Leslie Howard: The Actor’s Mysterious Fate on
BOAC Flight 777
German Junkers Ju-88s shot down actor Leslie Howard’s
plane en route from Lisbon to Bristol. The reason remains a mystery.
This
article appears in: Summer 2010
By Blaine
Taylor
By June 1,
1943, British actor Leslie Howard, 50, was one of the most famous actors in the
world, one of the leading male stars of one the greatest box-office draw movies
of all time, the 1939 blockbuster Gone with the Wind.
A Hungarian
Jew in Hollywood
Born of
Hungarian Jewish immigrants as Leslie Howard Stainer in London in 1893, Howard
had served as a junior officer in World War I until he was mustered out of
military service in 1916 after suffering shell shock in the trenches of France.
Becoming an
actor as therapy on the advice of his doctor, Howard made his stage debut in
1917, and later earned Academy Award nominations for both the 1933 film
Berkeley Square and the 1938 movie Pygmalion. But it was as the star-crossed
Confederate lover Ashley Wilkes that he remains best known to this day. His
acting career, however, would soon come to a tragic end.
In 1940, he
left Hollywood and returned to England where he hoped he might be able to do
something to help Britain’s war effort. In 1941 and 1942 he starred in several
war films including 49th Parallel (1941), Pimpernel Smith (1941), and The First
of the Few (called Spitfire in the United States; 1942), the latter two of
which he also directed and co-produced.
Leslie
Howard’s Flight to Lisbon
In April
1943, Howard flew into neutral Lisbon, Portugal, ostensibly to present a series
of lectures on his films and on the role of Hamlet, as well as to look after
his own film-distribution business affairs on the Iberian Peninsula. However,
other reports said that he was in Lisbon for another reason––to rally support
for the anti-Fascist cause. As he prepared to fly out of London, however, he
told his wife Ruth that he had “a queer feeling about this whole trip, but–what
the hell!–you know that I’m a fatalist anyway.”
One thing
that may have planted the seed of apprehension in his mind was the fact that on
April 19, just two weeks earlier, this very same plane in which he was to
ride—Ibis—a DC-3 plane operated by the Royal Dutch Airlines, had been oddly and
unexpectedly attacked by a flight of from six to eight deadly German Luftwaffe
Junkers Ju-88s off Spain’s Cape Corunna. The plane had even taken some hits
before escaping to safety in a cloudbank and then continuing on to Portugal.
Airport
officials were mystified, since both the British BOAC aerial service and the
Royal Dutch Airlines had flown entirely undisturbed despite the ongoing air war
over the Mediterranean, and at least 5,000 passengers had taken off and landed
safely. Until the spring of 1943, there had been a sort of gentlemen’s
agreement between the capitals of Lisbon and London to continue the daily
flight without hindrance. Thus, despite the freak attack of April 19, the daily
flights between Portugal and the United Kingdom resumed.
Until June
1, 1943, the Germans had left the Lisbon-to-Free World flights alone, as many
of their passengers were useful to the Axis war effort, but that day’s Flight
777 to London was about to be proven the exception.
A Case of
Mistaken Identity
With his
visit concluded, Howard and a dozen or so other passengers boarded the Ibis at
Lisbon’s Portella airport at 9:35 am on June 1, 1943, for what was expected to
be a routine return flight to London.
A nervous
Leslie Howard boarded the flight with Arthur Tregear Chenhall, a heavy-set
friend and business associate of the famous actor, who somewhat resembled
Winston Churchill and who also enjoyed smoking large cigars. (A persistent
rumor during and after the war—fueled by the prime minister himself—had it that
German agents in Lisbon mistakenly thought Chenhall was Churchill, and thus had
planned to target him.)
Did Howard
have reason to feel unsafe? Maybe so. Having previously played the roles of Professor
Henry Higgins in Pygmalian, Romeo to actress Norma Shearer’s Juliet, and Philip
Carey in Of Human Bondage, Howard was also known for his famed 1934 role in The
Scarlet Pimpernel opposite Merle Oberon. Therein he portrayed an English
nobleman secretly helping condemned French aristocrats escape the blade of the
guillotine and constantly thwarting his rival, a diabolical secret policeman of
Revolutionary France.
To aid the
Allied war effort and defeat the hated Nazis, Howard reprised this role in the
1941 film, Pimpernel Smith, which was updated to replace French Revolutionaries
with the Nazis of the Third Reich as the villains. The actor played Horatio
Smith, an archaeology professor traveling in Europe who rescues refugees from
the German Gestapo (Secret Police).
According
to author Jerrold M. Packard in his excellent 1992 study—Neither Friend Nor
Foe: The European Neutrals in World War II—“[German] Propaganda Minister Dr.
