Hess's Me 110

"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
...
In message , Keith Willshaw
writes

3. Germany was criss-crossed by Knickerbein beams which were used
for
navigation purposes.

Knickerbein used a souped-up Lorenz receiver. To criss-cross the
country
would confuse the normal use of the Lorenz blind-landing system. Is
this
likely?


It happened, Knickebein was indeed based on the Lorenz system and
was used for navigation

Yes, but for general navigation over Germany?

Yes

Do you have cite for this, please? Not in any of my references.

One example

from
A SHORT HISTORY OF "GEE" AIR NAVIGATION
Copyright :Henry R. Black, 2001

Quote
The Germans had devised before the war a beam system named Knickebein, and
later X-Gerät which were navigational and bombing aids in finding and
bombing targets. Once located, British scientists easily jammed them. The
Germans having this system, thought it unnecessary to train their bomber
crews in navigation.
/Quote



http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/28...ckebein/knicke
bein.html

Interesting.

He was hanging around over the North Sea 'at fifty to one hundred feet,
waiting for dusk' He hung around from 20:52 until 21:52 before he
started in over the coast. I wonder why he didn't time his departure
from Augsberg better.


Cite please, I have seen no evidence to substantiate his 'hanging around'
and give the vagaries of head winds etc over that distance he couldnt
have
been expected to do much better.

Map of his track in 'The Hitler/Hess Deception' by Martin Allen, p225.
I've also seen the same map somewhere else. IIRC taken from Hess's own
account somewhere.


This is a classic of the conspiracy theory genre, even the Guardian
reviewer wasnt impressed by the evidence IRC

He was an experienced pilot. Timings of raids, theirs and ours, were
done to better than 10 minutes frequently.


Their raids were launched from bases in Norway and Northern
France, as for ours time on target estimates heavily depended
on wind estimates at elevation and were frequently very wrong.

In some cases there were losses when aircraft ran out of fuel
due to unexpectedly strong headwinds.

Augsberg 17:45
Cologne 18:45

Augsburg to Cologne is approx 320 miles, I seriously
doubt he covered this in an hour, IRC he took off at
16:45 not 1745 which gfits nicely with a cruising speed of
around 160 mph


Off Texel 19:28 then turn 90 deg right.

OK he's running parallel to the Friesians

NE Groningen 19:58 then turn 90 deg left
190 miles off Berwick 20:52 then 90 deg left.
Then 100 miles back and forth until 21:52

OK so the claim is he's out of radar range 200 miles
out to sea

Crosses coast abt 20 miles south of Berwick at 22:12
Near Kilmarnock 22:50

He'd have had to fly the whole way at best economical speed to make
it at all and I really doubt he had the fuel to hang around for an hour
or that the RAF would have let him do so in peace.

He was doing about 360 mph according to timings made by ROC posts, but
they didn't see him, only hear him, so not very accurate.


He was however being tracked by radar and a Defiant night fighter
was being vectored on to his position when he bailed out.

Only CHL would see him at 100 - 200 ft. I don't know whether there was
one near there. And CHL had no height-finding facility IIRC. And inland
amidst the hills?


You cant have it both ways

either the Czechs tried to intercept him because he was
detected or he was undetected because he was at 50 ft
Thats the trouble with conspiracy theories, they tend to
contradict each other.

Which version are you proposing ?

The RAF version is that they detected him , sent to Spitfires
from Drem, the records of 602 squadron show that they did
attempt an intercept but couldnt find the aircraft. They then
vectored a Defiant nightfighter but He bailed out before
it could intercept him

Hess himself stated that having crossed the coast he descended
through cloud until he could see the a recognisable feature,
Holy Island and then flew SSW until reaching the line of the
Cheviot Hills which he then followed until losing sight of the
ground he got lost again and overshot his target circling over the
Clyde estuary before retracing his steps.

An experienced pilot he may have been but over Scotland he
was clearly navigating by following ground features and
equally clearly the RAF were aware of his presence.

Keith