Rudolph Hess
Created | Updated Jul 11, 2006
This story was submitted to the h2g2 website by Keith Gallop of Age Concern Shropshire Telford & Wrekin on behalf of Ian Bailey and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
I joined the Scots Guards in 1940 and, in 1941 early, I was commissioned into the Highland Light Infantry, the city of Glasgow regiment (I was born there). I went to the depot at Maryhill waiting to be assigned to a battalion. On the 12th May - note the date - I was the Orderly Officer for the day and by midnight I had performed my duties and went to bed. A couple of hours later the Duty Officer came to my room and said, "a German prisoner has been brought into the barracks - get.up." -So I got dressed and went into the parade ground. The moon was shining and there were three men, the middle one with his arms around the necks of the two outsiders. I have insight, one of our soldiers left and this man put his arm around my neck - little did I realise whose arm it was - and so we hirpled along to the little regimental hospital where we roused the doctor because the German had hurt his foot when he was parachuting. We proceeded to take his boot off and I remember he made Germanic noises which we thought a Brit wouldn't have made under such circumstances. I was wondering what they were going to do with him because it was quite cold and I hadn't got my greatcoat on. I hoped they would shove him off somewhere else, but then they said, pointing at me, "you will look after him in a room upstairs." So they laid on a Corporal, probably from the Guard, and we took this chap upstairs and watched him get undressed and I noted the beautiful longjohns that he had on because we didn't know who he was: he had the rank of Hauptmann. So he got into bed and I posted the Corporal in the passage outside with his rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition. I had been given a revolver and sat down in the armchair beside his bed. But he didn't go to sleep; he had his hands behind his head and he was gazing into the distance so much so that I felt quite sorry for him.
At half past five he got out of bed and started doing knees full bend exercises groaning the while. So I went out into the corridor and said to the Corporal, "you'd better get the doctor again." He was very cross at having been got out of bed twice in the night for a German and he sent one of his minions with a Mickey Finn that .kept the prisoner quiet for the rest of the night. At half past eight some breakfast was brought up for him and, shortly after, the next day's Orderly Officer relieved me, so I went to bed, got up later in the afternoon and spent the afternoon with some relatives of mine who lived in Queen's Park. I remember telling them that I had spent the night with this German and thought nothing more of it. That was Sunday.
On Monday evening in the Mess that night the buzz went round that that German who was brought in on the 12th was no ordinary German and then on the Tuesday morning banner headlines in all the newspapers announced that Hess had landed in Scotland. Shortly afterwards he was taken to a hospital in the north of Glasgow and it was there that he told the authorities who he really was. A Foreign Office man came up from London who knew Hess and confirmed that it was indeed Hess. I remember at the time that the Government made a point of not issuing a statement about him because the Germans were expecting that anything we said they could contradict and we kept very cleverly quiet. He spent the rest of the War in the "cooler" in South Wales and then went to the continent for the Nuremberg trials.
On the morning of 12th May 1981, forty years later, I woke up and switched the radio on. They announced that a Mr MacRobert was going to give a talk and he proceeded to say, "do you realise that it is just forty years ago today since Hess landed in Glasgow? ..." (so I woke up) " ... and he was taken to Maryhill barracks... " (I got more excited) " ... where he was guarded by - Corporal Willy Ross!!" And I thought "Well, there was a Corporal but he was under my charge and he was in the corridor. If anything had gone wrong Second Lieutenant lan Bailey would have got into trouble." So I went into School and said, "Where is Radio Highland?" and was told Inverness. So I wrote a letter to MacRobert and said I had listened to his talk, but as a matter of interest Hess was guarded by Second Lieutenant lan Bailey. Corporal Willy Ross was in the corridor outside and he wouldn't have been in trouble if anything untoward had happened - just to put the record straight. I got a nice letter back from MacRobert in which he said that he had always been interested in the Hess affair and he then went on to say that he had met Ross after the war in peacetime. And where had he met him but in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh where the Scottish affairs are discussed? Corporal Willy Ross by this time was the Secretary of State for Scotland in Wilson's government and also in Callaghan's government and by all accounts he had done a jolly good job so that when he retired he was given a Peerage and became Lord Ross of Marnock!
The next bit of this story: I have a book at home in which there is a list of famous Scottish soldiers, one of whom is Lord Ross of Mamock. Why? Because he guarded Hess!
But the story doesn't end there because when Hess died in the early 1990s I happened to come into School where I was told that the Evening News wanted to have a word with me because they must have heard that I had something to do with Hess. I got on the 'phone to them and they asked if they could come and take a photograph of me. So I agreed and a few days later there was a little article about the Hess affair with the picture of me on one side and Hess on the other - you could hardly tell one from the other! And the caption read, "Mr lan Bailey, aged 70 odd" and gave my address. A few days later I was burgled!