Joseph Goebbels had seen Howard’s 1941 film Pimpernel Smith … [and] decided to
get the man who not only starred in this attack on the Reich, but who directed
and produced it as well.”
Packard
noted, “When passing Germans in the lobby of the Ritz … the actor made
gentlemanly efforts to conceal his own contempt. He wasn’t aware, of course,
that among these Germans were agents reporting his movements back to Berlin.”
Other
passengers on Flight 777 included Reuters News Service reporter Kenneth
Stonehouse; Wilfred Israel, a Jewish relief activist; mining engineer Ivan
Sharp, who had been negotiating important tungsten imports for England; Shell
Oil Company’s Lisbon manager, Tyrrel Shervington; and two other men, a trio of
women, and two or three children.
Lawrence
Olivier, Anton Walbrook, and Leslie Howard starred in 1941’s Forty-Ninth
Parallel. The film tells the story of Nazi naval officers and crew stranded in
Canada and their attempts to gain sympathy from the local residents.
Lawrence
Olivier, Anton Walbrook, and Leslie Howard starred in 1941’s Forty-Ninth
Parallel. The film tells the story of Nazi naval officers and crew stranded in
Canada and their attempts to gain sympathy from the local residents.
“I Feel Bad
About This Air Trip”
Oddly, the
only reason that both Howard and Chenhall were able to find seats aboard was
because the airline had “bumped” at the last minute two other would-be
passengers: nanny Dora Rowe and Derek Partridge, the young son of a Foreign
Office official, to make room for the famous actor and his aide.
Another who
missed the fatal flight was Roman Catholic English College Vice President
Father A.S. Holmes. Waiting in the terminal, Father Holmes received a hasty
message to call either the British Embassy or the papal nunciature right away.
Because the aircraft wouldn’t wait for him, the priest watched it take off from
the terminal.
Afterward,
strangely, no one at the telephone switchboard could verify having received a
call for the priest, and both the embassy and the papal office denied making
any such request for him to contact them. His last-minute removal from the
doomed aircraft thus remains a mystery, one of several.
Later, in
the wake of what happened, it developed that there had been more odd
occurrences before the flight. Shervington had dreamed that the plane had been
shot down and that he’d gone down with it, and Stonehouse moaned to a friend
before taking off, “I’m not normally frightened, but somehow, I feel bad about
this air trip. I wish that I could go to sleep here and wake up at some English
airfield.”
Were these
just the usual “fear of flying” jitters shared by many passengers before and
since? Again, maybe not, as it later developed that Berlin not only perceived
Howard as an outright wartime Allied propagandist, but also, perhaps, as more
than that: as an intelligence agent. The Nazis also viewed Shervington as a
fellow spy, and Zionist activist Wilfried Israel as an avowed enemy of Third
Reich.
Indeed, as
the passengers boarded the flight, they were even watched by the crew of a
nearby Lufthansa German civilian airliner.
Flight 777
Falls From the Sky
The
ill-fated Ibis took off and soon reached an altitude of 9,000 feet, setting a
course for a landfall at Spain’s Cape Villano before flying out over the Bay of
Biscay for the seven-hour flight to Bristol, England. Unknown to the passengers
and crew of the Ibis, as they passed Cape Villano, a powerful German
omnidirectional radio navigation beam locked on to the Dutch aircraft.
Another
fact unknown to the doomed passengers and crew aboard Ibis was that, as it took
off from Lisbon, a squadron of eight German Junkers Ju-88 crews were also
preparing to take off from their Luftwaffe base in German-occupied France near
the port city of Bordeaux for a patrol over the Bay of Biscay. Its exact orders
were never made known, and it is doubtful that these deadly Ju-88
fighter-bombers were on either air-sea rescue or U-boat protection missions.
What is
known, however, is that the Ibis and the flight of eight Ju-88s were now flying
on intersecting paths. Shortly before 1:00 pm on that clear June day, Flight
777 suddenly was raked by bursts of cannon fire and machine-gun bullets from
the attacking Ju-88s over the water some 200 miles northwest of A Coruña,
Spain. The DC-3’s wireless operator quickly tapped out a chilling message in
Morse code: “From G-AGBB [Ibis’s call sign] … I am followed by unidentified
aircraft … I am attacked by enemy aircraft.” After that, the transmission went
dead.
As during
the April 19 assault, the DC-3 again tried unsuccessfully to reach the safety
of the clouds, but instead headed for the sea below, trailing a stream of
flames. It slammed into the water with great force, killing all on board. After
the airliner crashed, the attacking planes photographed bits of smoking
wreckage floating on the rough seas and then returned to their home base.
“The
Inscrutable Workings of Fate”
Three days
after the incident, the New York Times reported, “It was believed in London
that the Nazi raider[s] had attacked on the outside chance that Prime Minister
Winston Churchill might be among the passengers.”
