The Dads Army Prisoner

The Dad's Army Prisoner

Daily Mail, Wednesday 27 January 1999

At least they didn't panic. But when the Home Guard took Rudolf Hess into custody, there was more than an element of Dad's Army-style farce. Hitler's deputy made a dramatic 800-mile flight out of Germany in 1941, paracbuting from his Messerschmitt to fields outside Glasgow. Delivered into the hands of the local Home Guard, the most important prisoner of the war was held captive in a nearby Girl Guide hut. Later he was moved to battal-headquarters - a Boy Scout hall - and 'interrogated' for more than two hours by a Pole who happened to speak German. Up to 20 troops surrounded the 47-year-old Nazi and casually inspected him and his belongings. But they had no idea he was Deputy Fuhrer of the Third Reich - even though several remarked that he `looked a bit like Hess'.

The captive flier was eventually taken to hospital, but doctors there realised he was no ordinary prisoner two days later - when soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets started swarming all over the building. Hess flew to Britain on May 10, 1941, allegedly wanting to broker a deal to end the war - allowing Britain to emerge defeated but `with dignity'. A report by Inspector Thomas Hyslop, of Giffnock Constabulary details how the drama started at 11.l5pm with a phone call reporting a German plane crashing at Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. By the time Hyslop had arrived, a special constable and a Home Guard captain were already at the scene - along with 200 or so other onlookers. 'Sentries appeared to have been fixed but I could not find anyone actually in charge.' The mystery prisoner was moved to 3 Battalion Home Guard HQ -Giffnock Scout hut - where a lieutenant colonel appears to have taken over the role of Captain Mainwaring.

The police report continues: `I saw that Lt Col Hardie had taken charge of the various productions which were found on the pilot's person, and which Included, as far as I could see, a number of bottles, a syringe, a large map, and part of a map showing the coast of Scotland to Ayr.' By now, Hess was being questioned by Roman Battaglia, a Gerrnan-speaking clerk from the Polish consulate in Glasgow. This later prompted a furious memo from a high-ranking M15 official.

He wrote: `How on earth he got to know of Hess's arrival, and, furthermore, went out and interrogated him for over two hours, I simply cannot conceive.' The MI5 officer ordered Glasgow police to make `very discreet inquiries about how such a man had come to blunder on to the scene. At any rate, there has been a good old mess-up regarding this business'.

Battaglia reveals that 15 to 20 Home Guard men stood watching as the prisoner told them he had come with a message for the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had met before the war: `Several people remarked on his resemblance to Hess'. At the hospital where Hess was treated for minor injuries, a doctor found him `surprisingly ordinary'. In1945, Hess was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to life. He died in Berlin's Spandau jail in 1987. Yesterday the last surviving member of the party who picked Hess up, 92-year-old Gordon Stewart from Gargunnock, near Stirling, said: `You could say it was like Dad's Army because it was quite farcical.

'He gave his name as Alfred Hess and said he had flown without permission from Munich. But a guard who had served in the Kaiser's war said he reminded him of Rudolph Hess, and an old Picture Post with a photograph of the Nazi leaders confirmed his suspicions.'

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