And that, I hope, is the end of the story.
16th March 2006
I joined the Scots Guards in 1940 and, in 1941 early, I was commissioned into the Highland Light Infantry, the city of Glasgow regiment (I was born there). I went to the depot at Maryhill waiting to be assigned to a battalion. On the 12th May - note the date - I was the Orderly Officer for the day and by midnight I had performed my duties and went to bed. A couple of hours later the Duty Officer came to my room and said, "a German prisoner has been brought into the barracks - get.up." -So I got dressed and went into the parade ground. The moon was shining and there were three men, the middle one with his arms around the necks of the two outsiders. I have insight, one of our soldiers left and this man put his arm around my neck - little did I realise whose arm it was - and so we hirpled along to the little regimental hospital where we roused the doctor because the German had hurt his foot when he was parachuting. We proceeded to take his boot off and I remember he made Germanic noises which we thought a Brit wouldn't have made under such circumstances. I was wondering what they were going to do with him because it was quite cold and I hadn't got my greatcoat on. I hoped they would shove him off somewhere else, but then they said, pointing at me, "you will look after him in a room upstairs." So they laid on a Corporal, probably from the Guard, and we took this chap upstairs and watched him get undressed and I noted the beautiful longjohns that he had on because we didn't know who he was: he had the rank of Hauptmann. So he got into bed and I posted the Corporal in the passage outside with his rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition. I had been given a revolver and sat down in the armchair beside his bed. But he didn't go to sleep; he had his hands behind his head and he was gazing into the distance so much so that I felt quite sorry for him.
At half past five he got out of bed and started doing knees full bend exercises groaning the while. So I went out into the corridor and said to the Corporal, "you'd better get the doctor again." He was very cross at having been got out of bed twice in the night for a German and he sent one of his minions with a Mickey Finn that .kept the prisoner quiet for the rest of the night. At half past eight some breakfast was brought up for him and, shortly after, the next day's Orderly Officer relieved me, so I went to bed, got up later in the afternoon and spent the afternoon with some relatives of mine who lived in Queen's Park. I remember telling them that I had spent the night with this German and thought nothing more of it. That was Sunday.
On Monday evening in the Mess that night the buzz went round that that German who was brought in on the 12th was no ordinary German and then on the Tuesday morning banner headlines in all the newspapers announced that Hess had landed in Scotland. Shortly afterwards he was taken to a hospital in the north of Glasgow and it was there that he told the authorities who he really was. A Foreign Office man came up from London who knew Hess and confirmed that it was indeed Hess. I remember at the time that the Government made a point of not issuing a statement about him because the Germans were expecting that anything we said they could contradict and we kept very cleverly quiet. He spent the rest of the War in the "cooler" in South Wales and then went to the continent for the Nuremberg trials.
On the morning of 12th May 1981, forty years later, I woke up and switched the radio on. They announced that a Mr MacRobert was going to give a talk and he proceeded to say, "do you realise that it is just forty years ago today since Hess landed in Glasgow? ..." (so I woke up) " ... and he was taken to Maryhill barracks... " (I got more excited) " ... where he was guarded by - Corporal Willy Ross!!" And I thought "Well, there was a Corporal but he was under my charge and he was in the corridor. If anything had gone wrong Second Lieutenant lan Bailey would have got into trouble." So I went into School and said, "Where is Radio Highland?" and was told Inverness. So I wrote a letter to MacRobert and said I had listened to his talk, but as a matter of interest Hess was guarded by Second Lieutenant lan Bailey. Corporal Willy Ross was in the corridor outside and he wouldn't have been in trouble if anything untoward had happened - just to put the record straight. I got a nice letter back from MacRobert in which he said that he had always been interested in the Hess affair and he then went on to say that he had met Ross after the war in peacetime. And where had he met him but in Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh where the Scottish affairs are discussed? Corporal Willy Ross by this time was the Secretary of State for Scotland in Wilson's government and also in Callaghan's government and by all accounts he had done a jolly good job so that when he retired he was given a Peerage and became Lord Ross of Marnock!
The next bit of this story: I have a book at home in which there is a list of famous Scottish soldiers, one of whom is Lord Ross of Mamock. Why? Because he guarded Hess!
But the story doesn't end there because when Hess died in the early 1990s I happened to come into School where I was told that the Evening News wanted to have a word with me because they must have heard that I had something to do with Hess. I got on the 'phone to them and they asked if they could come and take a photograph of me. So I agreed and a few days later there was a little article about the Hess affair with the picture of me on one side and Hess on the other - you could hardly tell one from the other! And the caption read, "Mr lan Bailey, aged 70 odd" and gave my address. A few days later I was burgled!
And that, I hope, is the end of the story.
16th March 2006
