FULL PRECAUTIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 139, 14 May 1941, Page 7

FULL PRECAUTIONS

TO ENSURE JOURNEY. EXTRA PETROL CARRIED. LONDON, May 13. M bile Hc66 was at the farmhouse, near Glasgow, before being taken to hospital he was in the charge of two Home Guardsmen. They said he had a map, with the route he used marked out in blue pencil. He also had a supply of compressed food. He told the men he had fitted an extra petrol tank to the Mcescrsehmitt machine to ensure he would complete his journey to (Scotland. Hess added that lie circled over the spot where he had decided to land, but saw no suitable place for landing. He then climbed several thousand feet, turned the machine on its back, and baled out witli his parachute. The man who flew to Glasgow to identify Hess was Mr Ivone Kirkpatrick, who was secretary to the British Embassy in .Berlin for five years tinder the last Ambassador (Sir Nevfle Henderson). Mr Kirkpatrick was intimately acquainted with Hess during his stay in Berlin and had no difficulty in identifying him. Berlin has now admitted that Hess landed in Scotland, and the explanation given to the German people is that he thought lie could come to terms with Britain.

His flight is the sequel to a serious disagreement among the Nazi leaders. The farewell letter- which Hess left behind is not to be published, the Nazis’ state.

The Minister of Information (Mr Duff Cooper) to-day said the escape showed the first breach in the Nazi Party since the purge of 1934. Hess was a man with all the advantages c£ high office in' Germany, yet ho was prepared to leave these, for the country with which Germany was at war—the country of freedom. “It is, good news,’’ the Minister added.