Dear Richard Thank you for this. I thought that the story would have been dealt with somewhere! It always seemed highly unlikely.
Now you mention it, I recollect Mr Padfield from Titanic circles. Always difficult when people have a contrarian reputation, isn't it? You have to read everything they say in that light. Robert On 27 Sep 2013, at 03:54, "Editor, Finest Hour" <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert, > This shaggy dog story has come up before. See “Hess Flight Authorized?” in > “Datelines,” Finest Hour 152, page 9, or the online synopsis: > > http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/in-the-media/churchill-in-the-news/1182-did-hitler-give-the-ok-for-hess-mission-to-england > > One point we didn't make in the above article is that on the same date Hess > flew to England, Hitler bombed the House of Commons to smithereens: an odd > gesture for someone hoping for a peace treaty. > > Titanic junkies like me know Peter Padfield as the author of a convincing > book, The Titanic and the Californian, exonerating Captain Stanley Lord of > the Leyland liner Californian, who supposedly remained immobile within visual > range of the sinking Titanic. Padfield used a battery of naval technology and > measurements to prove that the Californian was nowhere near that close. It > was the leading text of the “Lordites,” who claimed that Captain Lord had > been wrongly accused, notably by Walter Lord (no relation), author of the > bestseller, A Night to Remember. > > So Mr Padfield is an accomplished contrarian….but he will have to go some to > explain Hess’s own claim (to be looking for anti-Churchill elements in > Britain); and first-person testimony from those around Hitler (Albrecht > Speer, notably) who observed his furious reactions when he heard of Hess's > flight. > > Which is not to say Hitler might not have been happy to do a deal leaving him > a free hand in the east—but surely he was smart enough to realize he’d never > get that from Churchill, who he certainly knew was firmly in power by May > 1941. > > The following sidebar is running in our next issue, FH 160, in an article > about Herbert Hoover’s critique of Churchill (Hoover saw the Soviet Union as > the greater danger and abhorred an alliance with them by both Britain and the > USA): > > “NOT MUCH IN THAT”: CHURCHILL’S ANSWER > > In the autumn of 1955, I dined alone with him for seventeen evenings. Those > evenings alone > with an octogenarian were utterly fascinating. All sorts of curious pieces of > information came > out....On 1940 I played the Devil’s Advocate. Leaving aside the appalling > issue of the > extermination camps, which was then not evident, would it have been better if > we had joined > the New Order, as a substantial part of France was then inclined to do? Would > the monstrous > tyranny of Stalinism have been brought to an end, for Hitler most certainly > would have > attacked Russia and, unharrassed in the West, almost certainly would have > won? Would the > equally monstrous tyranny of the Nazi regime have been mitigated or > abbreviated by the > influence of Britain, whom Hitler had always respected? Would we have kept > our Empire and > our financial strength? WSC’s reply was brief: > > “You’re only saying that to be provocative. You know very well we couldn’t > have made peace on > the heels of a terrible defeat. The country wouldn’t have stood for it. And > what makes you think > that we could have trusted Hitler’s word—particularly as he could have had > Russian resources > behind him? At best we would have been a German client state, and there’s not > much in that.” > —Anthony Montague Browne, Finest Hour 50 (1985, 12); Long Sunset (London: > Cassell, 1995, 200). > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "ChurchillChat" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
