Documents on Real
History
Letters to David
Irving on this Website
George
Rodger, wonders () Did the Duke of Hamilton have a secret meeting with Hess before the one recorded in the archives?
When did Duke of Hamilton first speak with
Hess?
I was re-reading your book
Hess
: The Missing Years and then was intrigued to come across an account by
Air Vice-Marshal Sandy Johnstone that contradicts the accepted time of 10am the following day as being the Duke of Hamilton‘s first meeting with Rudolf Hess after his arrival.
The account comes from an ‘Oral Histories’ section of a Glasgow City Council Museum’s book published in 2003, and probably not well-known –
Glasgow’s Spitfire; in this, and Johnstone mentions that he was having dinner with the Duke and Duchess when Hamilton was called away to the telephone to be told of the arrival of a German named Alfred Horn, who wanted to see him.
“But
the intelligence people seemed to think there
was something on, so Douglo went off to Glasgow
where they had taken him, into Maryhill
Barracks, he’d landed at Eaglesham. I went back
to Turnhouse, to the Ops room and about one
o’clock in the morning the Duke of Hamilton then
came in and took me into the rest room, and I
thought he looked very agitated and he shut the
door, I always remember him locking the door,
and shutting the ventilators.I thought, ‘My
goodness’, and he said, ‘ Don’t think I’m mad,
but I think Rudolph Hess is in Glasgow.’ I was
probably the second person to hear this, he
never let on to the people who had taken him
through to Glasgow. I reckon I was the number
two to hear about it.”
It thus appears that Hamilton had a secret initial meeting with Hess before the ‘official’ meeting at 10am.
You can access the whole section at http://www.glasgowmuseums.com/shop.cfm
– scroll down the book listings, the ninth is
Glasgow’s Spitfire, and then click on the
‘Related Documents’ excerpts richtext version link.
I haven’t seen this acount by Johnstone cited anywhere else, and I hope that it may be of use or interest to you.
-
Free
download of David Irving: Hess — the Missing
Years
Free download of David Irving’s books Bookmark the download page to find the latest new free books
Mr Irving replied:
WHEN Hess first arrived, the police inventory indicated that he was carrying a letter (addressed to HM King George VI). Later inventories omit this letter, leaving it possible that it had been handed to the duke, who had lunch with His Majesty a few days later and perhaps handed the letter to him. The Royal Archives will not anwer my question whether they hold such a letter.