At last, new archival discoveries reveal the truth about the Germany Deputy-Fuhrer's incredible solo flight to Britain in May 1941, and explain the British Government's 60-year silence as to what the Hess mission was about.
On the night of 10 May 1941, in one of the most extraordinary and bizarre incidents of World War Two, a Messerschmitt-110 crash-landed on a remote Scottish hillside. Its pilot, who had parachuted to safety, was Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer of the German Reich.
Hess's remarkable solo flight was immediately dismissed in both Britain and Germany as the deranged act of a disordered mind. He was disowned by Hitler, and Winston Churchill's government insisted that his unexpected arrival on British soil was of no lasting consequence.
Nevertheless, the mysterious circumstances of the flight, and Hess's unbroken silence during 50 subsequent years of imprisonment, have led to endless speculation about his true motives.
Yet there were crucial pieces of evidence which provide that a small group of men within the British Government and intelligence services were in fact conducting a brilliantly clever plot which was not only to lead to Hess's flight, but would also have a decisive impact on the course of the war.
