By Brad Dison
On June 1, 1943, in the midst of World War II, Leslie, a film producer, along with his business manager Alfred Chenhalls, boarded a civilian British Overseas Airlines Douglas DC-3 airplane for a flight from Lisbon, Portugal to Bristol, England. Leslie had been lecturing in Spain and Portugal on how films were made and promoting an upcoming film. Leslie was favored by the British government for his anti-Nazi propaganda and films which supported the war effort.
Leslie was not supposed to be on flight 777. It was sold out. On the day before the flight, two passengers, Derek Partridge, a young son of a British diplomat, and his nanny Dora Rove were “bumped” to make room for Leslie and Alfred, whose priority status allowed them to take precedence over other passengers. He was returning to England to complete work on “The Lamp Still Burns”, a film he was producing.
In the previous year and a half, the same plane had been operating on scheduled flights from Lisbon to Whitchurch on a route that did not pass over what was considered a war zone. However, in November 1942, and again in April 1943, the plane had been attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters, but each time the pilots were able to escape by using evasive maneuvers.
At 7:35 on the morning of June 1, 1943, flight 777 took off from Lisbon with 17 passengers and 4 crew onboard. For two hours, the flight was uneventful. Unbeknownst to the flight crew, a swarm of eight Luftwaffe Ju 88 airplanes had taken off from Bordeaux. Their mission was to find and escort two U-boats to an undisclosed location. At about 10:50 a.m., as the German pilots were searching for the U-boats, they spotted a grey silhouette of a plane in the sky. Although they could make out no markings, they knew it was an enemy plane. They were unaware of any scheduled civilian flights in the area.
At 10:54 a.m., the pilot radioed their coordinates and said that they were being followed and fired upon. The pilot radioed: “I am being followed by strange aircraft. Putting on best speed… we are being attacked. Cannon shells and tracers are going through the fuselage. Wave-hopping and doing my best.” The Germans continued firing on the plane. The left engine and wing caught fire. First Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze, who led the squadron of eight German planes, called off the attack when he realized it was a civilian aircraft, but the damage was done. The plane was severely damaged and on fire. Three people jumped from the burning plane, but their parachutes were on fire and failed to open. The plane crashed, floated briefly, then sank. The German pilots photographed the wreckage of the plane floating in the Bay of Biscay. There were no survivors.
On the following morning, newspapers printed the following message: “The British Overseas Airways Corporation regrets to announce that a civil aircraft on passage between Lisbon and the United Kingdom is overdue and must be presumed lost. The last message received from the aircraft stated that it was being attacked by an enemy aircraft. The aircraft carried 13 passengers and a crew of four. Next of kin have been informed.”
When the plane failed to reach its destination, a British Short Sunderland flying boat flew to the coordinates provided by the pilot. As the flying boat reached the coordinates, a squadron of eight Luftwaffe Ju 88s, maybe the same Ju 88s, attacked. A furious battle ensued in which the flying boat shot down three of the German planes. Three more planes were listed as “possibles,” meaning they were damaged and probably crashed. But the flying boat had sustained a lot of damage itself. The flying boat crash landed on Praa Sands beach on the southwestern tip of England.
After the war, First Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze said his pilots were angry that Luftwaffe leaders failed to warn them about the scheduled flight. The difference, according to Herbert Hintze, is that they would have escorted the captured plane to Bordeaux, where the Luftwaffe was based.
Following World War II, many people theorized that the crash of the plane carrying Leslie was no accident. The most popular theory is that the plane was shot down because the Germans mistakenly believed Winston Churchill was on the flight. In this theory, German spies mistakenly identified Leslie’s business manager Alfred Chenhall as Winston Churchill. Leslie, according to this theory, was mistakenly identified as Detective Inspector Walter H. Thompson, Churchill’s bodyguard who favored Leslie. Churchill himself believed this theory. In his memoirs he wrote, “The brutality of the Germans was only matched by the stupidity of their agents. It is difficult to understand how anyone could imagine that with all the resources of Great Britain at my disposal I should have booked a passage in an unarmed and unescorted plane from Lisbon and flown home in broad daylight.”
Some theories claim Leslie was a spy. Others claim he was killed because of his anti-Nazi propaganda in films. Regardless of the reason, the families of 21 individuals lost loved ones, and, not that his life was any more important than anyone else on the flight, the world lost a film producer who was also one of the finest actors of the era, Leslie Howard. His most remembered role was that of Ashley Wilkes in one of the greatest films of all time, “Gone with the Wind.”
Sources:
1. The Rock Island Argus, June 2, 1943, p.1.
2. Blackwell Journal-Tribune, June 2, 1943, p.1.
3. The Sacramento Bee, June 2, 1943, p.1.
4. The Atlanta Journal, June 2, 1943, p.1.
5. Richard M. Langworth, “How Many Assassination Attempts on Churchill? Ask Walter Thompson,” The Churchill Project – Hillsdale College , September 18, 2019, https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/thompson-assassination-attempts/.
