BOAC Flight 777

BOAC Flight 777

Summary
Date	1 June 1943
Type	Attacked by German Junkers Ju 88s, crashed into the sea
Site	Bay of Biscay, off the coast of Spain and France
Passengers	13
Crew	4
Injuries	0
Fatalities	17
Survivors	0
Aircraft
Aircraft type	Douglas DC-3-194
Operator	British Overseas Airways Corporation
Tail number	G-AGBB
Ship name	Ibis

BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight on 1 June 1943 from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal to an airport at Whitchurch near Bristol, United Kingdom, was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88s and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing several notable passengers, including actor Leslie Howard.

It has been speculated that the plane, a Douglas DC-3, was attacked because the Germans believed that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was aboard. Other theories suggest the plane was targeted because several passengers, including Howard, were British spies. During World War II, British and German civilian aircraft operated out of the same facilities at Portela and the incoming and outgoing traffic was watched by Allied and Axis spies. The Lisbon-Whitchurch route frequently carried agents and escaped POWs to Britain.

While aircraft flying the Lisbon–Whitchurch route had been left unmolested at the beginning of the war, and both Allied and Axis powers respected the neutrality of Portugal, the air war over the Bay of Biscay, north of Spain and off the west coast of France, had begun to heat up in 1942, and the Douglas DC-3 lost in this attack had twice survived attacks by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) in November 1942 and April 1943.

Historical background

BOAC flights

File:Bay of Biscay map.png

BOAC Flight 777 was downed over the Bay of Biscay.

When war broke out in Europe, the British Air Ministry banned all domestic and private airline traffic except those flown by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). Domestic flights moved from London to an airstrip at Whitchurch, outside Bristol. During the war, BOAC routinely flew from Britain to North America and Portugal. All aircraft were restricted to between 1,000 and 3,000 feet (300 and 910 m) and could only fly during daylight to ease identification. The British government also restricted flights to diplomats, military personnel, VIPs, and anyone else with government approval.

KLM pilots and planes

In May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, and pilots at KLM, the Netherlands Royal Aviation Company, took their planes to England. The British government attached the Dutch planes and crew to BOAC and assigned them to Whitchurch, where four times a week they flew roundtrip flights to an airfield at Portela outside Lisbon, Portugal. This route had been in service since September 1940 and by June 1943 had carried 4,000 passengers.

British and German civilian aircraft operated from the same facilities at Portela and traffic was watched by Allied and Axis spies, including British, German, Soviet and American. This was especially the case for the Lisbon–Whitchurch route, which frequently carried agents and escaped POWs to Britain. German spies were posted at terminals to record who was boarding and departing flights on the Lisbon–Whitchurch route. Harry Pusey, BOAC's operations officer in Lisbon between 1943 and 1944 described the area as "like Casablanca, but twentyfold".

Attacks on BOAC aircraft

Planes flying the Lisbon–Whitchurch route had been left unmolested since the beginning of the war. Both Allied and Axis powers respected the neutrality of countries such as Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland and refrained from attacking flights in and out of those nations. However, the war over the Bay of Biscay, north of Spain and off the west coast of France, began to heat up in 1942.

The Germans opened the Atlantic Command at Merignac near Bordeaux and Lorient to attack allied shipping. In 1943, fighting over the area intensified and the RAF and Luftwaffe saw increased losses. This meant increased danger for BOAC planes running Lisbon–Whitchurch.

On 15 November 1942, the BOAC plane destroyed in the downing of Flight 777 was attacked by German fighters while between Lisbon and Whitchurch. Crew aboard were: Captain Theo Verhoeven, first officer Capt. D. de Koning, flight engineer Gerard Alsem (Dutch Wikipedia) and radio operator L. Dik.

On 19 April 1943, the plane was again attacked at coordinates 46 North, 9 West, by six German planes. Captain Koene Dirk Parmentier evaded the attackers by dropping to fifty feet above the ocean and then climbing steeply into the clouds. Despite these attacks, BOAC continued to fly the Lisbon–Whitchurch route.

