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At dawn on the day of Saint Stephen, August 20, 1942, at 0507
hours, the wristwatch of a Hungarian air force officer stopped
somewhere in the vicinity of the reconnaissance airfield at
Ilovskoye, in the Ukraine. István (Stephen) Horthy, the Deputy
Regent of Hungary and Flight Lieutenant in the reserves, was
taking off for his 25th mission in his Héja (Hawk) aircraft,
with the designation V-421. The plane crashed, burned and
exploded, but the cause has yet to be determined. The hands
of the watch indicated the moment of the tragedy on this national
holiday.
Decades later, in 1978, the Hungarian-language serial Magyar
Szárnyak [Hungarian Wings], published in Canada, printed data
regarding the investigation. In 1989 a book by Lászlo Bujtás
was published in Budapest. Its title was "How it happened?
August 20, 1942, 5:07. Flight Lieutenant István Horthy and
his age in a dissenting light." We should also mention Tivadar
Ortutay's memoirs, entitled Két világháboru sodrában [In the
wake of two world wars] in which the author, István Horthy's
aide-de-camp on the Eastern Front, described the tragedy in
detail.
In 1992 the Budapest publishing house Auktor printed a book
entitled Horthy István repülö föhadnagy tragikus halála [The
Tragic death of Flight Lieutenant István Horthy]. And now,
in June 2000, the Universe Publishing House of New Jersey
published the English-language version, with an introduction
by Ilona Bowden, née Countess Edelsheim Gyulai, the widow
of István Horthy; she also assembled the contents of the book,
including eye-witness reports and notes in the custody of
the Museum of Military History in Budapest. The interesting
diary of György Farkas, István Horthy's butler, makes up the
bulk of the book; it enables us to follow the life of the
officer on the Russian Front, from day to day, sometimes from
hour to hour.
Immediately after the tragedy, in wartime Budapest, conflicting
rumors were heard about the causes of the Deputy Regent's
death. According to some, engine trouble was the cause of
the accident. According to others the young Horthy may have
been shot down. It was also rumored that he had been celebrating
his name-day on the eve, and that he started on his mission
under the influence. But most people were whispering their
suspicions that sabotage was involved.
Let us take a closer look at these theories.
The Italian-made Héja aircraft had a tendency to slide when
making a turn. Indeed, a few days earlier Horthy's craft was
involved in such a slide at an altitude of four thousand meters,
but he was able to right his plane. It is unlikely, therefore,
that he would not have been able to carry out the same maneuver
a few days later.
This is also the opinion of Countess Ilona. She mentions that
István was a passionate, outstanding flyer who taught her
how to pilot a plane; they had flown across Italy, North Africa,
Palestine and Bulgaria in their single-engine Arado plane.
Was he shot down? None of the witnesses saw any enemy aircraft
in the area; the motorcyclist observer stated that he had
been watching the skies through binoculars, but saw no other
plane and heard no shots.
Was István inebriated after celebrating his name-day? Let
us peruse the entry by György Farkas regarding the eve of
the tragic event:
"He [Horthy] went out to his plane in the afternoon, and after
some minor repairs found everything to be in order. He told
me, that we will be heading home at the beginning of September.
In the evening he asked for a bottle of brandy to take to
section leader Csutag, with whom he played cards. He returned
at 10 p.m., his bottle of brandy unopened. He told me to wake
him at 4:30, because he is going on his last mission. He instructed
the night watch to wake me at 4."
Farkas proceeds to describe what happened at dawn on August
20.
"I woke at 4, and awoke Istvan Horthy at 4:30. The motor vehicle
had arrived. The planes took off and circled above the airfield.
Istvan Horthy waved. The sun had arisen and I was sitting
under a pear-tree when corporal Fehér came running to tell
me: the plane had crashed and the Deputy Regent was killed.
Mounting a Horch jeep we drove across a field of sunflowers.
The plane had already been buried, to put out the flames.
Nobody was allowed near, for it could explode. I took pictures.
When we returned later I saw German and Hungarian brass all
around. I identified the deceased as István Horthy and I recognized
his belongings. They made a coffin from the door to the hospital
at Nikolayevka."
