BOAC flight 777A G-AGBB 01.07.43 Mr. Sharp & Leslie Howard

[olholh]

Dear friends.
We are researching BOAC flight 777A / G-AGBB from Spain to London om the 1. July 1943, shot down by the Germans in the Bay of Biscay.

17 passengers perished, including Mr. Sharp, britains most important man when it comes to the much needed metal wolfram, and the famous actor Leslie Howard, of "Gone with the Wind" - fame.

Much material is already gathered, including newspaper clippings, reports and the like, but none sheadding any light on why the Germans should want to shoot down the aircraft, a civilian airliner to boot.

It has been assumed that Leslie Howard should have something to do with, but strong indications leads us to believe that Mr. Sharp was the subject of interest in this case, strongly supported by the fact that his untimely demise sent the price of wolfram into a howling nosedive.

We are looking for any information, however trivial it may seem. The aircraft for example, is suppose to have been on lease from KLM to BOAC, but sources in BOAC ( what's left ), do not respond when queried.

Does anyone have anything?

Your help is appreciated.
Harald Olsen

[BEagle]

The metal in question is more commonly known as tungsten:

http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/74.html

[olholh]

Yes, I know, but not in my native language though. Thanks anyway.

[BEagle]

Sorry - I only posted that in case reference to 'Tungsten' rather than 'Wolfram' might perhaps stir someone's memory cells!

Perhaps it might be worth your contacting BBC West in Bristol as they did a programme about the shooting down of Leslie Howard's flight last year:

"Inside Out, fronted by popular presenter Tessa Dunlop, has become a favourite with West viewers for its varied reporting on heritage, history and some extraordinary characters around the region.

In the first programme, Tessa looked back to war time Bristol to uncover what happened to much loved actor Leslie Howard.

On the 60th anniversary of his death she investigated the shooting down of the Ibis, one of the small fleet of Dakotas based at Whitchurch airfield in Bristol that made regular flights to neutral Portugal. It was the so called spy-flight. On 1 June 1943 Leslie Howard was on board the Ibis, a Dakota aeroplane, rmaking the return journey from Portugal. He was well known for his part in Gone with the Wind and had just starred with David Niven in The First of the Few, the story of the Spitfire.

Howard was noted for his anti-Nazi broadcasts and had gone to Portugal to fight the spread of fascism. The Dakota was heading back to Whitchurch on the outskirts of Bristol.

Today the old airfield has largely disappeared under houses, but in 1943 it was Britain's only non-military international airport, and the Avon Gorge Hotel in Clifton was airline BOAC's temporary wartime head quarters. It was a dangerous journey. The Ibis had twice before come under attack from Nazi fighters. It was well known that this was the route back home for escaping prisoners of war. That day, departure had been delayed because Howard was waiting for a consignment of silk stockings to take back to his wife. She was never to receive them.

Over the Bay of Biscay the Ibis came under attack. The pilot "mayday-ed" back to Whitchurch to report the attack. The radio operator heard the pilot say "we are being followed by an unknown aircraft. We are under attack by enemy aircraft".

And then, nothing... The next day, BBC news reported that Leslie Howard had died, shot down over the Bay of Biscay.

Since then, conspiracy theories have grown. Were the Germans determined to stop Howard's anti Nazi broadcasts? Did they think there was a spy on board the Ibis? Or, even, did they believe Churchill was one of the passengers?

On the 60th anniversary of Howard’s death, Tessa Dunlop stepped aboard a surviving Dakota to unravel the mystery of the last flight of the Ibis.

Inside Out aired at 7.30pm on Monday (2 June 2003), BBC ONE (West) for six weeks."

(Edited as the original was in the future tense)

[Unwell_Raptor]

I think that the conspiracy theorists are miles out. The Dakota was a standard Allied military transport. I imagine that it would have been camouflaged like other BOAC aircraft. The Germans routinely patrolled the Bay of Biscay (often in Ju88s) and a Dakota would have been easy meat for almost any armed German aircraft.

[emeritus]

Harald...for what its worth...Years ago I read a book called "The Smirnoff Story"..a biography of Ivan Smirnoff, one of KLM's first pilots. Apparently when the Netherlands was invaded KLM evacuated its operations to the UK. Their aircraft, DC3's, were used for various ops including the courier flight to Portugal. From memory it was one of their aircraft in question.
The above book may shed a little light for you ,alternatively there may be someone connected with KLM or retired (Dutch retired pilots association?)who may be able to help.
Look forward to the fruits of your labour and best of luck...Emeritus

[Jhieminga]

There is a book about Dutch DC-3 operations called "Wij vlogen naar Lissabon" (We flew to Lissabon) which has some background on this event. It is in Dutch but I could look some stuff up for you, or perhaps copy some bits if your knowledge of Dutch is sufficient. The book is a few years old by now so there won't be much in there concerning the reasons behind the incident, but I do know that the background of how KLM came to operate those flights is covered. Send me an e-mail through my site if you're interested, I don't visit here that often so may miss some posts.