Both the
British and Portuguese air authorities were shocked when it became known that
an armed belligerent had apparently shot down an unarmed, clearly marked
civilian airliner in broad daylight. So sure had they been that such an event
would never happen—and that the earlier attack of April 19 had been but an
accidental aberration—that they had summarily refused to extend the air routes
farther out over the Atlantic Ocean as a defensive measure. Nor had they
rescheduled the flights to the hours of darkness.
When the
Allies’ secret Nazi code-breaking capabilities known as Ultra were finally made
public decades after World War II ended, it was learned that the British had
known in advance of possible German plans to shoot down Flight 777 based on
their assumption that Churchill was aboard. To avoid compromising the Ultra
secret, the British could not pass on this bit of intelligence to the airline.
In his
monumental history of the war, Churchill kept alive the mistaken-identity
thesis, and referred to Leslie Howard’s death as one of “the inscrutable
workings of fate.” (Read about these and other lesser-known events during the
Second World War inside WWII History magazine.)
The First of the Few (US title Spitfire) is a 1942 British black-and-white biographical film produced and directed by Leslie Howard, who stars as R. J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft. David Niven co-stars as a Royal Air Force officer and test pilot, a composite character that represents the pilots who flew Mitchell's seaplanes and tested the Spitfire. The film depicts Mitchell's strong work ethic in designing the Spitfire and his death. The film's title alludes to Winston Churchill's speech describing Battle of Britain aircrew, subsequently known as the Few: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".
Leslie
Howard's portrayal of Mitchell has a special significance since Howard was
killed when the Lisbon-to-London civilian airliner in which he was travelling
was shot down by the Luftwaffe on 1 June 1943. His death occurred only days
before The First of the Few was released in the United States on 12 June 1943,
under the alternate title of Spitfire.
A newsreel
sets the scene for summer 1940, showing Nazi advances in Europe with Britain
facing invasion and aerial attacks on the island increasing. On 15 September
1940, during the Battle of Britain, RAF Squadron Leader Geoffrey Crisp (David
Niven), the station commander of a Spitfire squadron, recounts the story of how
his friend, R. J. Mitchell (Leslie Howard) designed the Spitfire fighter. His
pilots listen as Crisp begins with the 1922 Schneider Trophy competition, where
Mitchell began his most important work, designing high speed aircraft. While
watching seagulls with his binoculars, he envisages a new shape for aircraft in
the future. Crisp, an ex-First World War pilot seeking work, captivates
Mitchell with his enthusiasm and the designer promises to hire him as test pilot
should his design ever go into production. Facing opposition from official
sources, Mitchell succeeds in creating a series of highly successful seaplane
racers, eventually winning the Schneider Trophy outright for Great Britain.
After a
visit to Germany in the 1930s and a chance meeting with leading German aircraft
designer Willy Messerschmitt, Mitchell resolves to build the fastest and
deadliest fighter aircraft. Convincing Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce that a new
engine, eventually to become the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin, is needed, Mitchell
gets the powerplant he requires. Faced by the devastating news that he has only
one year to live and battling against failing health, Mitchell dies as the
first prototype Supermarine Spitfire takes to the skies. Crisp ends his account
when the squadron is scrambled to counter a German attack: the fight sees the
Germans beaten, with the Luftwaffe losing more planes than the British. In the
end, Crisp is happy over the victory and looks to the heavens to Mitchell, voicing
a thanks to Mitchell for creating the Spitfire.
R. J.
Mitchell, subject of the biopic
The First
of the Few is a British film produced and directed by Leslie Howard, with
Howard taking the starring role of aviation engineer and designer R. J.
Mitchell. Leslie Howard bore little resemblance to R. J. Mitchell, however, as
Mitchell was a large and athletic man. Howard portrayed Mitchell as upper class
and mild-mannered. Mitchell – "the Guv'nor" – was in fact working
class and had an explosive temper; apprentices were told to watch the colour of
his neck and to run if it turned red. Howard himself was well aware of these
deliberate artistic discrepancies, and dealt delicately with the family and
Mitchell’s colleagues; Mrs. Mitchell and her son Gordon were on the set during
much of the production.[1] When told that the "authorities" had come
up with the name "Spitfire", Mitchell is reported to have said
"Just the sort of bloody silly name they would think of".
The film's
score was composed by William Walton, who later incorporated major cues into a
concert work known as Spitfire Prelude and Fugue.
Because The
First of the Few was made during the Second World War and dealt with subjects
related to the conflict, it was, in effect, propaganda. Because of its value as
propaganda, the RAF contributed Spitfire fighters for the production. U.S.
producer Samuel Goldwyn allowed Niven to appear in exchange for U.S. rights to
the film, which was distributed by RKO Pictures. After seeing the prints,
Goldwyn was furious that Niven was cast in a secondary role and personally
edited out 40 minutes before reissuing the film as Spitfire.
