Flight To Scotland
Like Goebbels, Hess was privately distressed by the war with the United Kingdom because he, influenced by his academic advisor and in line with earlier statements by Hitler, hoped that Britain would accept Germany as an ally. Hess may have hoped to score a diplomatic victory by sealing a peace between the Third Reich and Britain, using the contact his adviser Albrecht Haushofer had made in Nazi Germany, just before the war, with Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton.
On 10 May 1941 at about 18:00, Hess took off from Augsburg in a Messerschmitt Bf 110D (radio code VJ+OQ) that he had equipped with drop tanks to increase its range. Goering ordered the General of the Fighter Arm to stop him but squadron leaders were ordered to scramble only one or two fighters, since Hess's particular aircraft could not be distinguished from others and he was soon out of their range over the North Sea.
Read more about this topic: Rudolf Hess
Famous quotes containing the words flight and/or scotland:
“Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over Parnassus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Four and twenty at her back
And they were a’ clad out in green;
Tho the King of Scotland had been there
The warst o’ them might hae been his Queen.
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Till we cam to yon bonny ha’
Whare the roof was o’ the beaten gold
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—Unknown. The Wee Wee Man (l. 21–28)