[ccohen]

This is a page from my father's official false passport for a trip to Portugal [the only time he used this pp as he had two others] to meet a French Resistance leader in Belem Cathedral and take out some wireless transceivers.

Portuguese entry/exit stamps showed the aircraft registration.

He later flew to Lisbon and on to Lagos [and then to Cairo, Istambul, Malta, Gib and home] starting out to Lisbon on the B314 G-AGCA that Churchill used on his trans-Atlantic flights.

Sorry the image geometry is off, I could only open the pp to 90°

[Mike Lima 01]

All very interesting. Ian Colvin's book Flight 777 makes an interesting read. It was recently updated and published by Pen and Sword.
Ivan Sharp, Mr Sharp's grandson and Ben Rosevink, son of the Flight Engineer have done a lot of research into the tragedy. They actually spoke to the pilot who shot down the DC3 who claims it was a tragic mistake.
I understand there are still some documents relating to the incident which will not be released for some time yet.

[WHBM]

The flight was daylight, departing Lisbon early morning.

I wonder why they did not fly overnight, arriving at UK airspace at sunrise. The Bay of Biscay was well beyond any radar unit in France.

The KLM prewar DC3s had a varied fate. It was the largest fleet of them outside the USA. Some were destroyed in the invasion of the Netherlands, others fell into the hands of both Lufthansa and BOAC, and also the Dutch East Indes carrier KNILM, who later passed them on to Australian National Airlines. The Lufthansa ones got used on schedules in Norway etc for much of the war, surprising they could support them for spares, although several countries the Nazis invaded had DC3 fleets. The survivors with BOAC in 1945 (few) were actually handed back to KLM.

The ones with BOAC were in a sort of ownership limbo, with UK registrations and managed by BOAC, with UK-specified camouflage, but still regarded as Dutch, with Dutch crews, as here. I suppose it was one of the first examples of the current style of franchise operator !

Prominent Dutch captain Parmentier, who led the KLM DC2 aircraft to winning the well-known London to Melbourne air race in 1934 when it was brand new, was among the pilots, and had a close shave himself over the Bay of Biscay. Postwar, he was killed in a KLM Lockheed Constellation accident at Prestwick in 1948.

[ccohen]

I'm no pilot [it is a long time since I flew gliders or hot air balloons, and never over the Bay of Biscay!] but was navigation without radar easier by day, or perhaps to avoid being shot down at either end if misidentified in the dark?

Were many on the Bristol-Lisbon shuttle lost? Presumably the B314s were safer as they did Poole or Bristol to Shannon before Lisbon

[A30yoyo]

The 5 KLM DC-3s and 1 DC-2 in the UK never left Dutch ownership, they retained their KLM interior and rather than the Speedbird on the exterior they wore a Dutch bird name (e.g. Ibis)...they were on the British register owned by KLM (full name in Dutch), Horseferry House, Horseferry Rd, London SW.1....'usual station' Heston (G-INFO)...in 1940 1 DC-3 crashed at Heston, 1 got bombed at Whitchurch. Lufthansa got Swissair to rebuild 1 DC-3 it damaged in Norway...there must have been plenty of Wright Cyclones around from wrecked American built aircraft.

[chevvron]

On the 60th anniversary of his death she investigated the shooting down of the Ibis, one of the small fleet of Dakotas based at Whitchurch airfield in Bristol that made regular flights to neutral Portugal. It was the so called spy-flight. On 1 June 1943 Leslie Howard was on board the Ibis, a Dakota aeroplane, rmaking the return journey from Portugal. He was well known for his part in Gone with the Wind and had just starred with David Niven in The First of the Few, the story of the Spitfire.

Howard was noted for his anti-Nazi broadcasts and had gone to Portugal to fight the spread of fascism. The Dakota was heading back to Whitchurch on the outskirts of Bristol.

Since then, conspiracy theories have grown. Were the Germans determined to stop Howard's anti Nazi broadcasts? Did they think there was a spy on board the Ibis? Or, even, did they believe Churchill was one of the passengers?


Leslie Howard also made the film 'Pimpernel Smith', an update of his role in 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', whereby he helped people escape from the NAZIs instead of from French revolutionaries.
By making the NAZIs look fools, he would have been extremely unpopular with them to say the least, so they could have been targetting him.

