs. He lit more than two thousand fires, and, by the smashing of nearly a hundred and fifty water mains, coupled with the low tide in the Thames, he stopped us putting them out … it was the most destructive of the whole night Blitz.’31 With Churchill at Ditchley that night were Sir Archibald Sinclair, the loyal Brendan Bracken, and President Roosevelt’s personal representative Harry Hopkins.

  However, the news everyone was anticipating – that the German emissary had arrived – was about to take an unexpected twist.

  Since the Second World War, much has been published concerning the details of Rudolf Hess’s flight to Scotland on that May evening in 1941. Every aspect of his flight, from each twist of his plane to the countermeasures taken by Britain’s defences, has been examined time and time again in an effort to discover the truth. However, the technical details behind the flight are not as important as the planned arrival of a German emissary on British soil in the midst of a desperate war, or how such a situation came about. When the truth is known – that certain high-echelon Britons were expecting a German plane, albeit carrying a different emissary – the technical evidence about the flight pales into insignificance.