2041: Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess flew from Germany to Scotland on May 10, 1941, claiming that he wanted to discuss peace terms with Britain and that their common enemy was the Soviet Union. Hess was imprisoned and interrogated. After the war, he was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to life at Spandau Prison. A British intelligence file said to contain an interrogation transcript and Hess’ correspondence with King George VI is scheduled to be unsealed 100 years after his arrest. Historians say the papers might show whether British intelligence tricked Hess into undertaking his fateful mission.
2045: In May 1945, the British Royal Air Force (RAF) attacked two German ships in the Baltic Sea carrying 7,000 survivors of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Only 350 survived. RAF intelligence had mistakenly believed the vessels held Nazi officials escaping to Norway or Sweden. Because the RAF ordered the records to remain classified for 100 years, scholars have been unable to offer a complete account of one of the worst “friendly-fire” incidents in history.
2045: During World War II, the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) lent Britain highly skilled radar technicians—“the Secret 5,000”—who flew on patrols over the Atlantic Ocean to detect German submarines and aircraft. The RCAF deemed its work so classified it sealed all pertinent records about the operation for a century. Even today, the Secret 5,000 are not mentioned in official RCAF histories.
“...remain classified for 100 years...”
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We still don’t have the (altered/sanitized) JFK records, which were due to be released a few years ago.
Hmm. I was going to mention the German raid on Coventry as an example of the British sacrificing a civilian target to keep an important military secret. But Wikipedia claims that such an accusation has been refuted.
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” —Winston Churchill