April 4, 2015

Finest Hour 133, Winter 2006-07

Page 4

WHY WAS LESLIE SHOT DOWN?

Finest Hour 131 (page 6) mentions the long-standing myth, raised now by the UKTV History production “Churchill’s Bodyguard,” that actor Leslie Howard was shot down into the Bay of Biscay in June 1943 “because the Germans thought they were shooting at Winston Churchill.” May I suggest a more banal but more plausible reason for the attack on that aircraft?

Another of the passengers in Howard’s plane, also killed, was Wilfred Israel, the Jewish owner of a large department store in prewar Berlin, who happened to have a British as well as a German passport, and had so escaped from Germany. He had been in Lisbon, pursuing work to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis’ clutches. He had long been on the Gestapo’s black list. German secret service officers watched all departures from Lisbon airport from the airport cafe, which overlooked the boarding point. It is not hard to assume that one of them recognised Israel and rang up a friend in the Luftwaffe.
M.R.D. FOOT, ROYSTON, ENGLAND

•Professor Foot is an Oxford academic who wrote the official history of the Special Operations Executive in France, and has also written SOE: An Outline History. He was closely connected with SOE during the war and has well-placed sources. —PHC

TROUBLE ON THE WEEKEND

Checking some dates has illustrated something which I have long suspected— dictators like to cause mischief on the weekends. When we mention a date, we do not normally think of the day of the week—but aren’t these dates interesting?

2025 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 42nd International Churchill Conference. Washington, DC | October 9-11, 2025

2025 International Churchill Conference

Saturday, 1 July 1911: the German gunboat Panther arrives at Agadir.

Saturday, 1 August 1914: Germany declares war on Russia.

Sunday, 2 August 1914: German troops cross into France.

Friday, 4 October 1935: Mussolini invades Abyssinia.

Saturday, 7 March 1936: Hitler occupies the Rhineland.

Friday, 11 March 1938: German troops cross into Austria.

Friday, 10 March 1939: Hitler invades Czechoslovakia.

Sunday, 3 September 1939: Outbreak ofWW2.

Sunday, 7 April 1940: Germany attacks Norway.

Friday, 10 May 1940: Germany attacks Belgium and Holland.

Sunday, 12 May 1940: Germany invades France.

Sunday, 9 June 1940: Mussolini declares war on Britain and France.

Sunday, 22 June 1941: Germany invades Russia.

Sunday, 7 December 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, Malaya, Siam and the Philippines.

Saturday, 28 February 1942: Japanese forces invade Java.

Coincidental? I think not.
JIM LANCASTER, NORMANDY, FRANCE

POLITICALLY AGITATED

Chartwell Bulletin/Annual Report #11: McCain, Cleland, Mathews [sic], Williams and Brokaw. You’ve truly outdone yourself this time. Board of Trustees: Durbin and Mathews [sic]. Kemp must be a token. Holy cow.
R.E.B., RACINE WISCONSIN

• That does it. We hereby advise our readers that our patience is exhausted with political protesters. (The previous Chartwell Bulletin/Annual Report drew fire from another of same because it depicted Tom DeLay and George W Bush. We thought Senator McCain was one of them, but apparently he can’t win!) We withhold names to spare them the embarrassment.

Let’s get something straight: we don’t care if a leading figure in public life is a Democrat, Republican, Laborite, Tory, LibDem, Sosh-Dem or Dem-Bums. If they communicate cogently an appreciation for the life and legacy of Winston Churchill that inspires others, they’re welcome regardless of their politics, although our connection to the more strident of them may be indicated by a dotted not a solid line.

If our roll of Churchillians is more important to you than Winston Churchill, by all means resign. Incidentally, we have observed after personal meetings that some of the figures reputed to be “extreme” are perfectly rational when you meet them in person. Daggers-drawn politics, which is presently, and sadly, the norm in the Great Democracies he loved, has replaced the collegiality of Churchill’s time: largely because, I suspect, of a 24/7, flame-fanning media, which rushes up with microphones to blow up differences and put the most extreme gloss on every out-of-context quotation— then they have the nerve to whine about dirty politics and below-the-belt political campaigning. Holy cow! — RML