[WHBM]

owned by KLM (full name in Dutch), Horseferry House, Horseferry Rd, London SW.1.
That was, of course, the BOAC head office.



By making the NAZIs look fools, he would have been extremely unpopular with them to say the least, so they could have been targetting him.
One of thousands, for the entire media industry did this. Even The Beano had all their children's cartoon characters join up and give the Nazis their just deserts !


was navigation without radar easier by day, or perhaps to avoid being shot down at either end if misidentified in the dark? If nothing else, the BBC long wave transmitter at Droitwich will get you to within about 60 miles of Whitchurch. This was the radio service used to transmit hidden messages to spies etc across Europe, mixed in with normal programmes. A middle of the night departure from Lisbon, turning east from close to the Irish coast at sunrise, would be reasonable.

[ccohen]

Droitwich was only used for sending pre-arranged messages 'en clair' to the Resistance in France [I don't know about other countries]. SIS controlled all other means of contact [wireless, air and sea] and grudgingly made space for SOE and the OSS. The latter eventually got their own transmitter but the BCRA did not though eventually they were allowed their own codes, but I think that SIS then re-encoded them.

[India Four Two]

Diverting to tungsten/wolfram for a moment and wearing my geologist's hat, I was aware that one of the two important tungsten ores is called wolframite, which is an iron manganese tungstate. I had always assumed that wolframite was named after an early geologist, which is often the case with minerals. However, I now know why tungsten's chemical symbol is 'W'!

[A30yoyo]

KLM had opened a smart town terminal in Horseferry House in 1937...I don't know how much/little it was used in WWII...I think the ownership of their aircraft was more precisely defined than 'limbo' but I like 'franchise' operation :-)
https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1937/1937%20-%201000.html?search=horseferry%20house (p378 April 15 1937)

[ccohen]

On the assumption that the Burberry office is the same building is would have been less than 15 mins walk from the SIS HQ in Broadway and the building in the background here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4948495,-0.1266198,3a,75y,160.38h,88.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-ypaGAKIcnxWLZCXGLAZ6A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
is now the MI5 HQ.
I wonder if Horseferry House continued in use once KLM flights moved to Bristol from Croydon or Heston or wherever.

[megan]

India Four Two, says Wiki.The name "wolframite" is derived from German "wolf rahm", the name given to tungsten by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius in 1747. This, in turn, derives from "Lupi spuma", the name Georg Agricola used for the element in 1546, which translates into English as "wolf's froth" or "cream". The etymology is not entirely certain but seems to be a reference to the large amounts of tin consumed by the mineral during its extraction. Wolfram is the basis for the chemical symbol W for tungsten as a chemical element

[ericferret]

I would have thought that the Germans would regard the aircraft as a legitimate target.
They were sinking merchant ships by the hundred. Unless someone can find data which prooves this aircraft was targetted specifically then just another casualty of war. Compare this with the targetted shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto. Were not civil aircraft shot down on the Sweden UK run as well?
I think Lord Haw Haw might have had something to say on the matter If deliberate. I wonder if there was any Ultra traffic.

[ccohen]

Not my area of knowledge at all, but a quick Google shows a lot of info at WWII flights To Lisbon - Page 2 (http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?142170-WWII-flights-To-Lisbon/page2) and a bit more at Historical articles and illustrations » Blog Archive » British civil aviation made vital flights during World War Two (http://www.lookandlearn.com/blog/19457/british-civil-aviation-made-vital-flights-during-world-war-two/) and a bit of background at Lisbon: Harbor of Hope and Intrigue | HistoryNet (http://www.historynet.com/lisbon-harbor-of-hope-and-intrigue.htm)

[A30yoyo]

On the assumption that the Burberry office is the same building is would have been less than 15 mins walk from the SIS HQ in Broadway and the building in the background here
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4948495,-0.1266198,3a,75y,160.38h,88.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s-ypaGAKIcnxWLZCXGLAZ6A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
is now the MI5 HQ.
I wonder if Horseferry House continued in use once KLM flights moved to Bristol from Croydon or Heston or wherever.

The 1939 Imperial Airways (BOAC) terminal by Victoria rail and coach stations was also close but I doubt the BOAC or KLM terminals were used in WWII, at least after the phoney war. I suspect the potential passengers for wartime landplane flights from Bristol Whitchurch and seaplanes from Poole would have been housed in nearby hotels to await their turn for departure after arrival by train. Passenger lists and check-in strictly under BOAC/British Authorities control.
There is a parallel thread on the Key forum with Dutch input
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?142170-WWII-flights-To-Lisbon