The Death of Prince George, Duke of Kent, 1942

The Death of Prince George, Duke of Kent, 1942
Author: M S Morgan
Publisher: Air World
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2024-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1036107213

To the fifteen passengers and crew onboard the lumbering Short Sunderland flying boat, everything appeared normal and routine as it lifted off from the seaplane base at RAF Invergordon on Sunday, 25 August 1942. Its destination was Iceland, where one of the passengers, Air Commodore HRH Prince George, The Duke of Kent, supported by his entourage, was to undertake an inspection of various RAF bases in Iceland in his role as a senior RAF Welfare Officer. It was about thirty minutes later that disaster struck. At 13.42 hours, the Sunderland ploughed into a hillside on the remote headland known as Eagle's Rock, near Dunbeath in Caithness. Apart from the rear gunner, everyone on board, including Prince George, was instantly killed. There was a Court of Inquiry, which opened on 28 August and completed on 1 September. This resulted in a disagreement between two senior officers in relation to its conclusion. The funeral of the Duke surprisingly, took place on the 29th during the Court of Inquiry. There was also a rapid and thorough wreckage clearance of the scene by 16 September and the apparent disjointed recording of the various men’s deaths with the registrar. Pilot error was the official cause for the crash, allegedly ‘signed off’ by the Chief Inspector of Accidents, but hard evidence has been difficult to find since 1942. In fact, the Court of Inquiry report could not be sourced in the UK and had to be obtained from the Australian archives. Witness statements and any possible technical assessments have also disappeared and are not even contained in the Australian file. So where are they, and why have the documents for the second worst fatal air crash up to that period of time gone missing? In addition, where is the Duke of Kent’s diary and personal papers for this period? Where any plans drawn of the site and the position of the casualties? Where post mortems carried out and by whom? Over the years a variety of researchers, historians and authors have sought to identify whether the cause of the crash was pilot error or something else. Others have sought to explain it with a number of possible conspiracy theories including murder, a Nazi plot, a plot linked to Rudolf Hess and a peace initiative. The author, a former police senior investigating officer who was a member of the first Murder Review in London in the late 1990s, has sought to gather all the available evidence from a wide variety of resources. He looks at the history of the main characters and any possible reasons or motives they may have been targeted or involved in a plot. He seeks to find further evidence, even allowing after more than 80 years for hearsay evidence in his review. He also examines the investigation and what it perhaps should have done in 1942. While other books, newspapers and magazine articles have sought to establish the cause and or a conspiracy behind the fatal crash, this author covers all bases and asks what evidence is missing and why?

Fighting the People's War

Fighting the People's War
Author: Jonathan Fennell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 967
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1107030951

Jonathan Fennell captures for the first time the true wartime experience of the ordinary soldiers from across the empire who made up the British and Commonwealth armies. He analyses why the great battles were won and lost and how the men that fought went on to change the world.

A Prince and a Spy

A Prince and a Spy
Author: Rory Clements
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1643137948

A Cambridge spy must unravel a dangerous mystery that goes all the way to the heart of the Third Reich—and the British Monarchy—in this vivid new spy thriller from a London Times bestselling author. Two old friends meeting in a remote castle in Sweden. They are cousins. One is Prince George, brother of the king of England, and the other Prince Philipp von Hesse, a close friend of Adolf Hitler and a committed Nazi. Days later Prince George is killed in a plane crash and the country weeps, but not everyone believes that it was an accident. When FDR, who happens to be a good friend of the prince, hears the tragic news, he wants to find out exactly what happened. The American OSS doesn’t believe the story that MI5 are pedalling. The situation is delicate. Professor Tom Wilde, Cambridge don, is called in to uncover the truth—but what he discovers is far more than he bargained for.

Dearest Mama

Dearest Mama
Author: Victoria (Queen of Great Britain)
Publisher: Holt McDougal
Total Pages: 426
Release: 1969
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The Sky Above Us (Sunrise at Normandy Book #2)

The Sky Above Us (Sunrise at Normandy Book #2)
Author: Sarah Sundin
Publisher: Revell
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1493416588

Numbed by grief and harboring shameful secrets, Lt. Adler Paxton ships to England with the US 357th Fighter Group in 1943. Determined to become an ace pilot, Adler battles the German Luftwaffe in treacherous dogfights in the skies over France as the Allies struggle for control of the air before the D-day invasion. Violet Lindstrom wanted to be a missionary, but for now she serves in the American Red Cross, where she arranges entertainment for the men of the 357th in the Aeroclub on base and sets up programs for local children. Drawn to the mysterious Adler, she enlists his help with her work and urges him to reconnect with his family after a long estrangement. Despite himself, Adler finds his defenses crumbling when it comes to Violet. But D-day draws near. And secrets can't stay buried forever. Bestselling author Sarah Sundin returns readers to the shores of Normandy, this time in the air, as the second Paxton brother prepares to face the past--and the most fearsome battle of his life.

Royal Children

Royal Children
Author: Ingrid Seward
Publisher:
Total Pages: 318
Release: 1994
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780312105334

The book offers insight into the childhoods of members of the British royal family, from Queen Elizabeth to her grandchildren.

Double Standards

Double Standards
Author: Lynn Picknett
Publisher: Little Brown Uk
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780751532203

For sixty years there has been an unprecedented cover-up by both the British Establishment and successive generations of historians about the flight of Hitler's Deputy Rudolf Hess to Scotland in May 1941. Long dismissed as the misguided attempt of a madman to make contact with a non-existent British peace party DOUBLE STANDARDS explosively reveals that Hess's peace mission was one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century - and that the Establishment had very good reasons for covering up the truth: the Establishment WAS the peace party that Hess had come to meet. Even more shockingly, the book reveals that members of the Royal Family itself - whose involvement in the Hess affair has been conveniently airbrushed out of history - were at the heart of this group. Based on entirely new material from eyewitnesses, hitherto inaccessible archives and intelligence sources, DOUBLE STANDARDS reveals that Hess's peace mission was of supreme importance. It raises some of the most intriguing questions about the history of the twentieth century. DOUBLE STANDARDS' mission is to answer them.

Princes at War

Princes at War
Author: Deborah Cadbury
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2015-04-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1408845091

In 1936, the monarchy faced the greatest threats to its survival in the modern era – the crisis of abdication and the menace of Nazism. The fate of the country rested in the hands of George V's sorely unequipped sons: Edward VIII abandoned his throne to marry divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson; Prince Henry preferred the sporting life of a country squire; the glamorous and hedonistic Prince George, Duke of Kent, was considered a wild card; and stammering George VI felt himself woefully unprepared for the demanding role of King. As Hitler's Third Reich tore up the boundaries of Europe and Britain braced itself for war, the new king struggled to manage internal divisions within the royal family. Drawing on many new sources including from the Royal Archives, Princes at War goes behind the palace doors to tell the thrilling drama of Britain at war.