Flight details

The plane and crew

File:Douglas-DC3---Catalina.1024.jpg

A modern Douglas DC-3

The Douglas DC-3-194 was delivered to KLM on 21 September 1936 and originally carried the registration number PH-ALI and was named Ibis, the bird venerated in the ancient world.. On 10 May1940, the plane flew to England after the German invasion of the Netherlands and on 25 July 1940 the registration number changed to G-AGBB. and the aircraft was camouflaged It had received material damage in the two above mentioned attacks.

There were four Dutch crew on the flight: Captain Quirinus Tepas O.B.E., second officer, Captain D. de Koning, wireless operator, Cornelius van Brugge, and flight engineer Engbertus Rosevink.

The passenger list

File:Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage.jpg

Stage and film actor Leslie Howard was the most notable of the 17 crew and passengers aboard BOAC Flight 777.

The passenger list included stage and film actor Leslie Howard; Alfred T. Chenhall, Howard's friend and accountant; Kenneth Stonehouse, Washington correspondent of Reuter news agency, and his wife Peggy Margetts Stonehouse; a Mrs. Rotha Hutcheon and her daughters, Petra, 11, and Carole, 2; a Mrs. Cecelia Emilia Paton; Tyrrell M. Shervington, director of Shell-Mex Oil Company in Lisbon; a Mr. Ivan James Sharp, a senior official of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation (UKCC) who attended meetings on Tueday mornings at the Ministry of Economic Warfare; Wilfrid B. Israel, a prominent Jewish activist working to save Jews from the Holocaust; Francis German Cawlrick; and Gordon Thomas MacLean. It has been reported that Annette Sutherland Burr, wife of actor Raymond Burr, also perished on Flight 777. However, Burr's biographer Ona L. Hill writes that "no one by the name of Annette Sutherland Burr was listed as a passenger on the plane" and that Sutherland was on a separate commercial plane between Lisbon and London around the same time as Flight 777, which was also shot down by the Germans.

Flight 777 was full and several people were turned back, including British Squadron Leader Wally Lashbrook. Lashbrook, whose bomber had been shot down over Belgium in April 1943, managed to evade capture and escaped to Portugal. Three passengers seated on the plane disembarked before departure. The young son of a British diplomat and his nanny were bumped to make room for Howard and Chenhalls, who had only confirmed their tickets at 5 pm the night before the flight; a Catholic priest also left the plane after boarding it.

Possible spies on the plane

There has been speculation that some passengers were spies for the British government.

Leslie Howard

The most intense intrigue surrounded actor Leslie Howard, who was at the peak of his career and had world fame after such cinematic classics as The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) and Gone with the Wind (1939). Aside from screen accolades Howard was prized by the British government for his anti-Nazi propaganda and a number of films produced in support of the war effort. During the weeks before his death, Howard had been in Spain and Portugal on a lecture tour promoting The Lamp Still Burns. What is known about this trip is that the British Council invited Howard on the tour and that after initial qualms he received further encouragement from British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden; within the British National Archives there is correspondence between Howard and Eden regarding his trip to Spain. A catering reception was being set up for Leslie Howard at Whitchurch aerodrome for his arrival; the chief of KLM instructed the caterers to halt preparation as notice had come through that the aircraft had been attacked by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.

This has led to speculation that Howard's trip was a cover for espionage.

Wilfrid B. Israel

Another passenger was Wilfrid B. Israel, member of an important British Jewish family and a supporter of Zionism who had close connections to the British government. On 26 March 1943, he left Britain for Portugal and spent two months investigating the situation of Jews in Spain and Portugal. By the end of his trip Israel had found as many as 1,500 Jewish refugees in Spain, many of whom he aided in obtaining Palestine certificates. Before Israel left the peninsula he had proposed a plan to the British government to aid Jewish refugees in Spain.

There has also been speculation that Shervington, Stonehouse and Sharp, among others, were spies for the British.

