BOAC Flight 777 was a KLM flight scheduled as a British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal, to Whitchurch Airport near Bristol, England. On 1 June 1943, the Douglas DC-3 serving the flight was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88 heavy fighter planes and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing all 17 on board. There were several notable passengers, among them actor Leslie Howard.
One theory suggests that the Germans attacked the aircraft because they believed that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was aboard; another suggested that it was targeted because several passengers were British spies, including Howard. During the Second World War, British and German civilian aircraft operated from the same facilities at Portela, and Allied and Axis spies watched the incoming and outgoing traffic. The Lisbon–Whitchurch route frequently carried agents and escaped POWs to Britain.
Aircraft flying the Lisbon–Whitchurch route were left unmolested at the beginning of the war, and both Allied and Axis powers respected the neutrality of Portugal. However, in 1942, the air war had begun to heat up over the Bay of Biscay, north of Spain and off the west coast of France; the Douglas DC-3 lost in this attack had survived attacks by Luftwaffe fighters in November 1942 and April 1943.
Historical background BOAC flights
When war broke out in Europe, the British Air Ministry prohibited private flying and most domestic air services. Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd, in the process of being merged and nationalised as British Overseas Airways Corporation, were evacuated from Croydon Aerodrome and Heston Aerodrome to Whitchurch Airport, outside Bristol. After the fall of Norway, and the entry of the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy into the war, only neutral Sweden, Ireland, and Portugal remained as European destinations for BOAC. Over the UK, civil aircraft were restricted to between and and could fly only during daylight to ease identification. The British government also restricted flights to diplomats, military personnel, VIPs, and those with government approval.
KLM aircraft and flight crews escape to England
For several weeks prior to the German invasion of the Netherlands, the Dutch airline KLM operated a direct, over-water, twice-weekly DC-3 service from Amsterdam to Portugal, avoiding French, British, and Spanish airspace to connect with the new Pan Am flying boat service from the US to Lisbon. When Germany invaded in May 1940, KLM had several airliners en route outside the Netherlands. Some managed to fly to Britain, while others stranded east of Italy continued to link British and Dutch territories from Palestine to the Dutch Indies and Australia. The British government interned the Dutch aircraft at Shoreham Airport. After negotiations, the Air Ministry and the Dutch government-in-exile contracted to use the KLM aircraft and crews to replace de Havilland Albatross aircraft on a scheduled service between Britain and Portugal, which BOAC started in June 1940 from Heston Aerodrome.
Initially, a British copilot (carrying a concealed firearm) was included in the crew. After initial reservations about using Dutch crews were overcome, all-Dutch crews were used, although the flights used BOAC flight numbers and passenger handling. The KLM contingent was housed at BOAC's Whitchurch base.
Operations
The UK–Lisbon service operated up to four times per week. From 20 September 1940, passengers were flown from Whitchurch (although Heston continued as the London terminus for KLM from 26 June till 20 September 1940), and for Lisbon, the pre-war grass airfield at Sintra was used until October 1942, when the new runway was ready at Portela Airport, on the northern edge of Lisbon. By June 1943, over 500 KLM/BOAC flights had carried 4,000 passengers.
Originally, five Douglas DC-3s and one Douglas DC-2 airliner were available. With the loss of a DC-3 on 20 September 1940 in a landing accident at Heston, and the destruction of another DC-3 in November 1940 by Luftwaffe bombing at Whitchurch, only four aircraft remained: DC-2 G-AGBH Edelvalk (ex-PH-ALE), DC-3 G-AGBD Buizerd (ex-PH-ARB), DC-3 G-AGBE Zilverreiger (ex-PH-ARZ), and DC-3 G-AGBB Ibis (ex-PH-ALI). In 1939, with war tensions in Europe increasing, KLM had painted their DC-2s and DC-3s bright orange to mark them clearly as civilian aircraft. BOAC repainted the aircraft in camouflage, with British civil markings and red/white/blue stripes like all BOAC aircraft, but without the Union Flag. They were later marked with their Dutch bird names under the cockpit windows. The interiors remained in KLM colours and markings.
British and German civilian aircraft operated from the same facilities at Portela, and Allied and Axis spies, including British, German, Soviet, and American, watched the traffic. 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 boarded and departed flights on the Lisbon–Whitchurch route. Harry Pusey, BOAC's operations officer in Lisbon between 1943 and 1944, described the area as "like Casablanca [the film], but twentyfold." According to CIA archives: "Most OSS operatives in Spain were handled out of Lisbon under nonofficial cover because the diplomatic staff in Madrid made a practice of identifying intelligence agents to the Spanish police."
Previous attacks on the same aircraft The aircraft flying the Lisbon–Whitchurch route were left unmolested after 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 into and out of those nations. The war over the Bay of Biscay, which is north of Spain and off the west coast of France, began to heat up in 1942.
In 1941 the Germans created Fliegerführer Atlantik (Flying Command Atlantic) 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 aircraft flying between Lisbon and Whitchurch.
