Czech pilots almost killed Hess

Czech pilots almost killed Hess

Evidence that the Royal Air Forcecolluded with Germany, when Rudolf Hess flew to Britain in 1941 has been discovered in the Czech Republic. The personal log books of some of the 87 Czechoslovak fighter pilotswho escaped the 1939 German occupation of their country to fly for the RAF in the Battle of Britain have been hidden for more than 40 years.

Two of those pilots believed that they were pulled off a certain 'kill' to allow Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, to land in Scotland on his famous, but still unexplained, flight to Britain. The log books of Sgt. Vaclav 'Felix' Bauman and Spt Leopold 'Polda' Srom record a flight in the early evening of May 10, 1941, when they were scrambled in a pair of Hurricanes to attack a German plane over southern Scotland. As they closed on a Messerschmitt Bf110, Fighter Command inexplicably called them off.

Yet outside the pilots' log books, there exists no official record of their mission. Years later Bauman and Srom told Jiri Rajlich, a military archivist, how they were seconds away from killing Hess five years before his conviction as a war criminal at Nuremberg and 46 years before his lonely death as the last Allied prisoner in Berlin. Jiri Rajlich's book Fighter Pilot, published in Prague, tells how the pair were scrambled from 245 Squadron at Aldergrove, Northern Ireland, to intercept a German plane.

The Czech pilots said they were closing in on the Messerschmitt when they were unexpectedly ordered to break off their attack. Bauman recounted his reply: "This is perhaps not possible." The base radioed: "Felix, return, I repeat, Stop action and return. Confirm." Bauman answered: "He is just in shooting range..."

"Sorry Felix, old boy. It is not possible. You must return. Now." Bauman: "I don't bloody know. Then why did we chase him?" Felix Bauman's questionhas not yet been answered. His Squadron Leader J W C Simpson, DFC and bar, demanded an explanation from Fighter Command that would satisfy the two angry Czechs. When they touched down, Bauman remembered Sqd Ldr Simpson telling him: I rang Group and I requested an explanation of that... ehm, unusual procedure. I was told that during your pursuit you crossed the border of our sector. You were therefore recalled. Our neighbours should have taken over but when the German suddenly changed his altitude, they lost him."

According to Rajlich's book: "After dark, a liaison Avro Anson landed with several strange RAF officers on board. The sergeants were separately subjected to intensive interrogation. The officers asked for impossible details and urged both pilots to recall the German plane's markings and whether they saw both a pilot and a gunner."

Speculation raged for a couple of days until a copy of the Glasgow Daily Record landed in the 245 Squadron mess, carrying the headline "Rudolf Hess in Glasgow - official". Within a month Sqd Ldr Simpson had been replaced at 245 Squadron and the Aldergrove station records appear simultaneously to have been 'sanitised'.

Bauman was shot down over France in June 1942. His wounds were so serious that the Germans repatriated him him via Sweden in 1944. At the end of the war Srom and the wounded Bauman, disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. Bauman died in 1989 but left his log book with his daughter. RAF records do not record a scramble late on May 10 by Bauman and Srom and, according to 245's May 1941 summary of pilot hours, Srom did not fly that day.

A the Czechs had peeled away, two Spitfires from the 602 City of Glasgow Squadron were scrambled, but 602 have no record of their flight. In its official report to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the RAF claimed that only one Defiant, a slow night fighter, got near to the Bf110 before Hess's plane, logged as 'Raid 42', broke away for its final turn back into Scotland. Yet the RAF recorded the Defiant's flight as a 'routine patrol'.

The Bf110 crashed in a field near Paisley and Hess was interrogated and held in Britain until the Nuremburg war trials. The motive of the deputy Fuhrer's flight has never been explained.

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