Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard
Summary
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Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard by Ian Colvin
On 1 June 1943 Flight 7777, a Douglas DC-3, en route from Lisbon to Britain, was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German aircraft. Among the dead was the actor Leslie Howard, who had returned from Hollywood to England to help the British war effort. Also on board was Howard's tax adviser, Alfred Chenhalls, who smoked cigars and looked remarkably like Winston Churchill. Did the Germans believe that Churchill was on board Flight 777? Other aircraft flying that route went unmolested by the Luftwaffe in spite of the German air presence over the Bay of Biscay. These flights were operated by Dutch crews flying aircraft of KLM which were on charter to BOAC and it was an experience Dutch crew that was lost that day. Ian Colvin carried out an exhaustive investigation into the incident, including interviewing former Luftwaffe personnel and this book, first published in 1957, is the result of his endeavours.
Originally issued in 1957, Colvin's influential book has been reissued to mark the 70th anniversary of Howard's mysterious deathAlready the result of an exhaustive investigation, the book has been expanded with a new introduction and footnotes not available at the time of original publiciation. While Colvin felt that Howard wasn't a deliberate target, various questions have nagged away over the years and the additions go some way to answering them. Best of British Re-published on the 70th anniversary year of the wartime tragedy, it had a new introduction and updated notes based on information that has since become available from recently open national archive files. - Bristol Post
Ian Colvin was an eminent British journalist who had worked in pre-war Berlin where he made secret contacts with anti-Nazis. Hitler's regime expelled him from Germany but, in the 1950s, he was able to use some of those contacts to help him investigate the reasons behind the shooting down of Flight 777.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781781590164 |
| ISBN 10 | 1781590168 |
| Title | Flight 777: The Mystery of Leslie Howard |
| Author | Ian Colvin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Pen & Sword Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2013-06-01 |
| Number of pages | 233 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |