238 • HESS, RUDOLF
HESS, RUDOLF.Rudolf Hess was Hitler’s deputy Fu ̈hrer when he
flew to Scotland in May 1941, apparently in an attempt to broker
peace between Germany and Britain for which Hitler accused him of
treason. Instead Hess was imprisoned, first in the Tower of London
and then at Mytchett Place, Aldershot, where he was interrogated by
Secret Intelligence ServiceofficersFrank Foleyand Thomas Ken-
drick. Hess was sentenced at Nuremberg to life imprisonment for war
crimes and spent the remainder of his life at Spandau Prison in Ber-
lin, in solitary confinement, until his suicide in August 1987.
HILL, GEORGE.One of the more curious appointments of World
War II was the decision in 1942 to send George A. Hill, a legendary
anti-Bolshevik, to Moscow to liaise with the Soviet intelligence au-
thorities. Known to his friends as Peter, Hill was sent on behalf of
Special Operations Executive(SOE), but long before he arrived in
Russia, he was well known to theNKVD. Indeed, following the pub-
lication of his two volumes of memoirs,Go Spy the Land, Being the
Adventures of I. K. 8 of the British Secret Servicein 1932 and
Dreaded Hourfour years later, there could be no mistaking the man
who won the DSO for rescuing the Romanian crown jewels from Bu-
charest only hours before the Red Army began its occupation.
Born in Estonia to a timber merchant who constantly traveled the
Near East, Hill was educated by French and German governesses,
could speak half a dozen languages and was a natural recruit for in-
telligence duties when he reached the Western Front at Ypres in April
1915 with a battalion of Canadian infantry attached to the Manches-
ter regiment. Initially an interpreter, Hill was soon undertaking dan-
gerous missions into no-man’s-land, where he was badly wounded.
A transfer to the War Office followed, and this in turn led to an as-
signment in Greece, where he learned to fly and, based in Salonika,
took his plane behind enemy lines to land and drop off Allied agents.
In 1916 Hill traveled to Egypt for a new assignment and en route
metCompton Mackenziewho, he recalled, ‘‘was running a brilliant
secret intelligence department against the Germans.’’
In July 1917, when Hill was back in England on leave, he was or-
dered to Russia to join the Royal Flying Corps mission at Petrograd,
but by the time he arrived, the Revolution had taken place and the
intrepid airman found himself caught up in the strife. His main ad-