The attack

7:35–10:54 am: Takeoff and flight

The 1 June 1943 British Overseas Airways Corporation flight from Lisbon to Whitchurch was assigned to the Ibis and given flight number 777-A. At 0735 GMT, Flight 777-A departed from Portela Airport at Lisbon. Whitchurch received a departure message and continued regular radio contact until 1054 GMT. At that time, while the plane was roughly Template:Convert north of the coast of Spain, Whitchurch received a message that the DC-3 was being followed and that it was fired upon at 46.54N, 09.37W. Shortly afterwards, the plane crashed and sank into the Bay of Biscay.

The attack: Time magazine account

In its 14 June 1943 issue, Time magazine carried a brief story on the downing of BOAC Flight 777. The most valuable information from that article was the details of the final radio broadcast from the Dutch pilot. "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 attack: German pilots' account

File:Junkers Ju88.jpg

Eight Junkers Ju 88s attacked and downed BOAC Flight 777.

One of the most detailed versions of the attack was revealed in Bloody Biscay: The History of V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40 by Christopher H. Goss. This book states that BOAC Flight 777 was not intentionally targeted and was instead accidentally shot down when it was confused for an enemy aircraft. The account is composed of the author's analysis of events and interviews, conducted decades after the war ended, with some of the German pilots involved in the attack.

According to this account, eight Junkers Ju 88s from the air unit Staffel 14/KG 40 took off from Bordeaux at 1000 hrs local time to find and escort two U-boats; these aircraft belonged to the long-range fighter group known as Gruppe V Kampfgeschwader 40. The names of four of the eight pilots are known: Staffelführer Oberleutnant (Oblt) Herbert Hintze, Leutnant Max Wittmer-Eigenbrot, Oblt Albrecht Bellstedt and Oberfeldwebel (Ofw) Hans Rakow. The pilots claim that before setting out they were unaware of the presence of the Lisbon to Whitchurch flights. Due to bad weather the search for the U-boats was called off and fighters continued a general search. At 1245 hrs BOAC Flight 777 was spotted in P/Q 24W/1785 heading north. Approximately five minutes later the German planes attacked. Hintze retold his account for Goss as the following: A "grey silhouette" of a plane was spotted from 2,000–3,000 metres (6,600–9,800 ft) and no markings could be made, but by the shape and construction of the plane it was obviously enemy. Bellstedt radioed: "Indians at 11 o'clock, attack attack." BOAC Flight 777 was attacked from above and below and the port engine and wing caught on fire. At this point Heintze recognized the aircraft as civilian and called off the attack, but the plane had already been severely damaged. Three parachutists exited the craft, but their chutes did not open; the aircraft then crashed into the ocean where it floated and then sank. There were no signs of survivors.

Hintze states that all of the German pilots involved expressed regret for shooting down a civilian aircraft and were "rather angry" with their superiors for not informing them that there had been a scheduled flight between Lisbon and Britain. Goss writes that official German records back up Hintze's account that Staffel 14/KG 40 was carrying out normal operations and that the day's events occurred because the U-boats could not be found; he concludes that "there is nothing to prove that [the German pilots] were deliberately aiming to shoot down the unarmed DC-3"; this account of the German pilots and Goss's conclusions are challenged by some authorities.

The following day, German aircraft returned to the area of the downing of BOAC Flight-777 and engaged in a fight with an Australian Short Sunderland flying boat, which was on patrol searching for survivors from the previous day's incident. The Sunderland was severely damaged, but managed to shoot down six of the eight Junkers Ju 88s that attacked it.

Theories for the attack

There are several theories as to why BOAC Flight 777 was shot down by the German pilots. All of these contradict the claims by the German pilots that they were not ordered to shoot down the plane, either because the theories were formulated before the testimonies of the German pilots were recorded in the 1990s or because the authors disbelieve the German accounts.

Churchill assassination attempt

The most popular theory surrounding the downing of BOAC Flight 777 is that German intelligence mistakenly believed Winston Churchill was on the plane. This theory appeared in the press within days of the incident and is supported by Churchill himself. In late May 1943, Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden had travelled to North Africa for a meeting with United States general Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The German government was eager to assassinate Churchill on his return flight home and monitored flights in and out of the region in case the Prime Minister tried to sneak home aboard a civilian airliner. This scenario was plausible as Churchill had flown to Britain from Bermuda in January 1942 aboard a scheduled commercial plane. Rumors had circulated since early May that Churchill might fly home from Lisbon. Some have speculated that these rumors were planted by the British Secret Intelligence Service in order to mask Churchill's travel itinerary.