On 15 November 1942, G-AGBB Ibis was attacked by a single Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighter, but was able to limp on to Lisbon, where repairs were carried out; damage sustained included the port wing, engine nacelle, and fuselage. On 19 April 1943, the same aircraft was attacked at 46°N 9°W by six Bf 110 fighters. Captain Koene Dirk Parmentier evaded the attackers by dropping to above the ocean and then climbing steeply into the clouds.Matthews, Rowan. "N461: Howard & Churchill." n461.com, 2003. Retrieved: 25 July 2010. The Ibis again sustained damage to the port aileron, shrapnel to the fuselage, and a punctured fuel tank. A new wingtip was flown to Lisbon to complete repairs. Despite these attacks, KLM and BOAC continued to fly the Lisbon–Whitchurch route."Douglas DC-3-194 PH-ALI 'Ibis'." web.archive.org, 2004. Retrieved: 25 July 2010. Although there were three other aircraft – two KLM DC-3s and one KLM DC-2 – in use by BOAC on the same route, G-AGBB Ibis was the only one attacked three times.
Flight details
Aircraft and crew
The Douglas DC-3-194 was the first DC-3 delivered to KLM on 21 September 1936. It originally carried the aircraft registration PH-ALI and was named Ibis, the bird venerated in the ancient world. In the afternoon of 9 May 1940, the day before the German invasion of the Netherlands, the DC-3 arrived in Shoreham on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam under captain Quirinus Tepas. After the German invasion, the aircraft and its crew were instructed to remain in Britain. On 25 July 1940, the registration was changed to G-AGBB and the aircraft was camouflaged in the standard brown-green RAF scheme of the time.
There were four Dutch crew on the flight. First in command: Captain Quirinus Tepas OBE, second in command: Captain Dirk de Koning (also aboard the second attack on the Ibis), wireless operator: Cornelis van Brugge (also known from the 1934 London-Melbourne MacRobertson Air Race), flight engineer: Engbertus Rosevink."Nazis Hit Airliner: Leslie Howard Put Among 17 Missing." New York Times, 3 June 1943, p. 1 Most crew members diverted to England in their aircraft after the German invasion of the Netherlands, and some of them settled in the Bristol area.Onions, Ian. "The mystery of Flight 777: Mistaken identity or deadly mistake?" Bristol Evening Post, 31 May 2010. Retrieved: 25 July 2010.
Passenger list
The passenger list included: Leslie Howard, stage and film actor Alfred T. Chenhalls, Howard's friend and accountant Kenneth Stonehouse, a Washington, D.C., correspondent of Reuters news agency, and his wife Evelyn Peggy Margetts Stonehouse Rotha Hutcheon and her daughters Petra (11) and Carolina (18 months) Tyrrell Mildmay Shervington, director of Shell-Mex & BP in Lisbon Ivan James Sharp, a senior official of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation (UKCC) Wilfrid Israel, a prominent Anglo-German Jewish activist working to save Jews from the Holocaust Gordon Thompson MacLean, an Inspector of British Consulates.Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939–1945. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University, 1981. ."Howard Won Fame in Romantic Roles." New York Times, 3 June 1943, p. 4 " Article 8 – No Title." New York Times, 4 June 1943, p. 4
Flight 777 was full, and several would-be passengers were turned away, including British Squadron Leader Wally Lashbrook. Three passengers disembarked before departure. Derek Partridge, the young son of a British diplomat, and his nanny Dora Rove were "bumped" to make room for Howard and Chenhalls, who had only confirmed their tickets at 5:00 the night before the flight and whose priority status allowed them to take precedence over other passengers."The Mystery of Flight 777: Presented by a Voice Actor Who Lived To Tell the Tale." Voices.com. Retrieved: 25 July 2010.Hamilton, Thomas. "Leslie Howard: A Quite Remarkable Life." Repo Films via lesliehoward.squarespace.com. Retrieved: 25 July 2010. A Catholic priest also left the aircraft after boarding it, but his identity remains unknown. Anne Chichester-Constable, 7-year-old daughter of WRNS Chief Officer Gladys Octavia Snow OBE was also booked on the flight which connected her return to England from New York. At the last minute, her guardians in Portugal decided that she was too tired and kept her in Portugal. William Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil and his brother George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, (the sons of Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt and John Francis Amherst Cecil of the Biltmore Estate) also were passengers booked on the plane. They were fleeing continental Europe, where they had been attending school in Switzerland, due to the worsening of WWII. However, they were bumped off the passenger list to make room last minute for Leslie Howard. They later returned to the United States and ran their ancestral home, the Biltmore Estate and Dairy in Asheville, North Carolina.
After the war, actor Raymond Burr said that he had been married to Scottish actress Annette Sutherland when she was killed on Flight 777. He said he travelled to Spain and Portugal to get information on the disaster but never learned anything about it. According to Burr's biographer Ona L. Hill, "no one by the name of Annette Sutherland Burr was listed as a passenger" on Flight 777.
Leslie Howard