"One
of the planes veered right and hurled downward in an accelerating
spiral. I was shocked to realize that the heavy machine did
not redress after the third, fourth, fifth turn. It smashed
against the ground after the fifth turn and the flames shot
up several meters in the air, followed by billowing black
smoke. It all happened extremely rapidly. Six or eight seconds
at the most."
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"In my opinion it is important to record that before his fall
István Horthy fired his flare ... before the plane began to
fall. The question is, what was he trying to signal to us
and to the pilot of the second plane? What happened to the
plane in flight before the crash? Why did he fire his signal
rocket?"
The wreckage of the Héja was removed the next day, after the
chief mechanic and the maintenance personnel had been interrogated.
But two questions remained unanswered: what caused the tragedy
and why did the pilot fire the rocket, indicating that he
was in trouble?"
Before we examine the possibility of sabotage, let us take
a closer look at István Horthy. He was born in 1904 at Pola,
the naval base of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He lived
there and in Istanbul with his parents, attended primary school
in Vienna, later in Braunau, then the Naval academy at Fiume
and, for four years, the Ferenc Toldy high school in Buda.
He completed the József Nádor technical university in mechanical
engineering. He performed his military service as a volunteer
while still at the university. He learned to fly and worked
for a year at the Ford plant in Detroit. He was appointed
executive director of the Weiss Manfréd plant at Csepel, then
became the president of the Hungarian State Railways and CEO
of the Hungarian Iron and Machine Works (MAVAG). He married
Countess Ilona Edelsheim Gyulai in 1940. On February 19, 1942
the Parliament elected him Deputy Regent. In May of 1942 he
was assigned to the flight section of Szolnok and arrived
on the Eastern Front in July of that year.
As Deputy Regent he was not expected to serve at the Front,
but he did not wish to receive special treatment, he was a
comradely officer. His political ideal was the 19th century
conservative reformer Count István Széchenyi. His fellow-officers
knew about his anti-Nazi feelings.
So did the German Nazis. When Countess Ilona arrived on the
Eastern Front as a nurse with the Red Cross, they were invited
to stay at the villa of General Kitzinger, the German commander-in-chief
in the Ukraine. As she states in her introduction to the English
version, "during those days my husband told me everything
he wanted his father to know and, in addition, he told me
his secret plan. His experiences at the front had confirmed
his conviction that the Germans had lost the war; furthermore,
he was well aware that he could not change the country's predicament
either from the front or from back home. So he had decided
that, upon his return, he would find his way to England or
the United States and try to do something for his country
from there."
The walls of the villa had ears. This too is described by
Countess Ilona in the English version, the title of which
is "It must be told." Horthy's widow was later to marry Colonel
Guy Bowden of the British army. The book is dedicated to her
five grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
It was the Germans and the Arrow-Cross, the radical right-wing
party, who spread the rumor that Horthy was inebriated; his
butler and other witnesses deny this allegation. On the other
hand, the witnesses did note that German officers had been
busy alongside the Hungarian aircraft. Among the members of
the local investigation team the pilot Elek Baranyi and the
officer Gyula Szabo saw the plane fall and described how it
corkscrewed "as a result of some mechanical failure, which
must have manifested itself even earlier and which István
Horthy tried to signal with his flare."
They could not determine exactly what caused the mechanical
failure, but sabotage seems the most likely interpretation.
Dietrich von Jagow, the German ambassador in Budapest, wrote
to Hitler, on the basis of information he received from members
of the Arrow-Cross, that István Horthy was anti-German, that
he had British and American contacts, and that he had Jewish
friends. Hitler hated the entire Horthy family. We may recall
that the Regent's younger son, Miklós Horthy Jr., was one
of the leaders of the resistance movement in 1944; he was
shot and captured by the Gestapo on October 15, which was
why the Regent was compelled to deliver his speech over the
radio sooner than anticipated.
The English-language book, "The Tragic Death of Stephen Horthy"
comes in hardcover, 238 pages, with twenty pages of photographic
illustrations--mostly from the Museum of Military History.
It sells for $19, including postage. It can be ordered from
the Universe Publishing House whose director, the President
of the Historical Society, is György Re'dey. The same publishing
house issued the memoirs of Colonel of the General Staff Ferenc
Koszorus and of Major General and Prime-Minister Géza Lakatos.
F.J., New York
Please
click here to order this book
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