New light shone on Rudolph Hess flight

He gave a very well received talk on the flight at the Scout Hall in 2017 – and promises to reveal details of some fresh discoveries in his latest talk.

The Scout Hall in Giffnock has been chosen as the venue as Hess was brought to the Hall following his arrest by the local Home Guard and it was there that he was initially interrogated by Roman Battaglia, a Polish Army intelligence officer.

The fuselage of the plane in which Hess flew to Scotland currently lies in Hangar 5 of the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in Cambridgeshire.

John Harris and his co-researcher Richard Wilbourn have studied the fuselage in detail with reference to the original war time service manuals.

They have discovered that the oil pipeline from the auxiliary oil tank to the engine had been blanked off by a large brass nut that was wired in place.

The implications of this somewhat innocuous discovery are very significant and historically important according to another leading authority, Peter Padfield.

Without the use of an auxiliary oil tank the Hess plane could not have completed the flight from Augsburg in Bavaria to Scotland.

The massive, twin 1000hp Daimler Benz engines consumed oil at an average rate of 7.5 litres per hour and the oil tanks in situ would have been emptied far sooner than the five hour 24 minute flight allowed.

The obvious implication is that Hess had to land in Northern Germany to refuel.

However, for the past 78 years the Hess flight has officially been described as a solo peace mission by the Deputy Fuhrer who was apparently becoming delusional.

This somewhat bizarre description was first attributed to the official German communiqué following the flight.

Hitler had to disguise the peace attempt with Britain, else run the risk of alerting Stalin as to his true intentions; those of making a western peace prior to launching an attack on the Soviet Union.

In his talk Harris will be setting out details of these recent discoveries and showing that they essentially destroy the illusion of a solo flight by the Deputy Fuhrer who was trying to regain his former prestige.

Rather, they demonstrate that the flight was planned in minute detail and required official training, support and connivance.

The talk takes place on May 7 at the Scout Hall in Giffnock. Tickets for the talk cost £5 (including tea/coffee and biscuits) with all proceeds going to the Scouts.

For further information and to book tickets email the Scouts at [email protected].