According to the Churchill assassination theory, as passengers were boarding BOAC Flight 777, German agents spotted what Churchill described in his memoirs as "a thick-set man smoking a cigar", whom they mistook for the Prime Minister. This man was later identified as Alfred T. Chenhall, Howard's accountant and portly travel companion. In addition, some have speculated that the tall and thin Howard may have been mistaken for Walter H. Thompson, Churchill's personal bodyguard who had a similar profile. There is an even more elaborate version of this theory that argues Chenhall was employed by the British government as Churchill's "deliberate double" and that he and Howard boarded BOAC Flight 777 knowing they were going to die. An alternative version of this is that the British government had intercepted German messages via the Ultra code breaking operations, but failed to notify the BOAC Flight 777 for fear of blowing Ultra's cover. Both Flight 777 (1957), a book by Ian Colvin about the incident, and In Search of My Father (1981), by Leslie Howard's son Ronald Howard, lend credence to the idea that BOAC Flight 777 was downed because the Germans thought Churchill was on the plane.

Churchill appeared to accept this theory in his memoirs, although he is extremely critical of the poor German intelligence that led to the disaster. 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." As it was, Churchill travelled back to Britain via Gibraltar, departing on the evening of 4 June 1943 and arriving in Britain the next morning.

Assassination of Leslie Howard the propaganda figure

The theory that Leslie Howard was targeted for assassination because of his role as an anti-Nazi propaganda figure is supported by journalist and law professor Donald E. Wilkes. Wilkes writes that Joseph Goebbels could have orchestrated the downing of BOAC Flight 777 because he was "enraged" by Howard's propaganda and was Howard's "bitterest enemy". The fact that Howard was Jewish would only further buttress this theory. In fact, Germany's propaganda machine boasted at Howard's death and Josef Goebbels' propagandist newspaper Der Angriff ("The Attack") ran the headline "Pimpernel Howard has made his last trip", which was a reference to the 1941 film Pimpernel Smith that starred Howard as a professor who rescues victims of Nazi persecution.

Howard mistaken for R. J. Mitchell

One of the less credible theories that circulated at the time was reported by Harry Pusey. Before the attack on BOAC Flight 777, the film The First of the Few about the life of R. J. Mitchell, the engineer behind the Supermarine Spitfire, was playing widely in Lisbon cinemas and had starred Howard as Mitchell. The gossip on the streets of Lisbon was that German agents had mistakenly thought Howard was Mitchell and ordered the downing of BOAC Flight-777. Pusey debunked this theory: "But you would have thought someone in German Intelligence would have known that Mitchell had died in 1937, wouldn't you?"

Legacy of the disaster

The downing of BOAC Flight 777 elicited headlines around the world and there was widespread public grief, especially for the loss of Leslie Howard, who was championed as a martyr. The British government condemned the downing of BOAC Flight 777 as a war crime. The public's attention shifted focus as other events occurred.

In 1957, journalist Ian Colvin published a book on the disaster entitled "Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard" and in 1984, Howard's son, Ronald Howard, published a biography of his father, including an account of his father's death. In 2003, the 60th anniversary of the downing of BOAC Flight 777, a pair of television documentaries on the subject was released. The BBC series Inside Out produced a document, as did the History Channel, which broadcast a documentary entitled Vanishings! Leslie Howard — Movie Star or Spy?

See also

• Accidents and incidents in aviation

Further reading

• Colvin, Ian (1957) "Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard." Evans Brothers. ASIN B000L6HXQM
• Howard, Ronald. In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-41161-8
• (July 1991) "Leslie Howard death on KLM Flt 777 1943." FlyPast. Issue #120.

External links

• Inside out documentary on BOAC Flight 777
• The History Channel – VANISHINGS: Leslie Howard – Movie Star Or Spy?

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