A popular British actor, Leslie Howard died after his plane was shot down by the Nazis in 1943 — and some believe that he was specifically targeted due to his alleged covert activities during World War II.
Public DomainLeslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind.
On June 1, 1943, a swarm of eight Nazi planes shot down a civilian aircraft flying from Portugal to England. The attack killed all 17 people on board, including the English movie star Leslie Howard.
Known for his role in Gone With The Wind, Berkeley Square, and Pygmalio, Howard was a respected actor and writer. But since his death, some have speculated that he’d played another role — as a British secret agent.
Was Howard the target of a Nazi assassination? Or was his death a case of mistaken identity? This is everything we know about Leslie Howard, from his career as an actor to his shocking death in 1943.
Leslie Howard, The Hollywood Movie Star
Born Leslie Howard Steiner on April 3, 1893, the future movie star started his working career as a bank clerk, then as a soldier in World War I. Diagnosed with shell shock after the war, Howard was encouraged by his doctor to take up acting as a sort of therapy.
Before long, the spotlight chased him. After getting his start in the London theater scene, Howard soon made the move to Broadway in New York. Then, in 1930, he made his Hollywood debut in the film Outward Bound.
Over the next decade, more film roles followed. In 1933, he starred in Berkeley Square, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, acted alongside Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936), received his second Oscar nod for his role in Pygmalion (1938), and, in 1939, starred in one of the most iconic films of the 20th century: Gone With The Wind.
Selznick International PicturesBefore World War II broke out, Leslie Howard starred in Gone with the Wind with Vivien Leigh.
But not long after playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind, Leslie Howard left Hollywood. World War II had begun, and the actor wanted to support the war effort back home in England.
How Leslie Howard Supported The War Effort
During World War II, Leslie Howard support the British in many ways. Not only did he give weekly radio broadcasts, but Howard also made a number of anti-Nazi films.
Public DomainLeslie Howard in The First Of The Few, an anti-Nazi movie that he produced, directed, and starred in.
In 1941, he starred in the 49th Parallel, a film meant to convince the United States to join the war effort. That same year, he produced, directed and starred in “Pimpernel” Smith, an anti-Nazi thriller. In that film, Howard played a Cambridge archaeologist who went behind enemy lines to free Nazi prisoners, including those in concentration camps. The film even inspired Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat and businessman, to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary.
The next year, Howard produced, directed, and starred in The First of the Few, a biographical film about the creator of the Spitfire plane. British audiences flocked to see the signature plane of the Royal Air Force defeat the Luftwaffe on screen.
But they seemingly weren’t the only ones watching Howard’s film.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, was purportedly outraged by how Howard had ridiculed him in “Pimpernel” Smith. And some believe that he began to plot his revenge.
The Death Of Leslie Howard At The Hands Of The Nazis
On June 1, 1943, Leslie Howard boarded BOAC Flight 777 en route from Portugal to England. He’d had a bad feeling about the voyage; according to the Irish Times, he’d told his wife he had “queer feeling” about the trip before adding “what the hell – you know that I’m a fatalist anyway.”
Public DomainLeslie Howard died on June 1, 1943, after his plane was shot down by the Nazis.
His feeling wasn’t entirely unfounded. Howard may have not known it, but the Douglas DC-3 aircraft had already been attacked by Nazi planes before. That said, civilian planes were generally left alone, and BOAC Flight 777 was expected to land safely in Bristol.
But as it took off, eight German Junkers Ju-88 crews also took off from Nazi-occupied France. Shortly before 1 p.m., the Nazi planes began to pursue BOAC Flight 777, prompting the pilot to send a message in Morse code: “I am followed by unidentified aircraft… I am attacked by enemy aircraft.”
The eight Nazi planes fired on BOAC Flight 777, causing it to crash into the ocean. All 17 people onboard, including Leslie Howard, perished, and the German pilots photographed the wreckage to prove they had succeeded.
In the aftermath, Joseph Goebbels’ newspaper bragged “Pimpernel Howard has made his last trip.” Goebbels reportedly wrote the headline himself.
Why Was BOAC Flight 777 Shot Down By The Nazis?
After the war ended, some of the German pilots who’d shot down BOAC Flight 777 stated that they had not known it was a civilian plane.
“We would shoot down everything that came in sight,” one of the pilot’s later remarked, according to reporting from The Times in 2011.
However, their account is suspect, as they may have been trying to avoid war crime charges. So why was the plane shot down?
Lmbuga/Wikimedia CommonsA monument to Leslie Howard and the others in Cedeira, Spain.
One possibility is that Leslie Howard was the target — not only because of his public work, but because he was a secret British agent. Indeed, rumors have swirled that Howard was in Lisbon to try and discourage the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco from joining the war on the side of the Nazis. His former lover and co-star Conchita Montenegro had connections at the top of Spain’s government, and she may have planned a secret meeting between Howard and Franco, who was on the fence about bringing Spain into the war.
That’s one possibility. Another is that Howard’s propaganda roles may have simply annoyed the wrong Nazi — Goebbels.
Or perhaps Howard wasn’t the target at all. Another theory claims that the Nazis believed that Winston Churchill was on Howard’s flight. Their suspicious were allegedly confirmed when they saw Howard’s manager, Alfred Chenhalls, board the plane, as Chenhalls bore a strong resemblance to Churchill, and even had a habit of smoking cigars. Churchill himself believed this theory, writing in his memoirs: “The brutality of the Germans was only matched by the stupidity of their agents.”
But there were also other potential targets on the flight. Passenger Tyrell Shervington ran the Shell Oil company in Lisbon, and also had connections with the British secret service; passenger Wilfrid Israel had helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis.
Today, there are still many questions about Leslie Howard. Was he operating as a secret agent during the war? Did the Nazis target BOAC Flight 777 because of him?
Sadly, the truth may have died with Howard himself.
Was Leslie Howard a spy for British intelligence? The documents still have not been declassified. Next, learn about British spy Sidney Reilly, one of the possible inspirations for James Bond. Then read about Britain’s Special Operations Executive to take down the Nazis.
