Originally Posted by
Jhieminga
There's a good book about KLM's involvement in these flights, called 'Sluipvluchten naar Lissabon' by Ad van Ommen (1985), but unfortunately it is only available in Dutch and my copy is hiding in a box in the basement somewhere. I'm sure other books have covered this topic as well though, but I cannot think of a specific title right now. If I stumble across my copy sometime in the next couple of weeks, I will look up some details if you want.
Thanks. My dad flew out and back on G-AGBB, the one that was shot down, on 8th and 30th April 1941. I did a lot of research some years ago and noted the above title, but WorldCat shows there are only a handful of library copies and all of them in the Netherlands. If you do come on anything of interest [apart from Leslie Howard who has been researched down every conspiracy theory to oblivion] I'd be interested.
I'm curious to know why, as night flights were possible, it was not by night from the start. Security at Bristol was so tight that passengers assembled at a hotel in town and when an aircraft was ready they were taken directly to it. For the return flight of course there was no possible security as they shared the field with Lufthansa, and both SIS and the Abwher had a representative at the airport.