I vaguely remember hearing about the suicide of Rudolf Hess when I was in high school and being amazed that such a high ranking Nazi had been in prison rather than hanged. This book is full of names, dates and historical background about what was going on with all sides before Hess's flight. I'm a WWII history buff, so I found it to be informative, interesting and a well-paced read. It certainly raised many questions. Did Hess really fly with Hitler's foreknowledge? Was it all a trap set by MI6? Were the Germans running their own ruse when they put out that Hess was mentally disturbed or was he? Why are so many documents missing or still classified 73 years later? ( )

This is an Early Review book. Thank you.

I knew the bare bones account of the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland on May 10, 1941. After reading Padfield's book I feel as thought I have been exposed to every known fact, every possible speculation, every rumor, and every flight of fancy about that fateful journey. I don't feel any nearer to a personal conclusion about what occurred, despite reading the book. I do, however, feel as though I have received a glimpse of the tangle of events which led up to the flight.

How to tell the players? Padfield helpfully includes a 21 page cast of characters. This is necessary because there comes a point in the book, actually Chapter Seven:Clandestine Approaches, where there are so many men passing so many secret messages about a possible peace settlement between Germany and England that I became completely lost and realized I had no idea what I was reading. There were the genuine pacifists who thought any war was immoral: the anti-Churchill party who may or may not have offered a settlement when Churchill was ousted; the anti-Hitler party who offered a settlement when Hitler was deposed; the anti-Soviets who saw the USSR as a greater threat than the Nazis; the high-ups in society who believed....You get the idea. And did Hess fly on his own or did Hitler know? Depends on what source you believe. Was Hess' flight a result of an elaborate con by MI6 with Churchill's knowledge or not? Was there a peace proposal document that ended up scattered around a Scottish field? Did Hess reveal plans for the 'final solution"? Was Hitler really offering to leave occupied Western Europe to concentrate on an invasion of Russia if Britain would maintain a benign neutrality? Lots of questions but no concrete answers, only educated speculation.

The problem, Padfield admits, is that too many documents are still classified. Too many documents have disappeared. Too many lists (flight patterns, Hess' inventory of possessions, duty rosters) have become "detached" from reports. Too many eye-witness reports were rewritten for "clarification." Was this done to protect people in high places or carelessness of the part of records keepers.

And Padfield questions secondary evidence. The Duke of Kent, rather than the Duke of Hamilton, is placed a a particularly spot because the eyewitness remembers that the "Duke" in question had gold braid on his hat which the Duke of Hamilton was not entitled to wear, but the royal Duke was. People got important dates wrong because they were remembering back 30 years.

Then there is Hess himself. Was he nuts or or feigning madness for his own reasons? Was he sane or insane when he made his fight. Had he become disenchanted with Hitler? Was he really an Idealist?

The books presents more questions than answers and gives, for me at least, too many facts and speculations. Hopefully, Padfield will have the opportunity to write a revised edition if the papers he needs to conclude his case are ever released. ( )

The flight of Rudolf Hess in 1941 to Scotland is an event that anyone who reads about World War II is aware of but that is about it. The history books then goes on to cover Operation Barbarossa and the remainder of the war without further mention of Hess until the Nuremberg War Crime Trials at the end of the war. This is quite a gap in life of a very close associate of Hitler and the number three person in the Reich government. Why did he make his flight to Scotland and why are so many documents still being kept secret that would clear up some of the confusion around Rudolf Hess?

Peter Padfield tries to shed some light on the questions surrounding this surprising flight by Hess into the heart of the enemy. Was he mentally disturbed as the Germans wanted people to believe? Had he become upset by what was going on in Germany and its conquered areas that he wanted out? Was he sent by the highest levels of the German government to get Great Britain to sign and peace treaty and to exit the war before the attack on the Soviet Union or the entry of the United States into the war? Or was Hess duped by the British Secret Service (MI6) into believing that he could bring the end to a war between his country and Great Britain? Padfield looks at all of these questions using old documents and reminisces of the events by people who were involved in the various places that Hess was held. By studying the personalities of the ones involved or even on the periphery of the events, from members of the royal family, government officials, officers, and junior officers, we are given a picture of the time and the possible answers to why this occurred.

From reading this I gained a better understanding of Hess and his motives or possible motives. There is no definitive answer yet because so many of the documents are still unclassified, but this book gives the reader and better understanding of the inner workings of the government in Great Britain and why the secrecy around the Hess flight was so important to them. The final answer lies in a combination of answers to the questions posed above.

An excellent read and one that will make you think about all that you know about World War II. It should be on every World War II shelf. ( )

NIGHT FLIGHT TO DUNGAVEL: Rudolph Hess, Winston Churchill, and the Real Turning Point of WWII: I am a pretty appreciative reader so I was happy to review this book by ForeEdge publishers. The work that goes into producing any book is intense and I’m almost always more than amazed by most authors' accomplishments. This book promised much, a true turning point of WWII, but actually delivers far less. Padfield gives readers a well-researched book. It is more than an analysis of a historical episode, it is also a conspiracy theory, as well as an endorsement of British intelligence work. Padfield argues that Hess made his trip to Scotland after being duped by intelligence services to make a heavy handed plea for “peace” which meant a nonaggression pact to attack the Soviets while leaving most of Europe to English royal imperialists. Padfield hints that Hess mentioned German intentions to exterminate Jews and that therefore Churchill and Roosevelt bear some degree of responsibly for not acting sooner to liberate the concentration camps. Padfield’s work gives the impression that British intelligence was adept when, outside of Bletchley Park, they were not. Padfield mentions the Cambridge Four but this does not force any qualification to his argument. Overall, everyone comes off very badly, least of all Hess. Night Flight To Dungavel does not show Padfield at height of his powers, being disorganized in plan, overly numerous characters and much speculation given undue weight. ForeEdge did a beautiful job producing this book's construction. Padfield made a good decision to go with them. Index, Photos, Bibliography, Glossary.

Confused and confusing - even misleading. Torturous and tortured by the author's apparent need to display everything he knows about everybody even remotely (or sometimes not even) connected to Hess. Every other chapter ends with the words ..."as will become clear". Alas, for this reader at least, it never did.

The book needed editors to match the authors obviously deep research. The promise of the title is not fulfilled - on desperate effort to the conclusion of this turgid read, we still have no clear idea of the motives of Hess, Hitler's deputy, and one is left wondering which of the hundreds of 'turns" that Padfield details is supposed to be the "real turning point" promised.

The central story is, or could have been,fascinating of course - one wishes the author had stuck to it.