Wing
Commander Bunny Currant ("Hunter Leader") Squadron Leader Tony
Bartley, Squadron Leader Brian Kingcome, Flying Officer David Fulford, Flight
Lieutenant 'Jock' Gillan, Squadron Leader P. J. Howard-Williams and Flight
Lieutenant J. C. 'Robbie' Robson are among the pilots and RAF Fighter Command
personnel who make uncredited appearances. Some pilots seen in the early
sequences did not survive to see the completed film. Jeffrey Quill is the test
pilot who flies the Spitfire prototype in the scene demonstrating its ability
to climb to 10,000 feet and dive at more than 500 miles per hour.
The First of the Few
The First
of the Few, known as Spitfire in the United States, is a 1942 British film
directed by and starring Leslie Howard as R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the
Supermarine Spitfire, alongside co-star David Niven. The film's score was
written by William Walton ("Spitfire Prelude and Fugue"). The film's
title alludes to Winston Churchill's speech describing Battle of Britain
aircrew: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many
to so few."
Plot
A newsreel
sets the scene for summer 1940, showing Nazi advances in Europe with England
facing invasion and aerial attacks on the island increasing. On 15 September
1940, during the Battle of Britain, RAF Squadron Leader Geoffrey Crisp (David
Niven), the station commander of a Spitfire squadron, recounts the story of how
his friend, R.J. Mitchell (Leslie Howard) designed the Spitfire fighter. His
pilots listen as Crisp begins with the 1922 Schneider Trophy competition, where
Mitchell began his most important work, designing high speed aircraft. While
watching seagulls with his binoculars, he envisages a new shape for aircraft in
the future. Crisp, an ex-First World War pilot seeking work, captivates
Mitchell with his enthusiasm and the designer promises to hire him as test
pilot should his design ever go into production. Facing opposition from
official sources, Mitchell succeeds in creating a series of highly successful
seaplane racers, eventually winning the Schneider Trophy outright for Great
Britain.
After a
visit to Germany in the late 1930s and a chance meeting with leading German aircraft
designer Willy Messerschmitt, Mitchell resolves to build the fastest and
deadliest fighter aircraft. Convincing Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce that a new
engine, eventually to become the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin is needed, Mitchell
has the powerplant he requires. Faced the devastating news that he has only one
year to live and battling against failing health, Mitchell dies as the first
prototype Supermarine Spitfire takes to the skies (in fact, Mitchell died over
15 months after the first flight). Crisp ends his account when the squadron is
scrambled to counter a German attack, voicing a thanks to Mitchell for creating
the Spitfire.
Cast
Principal
credited cast members (in order of on-screen credits) and roles:
Actor Role
Leslie
Howard R.J. Mitchell
David Niven
Geoffrey Crisp
Rosamund
John Diana Mitchell
Roland
Culver Commander Bride
Anne Firth
Miss Harper
David Horne
Mr. Higgins
J.H.
Roberts Sir Robert McLean
Derrick De
Marney Squadron Leader Jefferson
Rosalyn
Boulter Mabel Lovesay
Herbert
Cameron MacPherson
Toni
Edgar-Bruce (as Toni Edgar Bruce) Lady Houston
Gordon
McLeod Major Buchan
George
Skillan Henry Royce
Erik Freund
Willy Messerschmitt
Fritz
Wendhausen (as F.R. Wendhausen) Von Straben
John Chandos
Krantz
Victor
Beaumont Von Crantz
Suzanne
Clair Madeleine
Filippo Del
Giudice Bertorelli
Brefni
O'Rorke The Specialist
Production
The First
of the Few was a British film produced and directed by Leslie Howard, with
Howard taking the starring role of R.J. Mitchell. Leslie Howard bore little
resemblance to R. J. Mitchell, however, as Mitchell was a large and athletic
man. Howard portrayed Mitchell as upper class and mild-mannered. Mitchell -
"the Guv'nor" - was in fact working class and had an explosive temper;
apprentices were told to watch the colour of his neck and to run if it turned
red. Howard himself was well aware of these deliberate artistic discrepancies,
and dealt delicately with the family and Mitchell’s colleagues; Mrs. Mitchell
and her son Gordon were on the set during much of the production.
Because the
film was made during the Second World War and dealt with subjects related to
the conflict, it was, in effect, propaganda. Because of its value as
propaganda, the RAF contributed Spitfire fighters for the production. US
producer Samuel Goldwyn released Niven who was still under contract to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, allowing him to appear in exchange for US distribution
rights. After seeing the prints, Goldwyn was furious that Niven was cast in a
secondary role and personally edited out 40 minutes before reissuing the film
as Spitfire.
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